 Recently I had the pleasure of seeing Jolie Holland live in her native San Francisco, along with a band made up of her favorite local backing musicians. The show took place in the posh Bimbo's 365 Club with its elegant seating and two drink minimum. However, it was clear from the very start of the show that this was no fancy recital. I felt like I was in the prescence of royalty, although Ms. Holland has to be the most foul-mouthed queen that ever lived. On the opening track of her fantastic new album, Springtime Can Kill [...]
Jens Lekman The Southgate House Newport, KY: July 25, 2006 As usual, I was in a hurry for no good reason. One would think that when melancholy Swedish pop sensation Jens Lekman is planning a performance in a medium-sized Midwestern city that the venue would be packed to the gills with sensible, well-dressed pop enthusiasts and Jonathan Richman acolytes, politely trampling over one another in a frenzied rush to be first in line. Such was not the case, however, as I pulled up to the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky. I parked, considered the seemingly deserted venue, crossed the street and [...]
 When the Replacements released Don't Tell a Soul in 1989, their core base of fans received the record like a swift sucker punch to the abdomen. While devotees were expecting another set of drunkenly perceptive riffs and verses, instead they received a cohesive series of earnest rockers and pared-down AOR anthems that seemed to beg more comparisons to jean jacket balladeer Bryan Adams than to their hardcore contemporaries Hüsker Dü. With founding guitarist Bob Stinson kicked out two years earlier due to addiction problems, and with him the band's brash and ironic disdain for contemporary music, Don't Tell a Soul [...]
Cost of 500 analog reel-to-reel tapes, circa 1969: £7,500. Attempted retail price of said tapes in 21st Century Dutch black market: £250,000. Discovering that the tapes composed the long lost original studio recordings of the Beatles' Get Back Sessions: Priceless , according to authorities who recovered the tapes in a series of raids in West London and the Netherlands back in 2003. The tapes capture The Beatles in Twickenham Studios in 1969, attempting to reconnect as men and to rekindle the original rock'n'roll flame that made the lads famous in the beginning. Over 200 songs and covers were [...]
 On their fourth album, Martyn Leaper and company return with a sound that, thankfully, can be identified as a distant cousin of earlier Minders’ records. Call it maturing, re-inventing, or gracefully aging, but The Minders are definitely not the same band that their fans have come to love. It’s a Bright Guilty World shows The Minders to be a band that has outgrown their earlier warm, fuzzy, child-like exuberance and embraced a delightfully refined, albeit less exciting, pop sound. A majority of this album bounces along at roughly the same tempo, and Leaper [...]
As the final image of a seventy-year old austere Leonard Cohen fades to black and the credits commence, the viewer is confronted with a credit that reveals Mel Gibson to be the executive producer of this film. No wonder there were a few unwarranted shadow images of Jesus on the cross, too many discussions of the Biblical and the Christian elements of Cohen's music (although certainly they are there). At least at one point the director allows Cohen to announce that he is a Jew, a fact that is essential to understanding the poet-songwriter. I guess I do have [...]
Please, please, please lift a hand, I am only a person, with Eskimo chain, I tattooed my brain all the way. Won't you miss me, wouldn't you miss me at all?  Syd Barrett died last week, but he has been gone a much longer time. Long before he had the opportunity to check out of the musical world, Barrett had become the object of unimaginable myth-making; an LSD mystique that was further shrouded by his own retreating mental faculties. Hardly known amongst most casual fans of the band he started, Pink Floyd, Barrett is a [...]
 If I’ve said it before I’ll say it again: modern music could use a whole lot more mariachi horns. Who would have thought an indie rock garage band from New York City would completely relearn the art of songwriting and spend a year studying such oddball albums as Bob Dylan and The Band’s Basement Tapes and The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies for inspiration. By immersing themselves in music that was innovative when it came out by sounding so ancient and fresh at the same time, The Walkmen have managed to replicate the same feeling on their new [...]
Ray Davies knew exactly where he was playing, knew his audience. Taking the stage at the Comerica Tastefest in a location that is not exactly in the murmuring heart of Detroit but more right atrium, the legendary performer and songwriter made very clear what he and many native Detroiters have in commonâ€"that we wear our blue collars like a lackluster yet glistening medal. Speaking for those who can say (to borrow from rock’s other blue-collar saint) that “the country I come from is called the Midwest,†I can say that Davies’ upbringing and our upbringing is not so [...]
The Post-Rockist visited sunny Detroit Michigan this weekend for the Comerica Tastefest, an annual event that brings bands, eats, and stale warm beer to an ever-decreasing number of citizens of Detroit and an ever-increasing number of citizens of its surrounding areas. While the Post-Rockist is not stationed in the Motor City, there lie our roots. Now you might call it amateurish that the Post-Rockist didn't quite do the research for this show and that it shows. However, the spirit is there, no denying, even though the journalistic savvy is in development. Many a fine band played the Tastefest this [...]
I know what you’re going to say: “Oh, so I suppose it’s sooo post-rockist that your first review is of a folk record.†Well, yes, I guess so. Sure, I could attempt to justify it. I could point out that Elliott’s “San Francisco Bay Blues,†according to the album’s liner notes, was one of the first songs that a young lad named Paul McCartney learned to play on the guitar (and that McCartney and Clapton each covered the song on their respective Unplugged albums). Oh sure, I could point out that on this record Elliott is accompanied [...]
Our promise to you, gentle reader, is to bring you music news near and dear to your heart before it becomes embarrassingly outdated. Cough, cough, ahem. Starting next week. Here’s a glimpse at what’s been happing in your world for the past week or so: New Releases The Mountain Goats will be releasing a new album entitled Get Lonely , which is scheduled to leap into the open arms of affectionate diarists [...]
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the Weekender ::: New music from Catcall // the National // Summer Camp
KNIFE PARTY – RAGE VALLEY EP
Live: Among Bouquets & Florets. Girls, HMV Forum.
