Category: Music
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Nine Inch Nails & Jane’s Addiction live at Jones Beach, June 7, 2009
Street Sweeper Social Club Street Sweeper Social Club, the new band formed by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, opened. Their badass cover of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” was a highlight. Nine Inch Nails It felt wrong somehow to see a band as moody and dark as Nine Inch Nails play while the sun was […]
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Mogwai live at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, April 2009
The Scottish instrumental rock outfit Mogwai earned their reputation in part for sheer volume, like My Bloody Valentine and The Who before them. Their music is also notable for exploring the kinds of extreme dynamics you usually only hear in electronica or progressive rock, wholly unlike the fatiguing constant loudness of most pop, punk, and […]
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Orifices in Place of Faces: The Flaming Lips: Christmas on Mars
The Flaming Lips are an odd band to have achieved mainstream success. After years of noncommercial psychedelic art-rock experimentation like the four-disc Zaireeka (1997), they broke through to mass appeal with The Soft Bulletin (1999) and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002). The latter features the finest existential love song to ever become the official […]
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David Byrne, Live at Radio City Music Hall, February 28, 2009
David Byrne and Brian Eno, both long favorites of this blog, collaborated extensively between 1978-1980. Many of these classic albums have passed into the musical canon, most especially Talking Heads’ Remain in Light (1980) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981). There are lingering rumors of interpersonal friction, certainly within the four Talking […]
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Lou Reed, Antony, and Julian Schnabel Dance the Rock Minuet in the Concert Film Berlin
Lou Reed‘s 1973 album Berlin is a concept album relating the tale of a doomed woman named Caroline living in the eponymous city. The term “concept album,” then and now, invokes immediate condescension from fans and critics alike, calling to mind the progressive rock excesses of 1970s megabands The Who (Tommy and Quadrophenia), Genesis (The […]
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Sigur Rós Comes Home to Iceland in Heima
Dean DeBlois’ documentary film Heima (meaning “coming home” or “at home”) follows the band Sigur Rós on their summer 2006 tour of their home country Iceland. The tour consisted of mostly free, unannounced concerts, and with the band in three basic configurations spanning the continuum of the purely acoustic to the fully electric. The four […]
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There’s Nothing Pretty: Grant Gee’s Joy Division
Grant Gee’s documentary Joy Division covers the all-too-brief history of the eponymous post-punk band from Manchester. Joy Division was tragically short-lived, only completing two albums before lead singer Ian Curtis’ suicide in 1980, but disproportionately influential. Their sound is all over the early U2 albums Boy and October, and Interpol has made a career of […]
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Daniel Lanois Maximizes the Room in Here Is What Is
Daniel Lanois is a unique musician, as gifted a singer-songwriter in his own right as he is a collaborator and producer. I originally came to recognize his name after finding it listed in the credits of many key items in my music collection, including Peter Gabriel’s So and Us, U2’s The Joshua Tree and Achtung […]
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Low live at Mercury Lounge, New York – September 22, 2008
I hope I’m totally wrong, but I picked up on a few hints that this latest tour by Low might mark the end of the band. My half-baked evidence: Alan Sparhawk seems to be having success with new side project, the Retribution Gospel Choir. This tour is not in support of a new album release. […]
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The Swell Season live at Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, New York – September 17, 2008
Glen Hansard (of The Frames and The Commitments) and Markéta Irglová recorded an album together called The Swell Season, and now tour under the name. They fell in love while filming the excellent Once, and are now a couple. Interestingly, they got their Oscar-winning song “Falling Slowly” out of the way right away, perhaps to […]