Surprisingly, I haven't done a concerts of the year post since the very first year I started blogging five years ago . So it's a big odd that I am doing one for the year that I have blogged the least. Despite the fact that I felt somewhat disconnected from music last year, I still saw some great shows. So here are the top five... 1. U2 Vanderbilt Stadium, Nashville, TN - 7/2/11 I hate stadium [...]
This is Rockin' Randy. He dances to the Monday Night Football theme. Old Randy used to occupy a proud spot in my bachelor pad kitchen. Then I got married. Now Randy occupies a box in our basement. For the last 20 years, Monday Night Football has been introduced by Hank Williams Jr's iconic theme song, based on his 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight." Earlier this week, after Bocephus made a ham fisted comment on Fox News comparing President Obama to Hitler, the Disney owned overlords at ESPN decided to pull his opening in [...]
R.E.M. has called it quits . A lot of cynics would say this move is coming about fourteen years to late, and that the band never should have reneged on their handshake deal that they'd break up if any of the original members left the group. That opinion would be wrong. Of the five albums Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills have recorded since Bill Berry left the band in 1997, only one (2004's Around the [...]
Various Artists - Sing For Your Meat : A Tribute to Guided By Voices Tribute albums are always kind of a mixed bag. Usually no matter how much you like either the artist being honored or the bands and singers doing the covers, you usually end up with an album where you really only like a few songs. That's definitely not the case with Sing For Your Meat . Guided By [...]
This gave me goosebumps. If you've been online at all today, you're probably all 9/11'd out. But take four minutes and watch this video of Paul Simon performing "The Sound Of Silence" at the World Trade Center memorial dedication this morning. It's pretty amazing. Apparently he was scheduled to do "Bridge Over Troubled Water," but made a change at the last minute. It was a pretty inspired choice.
Five years ago today I wrote this . Yesterday I wrote this , as part of this project . My friend Tyge has compiled stories from 20 different people remembering their day 10 years ago. It's strange... after 3,652 days, and countless articles, books, movies, documentaries, and TV reports about September 11, 2001, you would think there wouldn't be much left to say that you'd be interested in hearing. But as [...]
Life , by Keith Richards The Beatles or the Stones? Since the mid 1960's, it's a question that all music fans have had to answer. As Uma Thurman said in Pulp Fiction, you can like both, but everyone prefers one over the other. And despite the fact that I would definitely fall into the Beatles camp, I have probably read more books about The Rolling Stones than any other artist. I think it's because even though The Beatles had a far [...]
Eddie Vedder - Ukulele Songs If there isn't an old saying that states "a little ukulele goes a long way," there should be. It's hard to say that you didn't know what to expect with this album... it's right there in the album's title, so I kind of feel stupid for complaining about it. I really liked Eddie Vedder's solo work on the soundtrack to Into the Wild [...]
Considering their shared penchant for dark moods and strange images, it's almost surprising that Interpol and David Lynch have never collaborated before now. For this year's Coachella music festival, the band approached Lynch about providing visuals for one of their songs, and he provided them with the following short film to accompany their song "Lights" (which as I mentioned in my concert review from earlier this year is hands down [...]
The Psychedelic Furs Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN Thursday, July 7, 2011 On Thursday afternoon, the Mercy Lounge sent out a tweet warning the rock o' clock-ers not to show up for The Psychedelic Furs show at 10 pm, because the band would be going on promptly at 8 pm. They weren't kidding. The Butler brothers and company took the stage just a few minutes after the advertised start time and immediately tore into "Dumb Waiters," the opening track from the evening's advertised performance of their sophomore album [...]
U2, with Florence + The Machine Vanderbilt Stadium, Nashville, TN Saturday, July 2, 2011 When you have already seen a band four times, you have a pretty good idea what to expect when you see them again. And when that band is U2 , you pretty much know that you're going to see a amazing show. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of concerts, and U2 occupies two spots the list on my top five favorite concerts ever (Murphy Center in Murfreesboro in 1987, and Rupp Arena in Lexington, [...]
On Tuesday, June 7 at 2:56 pm, longtime WRVU DJ (and host of hands down the best show on that station, Nashville Jumps ) Pete Wilson played Johnny Thunder's "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory." And then... nine hours of static. At midnight, Nashville's beloved college radio station 91.1 WRVU became Classical 91.1, the all classical affiliate of Nashville Public Radio's WPLN. This story has been brewing for a long time, so I won't post the details. [...]
Foo Fighters - Wasting Light Foo Fighters have been one of my favorite bands since I saw them open for Mike Watt before their first album was even released. But over their past two albums, they had kind of reached a point where the singles were good, but the rest of the albums were a little too close to MOR classic rock for my tastes. I never even got around to buying Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace , which is something considering what a completest [...]
Interpol, w/ School Of Seven Bells Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN Monday, May 2, 2011 I've always made it a point to get to concerts in time to see the opening act, even if I'm not familiar with them before hand. There are a lot of reasons for this. Part of it is I've played in bands off and on since high school, so I know how much it sucks to play to a half empty room. But I've also discovered some of my favorite bands by [...]
Beady Eye - Different Gear Still Speeding I always thought that Oasis without Noel Gallagher would suck. Turns out that's not the case at all. I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising. As the band went on, Noel began ceding the songwriting duties, to the point that on their last three albums half the songs were attributed to other band members. It was said that Beady Eye considered carrying on under the Oasis banner without him, but changing monikers was probably a good [...]
Over the last four years, Record Store Day has grown from a valiant effort to get people to support their local mom and pop, brick and mortar music retailers into a veritable Christmas in April for music geeks. The list of RSD exclusive releases has grown to almost 300 titles this year, and the parties surrounding the event have become must-attend events whether you're a huge music fan or not (and really, who isn't???). Here in Nashville, you've got five places you can get your [...]
Rush Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN Sunday, April 3, 2011 Sunday night I managed to do something that my teenaged self could only dream about. I had a date for a Rush concert. And I wasn't the only one. It seemed like there were a whole lot of wives and girlfriends getting their prog rock cherry broken by Canada's finest power trio. This was my sixth Rush concert, and I've never [...]
I think I've always had a big of a soft spot for the Great White North. It was the first foreign country I ever visited. Over the years a lot of my favorites bands have been from there. And because I grew up just an hour and a half drive up I-5 from the border, I'm very familiar with their currency. As a kid it seemed cool to have money from another country, until the first time you hit up a vending machine only to find you can't get that candy bar you wanted because one of your quarters turned [...]
R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now The pre-release hype trumpeted that R.E.M.'s fifteenth studio album was a return to their classic sound. If you're a fan, my advice to you is to ignore that suggestion. Unless you consider Automatic for the People as classic Stipe and company, you're setting yourself up for a letdown. There are a lot more acoustic oriented numbers, and Peter Buck's mandolin makes a return appearance. But apart [...]
One of the great things about being married is that the quality of my birthdays has increased exponentially. To put it mildly, my wife spoils me rotten. Among the incredible haul I received on my last placenta emergence anniversary was The Pogues box set, Just Look Them Straight in the Eye & Say Poguemahone! With five CDs of demos, b-sides, outtakes, alternate versions, rehearsals, and live cuts, it was an awesome enough gift in itself, but it was made [...]
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The Shins: “September” (b-side of “Simple Song” 7”)
St. Vincent - 'Cheerleader'
Jay-Z & Kanye West - Ni**as In Paris (Explicit)
OK Go - Needing/Getting - Official Video
M.I.A. - Bad Girls (Official Video)
James Blake – Live Album
Circo Voador anuncia shows de The Kooks, Foster The People, Friendly Fires, Gogol Bordello e mais
The Kills on Letterman (Video)
Download: James Blake Live Album (Unofficial)
