Rufus Wainwright, All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu

By Alex Arnott

Listeners unfamiliar with Rufus Wainwright would probably be surprised to hear that this obliquely named, classically influenced, piano-driven album is in fact, one of his more understated works. This masterful musician, who has a penchant for impressively orchestrated pop songs, has a great deal of unusual achievements under his designer lederhosen. In the past three years, Rufus has accomplished two incredibly ambitious projects that your run-of-the-mill pop star would never dare to undertake.

First, he challenged himself to reproduce the legendary Judy Garland Concert at Carnegie Hall song for song, even recreating some of Judy’s banter. Many of the songs in Judy’s repertoire are quite dissimilar to Rufus’ usual style, yet he pulled it off with aplomb.
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Shouting Birds Into Existence: Yoko Ono/The Plastic Ono Band

By Matt Keeley

Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Brooklyn NY
February 15, 2010

Every music geek has a list of bands that they’re certain they’ll never see live, but would just about kill to get the chance. For me, that includes Kraftwerk (seen once), DEVO (seen three times), and The Residents (seen twice). And Yoko Ono (now seen). And not one person killed or even maimed.
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Playing The Hits: Electric Six At Canadian Music Fest

By Less Lee Moore

With Ben Stevenson & The Wondertones/Hot Panda/Sweet Thing
Lee’s Palace, Toronto ON
March 13, 2010

For a band to reach an exalted position on my list of all time faves they must possess two qualities: wonderful musicianship and witty lyrics. Because they have consistently excelled in both categories, Electric Six have ascended quickly up my own personal charts over the last three years. Put another, less pedantic, way: they crack me up and they fucking rock.
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Embracing Pop: Throwback Suburbia

By Christian Lipski

Backspace, Portland OR
February 16, 2010

Although they are from my home base of Portland Oregon, I first heard about Throwback Suburbia from Indiana resident Gidget Bates, a DJ for Woody Radio. They’re her favorite modern band, and they’re neighbors of mine, so I went to see them at local venue Backspace.
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POLYSICS Are My Valentine

By Matt Keeley

The Gramercy Theatre, New York NY
February 13, 2010

After seeing POLYSICS for the first time in 2003, I said this:

POLYSICS are pretty much the best band in the universe. POLYSICS are way better than your favorite band. This holds true even if POLYSICS are your favorite band. They’re JUST THAT GOOD.
—Wikia Music, “POLYSICS OR DIE!!! POLYSICS”

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Accept No Substitutes: Cheap Trick In Toronto

By Less Lee Moore

Sound Academy, Toronto ON
February 4, 2010

I don’t care what Lester Bangs said: Cheap Trick was, is, and will always be the best rock and roll band of all time.

They more than proved this (again) at Thursday’s Sound Academy show in Toronto.
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A Fortnight In The Tower Of Song: Leonard Cohen And The Creative Life

By Ben Sullivan

When my mother approached me with two tickets to Leonard Cohen’s first-ever performance in Columbus, Ohio as a present for my thirtieth birthday, the extent of my familiarity with the man was a much-loved copy of Songs of Leonard Cohen I happily stumbled across a few years back, as an initiate to the pleasures of record shopping.

Outside of the debut, I’d heard a handful of the seemingly countless Cohen covers. And then there was the copy of Songs of. . . I gifted to an ex-girlfriend (which, for shame, subsequently melted in the backseat of her Accord). My enthusiasm for the concert wasn’t predicated on long hours spent under his spell, but rather for the opportunity to sink into his work and discover the tics, irregularities, and strengths of an enduring voice.
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Electric Six “Rocks Ass” At Dante’s

Dick Valentine

By Christian Lipski
Photos by Deborah Lipski

Dante’s, Portland OR
November 13, 2009
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No More Heroes: Happy Mondays/Psychedelic Furs

By Emily Carney

The Ritz, Ybor City (Tampa) FL
September 29, 2009

When I discovered that the Happy Mondays were coming to town (shortly after the Gogol Bordello War of 2009), I was beyond psyched. I was a massive fan of this band in the early 1990s. While my fellow middle-school-aged peers in Florida were jamming along to the sounds of Stevie B. and Taylor Dayne, my musical world was fully entrenched in “Madchester”—with bands like the Stone Roses, the Inspiral Carpets, and of course, the Mondays. So one can imagine my excitement as I commuted an hour away from my apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida, to see the band; I even momentarily forgot that the Psychedelic Furs were also on the bill that evening.
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Warped Tour in Kansas City: I’m Too Old For This Shit

By Danny R. Phillips

Prior to August 4th, it had been eleven years since I had last joined the tattooed masses as an attendee of The Vans’ Warped Tour. I was younger then in both body and mind. Standing on the boiling pavement this year watching the crowd pass me like a pierced, dyed, rainbow bedazzled tsunami, I saw two distinct classes, scratch that, generations, go by.

One was an older, punk-appreciating culture with fading tattoos and greying hair that grew up on Bad Religion, The Descendents, Fugazi, Bad Brains, The Zero Boys, and the Circle Jerks (I, obviously fall into group A) and the other was the day glo “skittle core kids” who worship The Devil Wears Prada and Attack! Attack! like they were the Dead Milkmen or The Ramones.

Dragging myself between five stages and countless bands, it dawned on me (and my trusty photographer) that at 15, the Vans’ Warped Tour was experiencing a midlife crisis of sorts and was, in fact, no longer the festival of years gone by. It is clear that I am a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit named Hot Topic. Like Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon flicks, “I am too old for this shit!”
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