By Matt Keeley
Look, you’re busy, I know that. If you don’t feel like reading this whole thing, just read the next sentence, and you’ll know the truth:
McLemore Avenue by Booker T & The MGs is a fucking amazing album.
Continue reading ‘Booker T & The MGs, McLemore Avenue‘
By Jemiah Jefferson
Canadian four-piece Sloan is one of the world’s most enduring cult-item bands (for everyone living outside Canada, that is; in the wily north, Sloan has been a ubiquitous source of pride for a large part of their twenty-year history). There’s a reason for this continued affection, slavishly on display at any of their raucous, friendly live shows: Sloan is a known quantity, and all ten of their albums lie on the spectrum between pretty damn good and iconically brilliant.
Continue reading ‘Sloan, The Double Cross‘
If you like Chiptunes, you should check out PASSWORD, the latest release from Oxvylu. It’s the perfect addition to your weekend . . . and beyond! Enjoy!
From the press release:
This is your PASSWORD to a lavish trip . . . just imagine endless lounge rooms decorated with plastic trees, poofy couches, cheap perfume and slot machines overlooking a wonderfully fake beach scenario. Fill your world with easy listening chiptune music featuring bossanova drumbeats, foxtrot basslines and shiney hihat taps any 5-star hotel elevator would envy. Please enjoy PASSWORD by Oxvylu. Yes please thank you.
Download the Oxvylu PASSWORD album at no cost http://oxvylu.com/password/
About Oxvylu:
Oxvylu is a chiptunes artist from the gritty streets of Toronto, Ontario. He has been making videogamesounding music since he realized he could hook his Intellivision up to a stereo system. Seldom seen but often heard, Oxvylu produces some of the brightest yet darkest chiptunes you’ll ever hear. His 4th album PASSWORD is dedicated to rock’n’roller ‘Sam I Am’.
By John Lane
One can expect the usual onslaught of products and merchandise to cash in on Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday on May 1. Just as we have become used to more Beatles product every time Ringo coughs or Paul sneezes, so too must we be inundated with Bob Dylan product when he reaches a significant birthday mark.
Continue reading ‘Bob Dylan Revealed‘
By Magda Underdown-DuBois
For the most part, I tend to be attracted to bluesy lyrics that grip my gut and pull me involuntarily into sound and words. Instrumental jazz, like classical music, usually blends into background for me. Yet, I was introduced to the trumpeter/band leader Miles Davis by a dear ex-housemate, whose taste for adventure extends from Frank Zappa to Hot Chip. With that recommendation in mind, I committed to the experience of a two-disc set—The Definitive Miles Davis on Prestige.
Continue reading ‘The Definitive Miles Davis on Prestige‘
By Danny R. Phillips
Country music as a genre, in my self-deluded opinion, has been on a downward, pop-infused shit spiral since the 1990s Garth Brooks era, culminating in the current supremacy of Carrie “Screech” Underwood and Taylor “Let’s Go To The Mall” Swift.
I feared all was lost, that the world would be contented with pop songs passed off as country because they contain one of the following things: a fiddle, a steel guitar, or the word “y’all.” Then I heard Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs latest release No Help Coming. Rejoice traditionalists; this record is for you.
Continue reading ‘Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, No Help Coming‘
By Paul Casey
Despite my trepidation that The Never Ending Narrative, which documents Dylan’s commercial and critical comeback, would be another super cheap cash-in akin to Bob Dylan World Tour 1966: The Home Movies, I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it is still pretty cheap—the most direct interview subjects are a pair of engineers—but unlike that earlier movie, it actually has Dylan music! Although it is not exactly overflowing with it, there is just enough to hold things together. The majority of the film is taken up by a series of music journalists, most of who specialize in discussing Bob Dylan. Most of these are entertaining, clearly know their subject, and help disguise the film’s shortcomings.
Continue reading ‘Bob Dylan: The Never Ending Narrative 1990 – 2006‘
By Paul Casey
“I believe that all people are in possession, of what might be called a universal musical mind. Any true music speaks with this universal mind, to the universal mind in all people. The understanding that results will vary, only insofar as people have or have not been conditioned to the various styles of music, in which the universal mind speaks. Consequently, often some effort and exposure is necessary in order to understand some of the music coming from a different period or a different culture, than that to which the listener has been conditioned.
I do not agree that the layman’s opinion is less of a valid judgment of music than that of the professional musician. In fact, I would often rely more on the judgment of a sensitive layman than that of a professional, since the professional, because of his constant involvement in the mechanics of music, must fight to preserve the naivety that the layman already possesses.”
—Bill Evans
Continue reading ‘The Definitive Bill Evans on Riverside and Fantasy‘
By Magda Underdown-DuBois
If one has ever heard Keith Richards interviewed, one knows his stories are amazingly well remembered for a man who was rumored to exist only through artificial means. The front flap of the dust jacket of Life explains this memoir of Keith Richards’ life completely and succinctly, “This is the Life. Believe it or not I haven’t forgotten any of it. Thanks and praises Keith Richards.”
Expected was a standard rambling account of drugs, sex, and rock & roll. Instead, what was delivered displayed a coherent story of Tolkien-inspired male friendship; awkward yet endearing fumbles through art, business, and parenting; a tribute to those who didn’t survive; and music of all genres soaking into the words, like the mixed odor of tobacco and whiskey.
Continue reading ‘Life: Keith Richards with James Fox’
Photo © Alberte Karrebæk
This is Iceage. Although there’s a better press photo that proves these four Swedish guys are, in fact, still in high school, I picked this blurry one because it looks more akin to what they sound like. And that’s something I’m not yet fully able to describe.
Based on the song, “White Rune,” I’ve got high hopes for Iceage’s debut album New Brigade, which will be released via What’s Your Rupture? on June 21. It’s got that exciting, on-the-verge-of-collapsing, post-punk sound of which I will never grow tired.
Yet unlike a lot of revisionist-sounding post-punk bands, I can’t immediately name another band Iceage seems to be imitating. And “White Rune” features saxophone. You know the kind. Not sax of the Yacht Rock or Kenny G. flavor, but the bad ass kind.
New Brigade is a mere 24 minutes long but based on “White Rune” it looks to be an exhilarating 24 minutes. I will keep you posted.
In the meantime, check out the band’s website. They’re playing lots of UK dates in May so go see them if you can.