Toronto - Last night the Queen of Soul herself paid a visit to Toronto in order to shower us with her award-winning voice and musical legacy. She was accompanied by a 21-piece band that was equally capable of providing some sweet soul music, as well as more than handful of slow ballads. Although the show was well-received by her die hard fans, the crowd was clamouring for more of what they know: upbeat soul hits. It's not always easy being a well-known gigging musician that has a slew of well-known hits under their belt. One the one [...]
Alex James Church is a nutter. When Stanislaus was released and I was all madly in love with it, I figured it would be an amazing taster from the new Sea Wolf album. Turns out it wasn't, it was just a session bonus track that won't be included on the album. Which brings us to today's question, why on earth not ? That said, it's not like White Water, White Bloom is without high points of its own, even if we're not getting the brilliant sophomore breakthrough we were [...]
Ok, so this is a little off the beaten track but I just had to write about a band from Russia called PoZitive Orchestra. Now there really isn't much information about this band, and certainly nothing written in English with the exception of a brief review from Fong Songs , but as far as I can glean from their website they were formed by friends, Evegny Krjuchkov and Cyril Kuharenko. Apparently they indulged in an evening of drinking and came up with the idea of combining a classical string quartet with latin/gypsy rhythms and then [...]
[Published:03/29/07] Life on the road is tough, so it's no surprise that many songwriters have used the concept of home as a theme throughout their songs. If I were living with 10 other dudes in a small van, I'd be homesick too. The word 'home' may conjure up different images to different people, but it seems the connection is a feeling of security and safety. In the first six months of this column we've tried to focus squarely on the music. But today, this B List takes a look at the lyrics as we check out [...]
Every year on the first of July, Faronheit celebrates a milestone. July 1st is the official birthday of this site, back in 2006. So Happy 3rd Birthday to the site! But besides that, my first post started a tradition I have continued to do every year since. As we're finished with half the year at the end of June, I like to take a look back at what the previous 6 months have brought us in terms of albums, and select a few to single out as both "surprises" and "disappointments". The process takes two days, and the list is [...]
Every year on the first of July, Faronheit celebrates a milestone. July 1st is the official birthday of this site, back in 2006. So Happy 3rd Birthday to the site! But besides that, my first post started a tradition I have continued to do every year since. As we're finished with half the year at the end of June, I like to take a look back at what the previous 6 months have brought us in terms of albums, and select a few to single out as both "surprises" and "disappointments". The process takes two days, and the list is [...]
Last night I set out for the evening with few expectations. I was not familiar with any of the acts, had never visited the Columbia City Theater before, and the show had been brought to my attention only one day prior. Still, when asked if I would be interested in covering a Obscured By Clouds performance featuring three cameras and a laser show, I did not hesitate: "you had me at lasers." And said lasers did not disappoint. Crafted by master artist Milo Mindbender, beams (or are they vectors?) of lights shot [...]
Dirty Projectors - "No Intention" . One of my favourite songs of the year so far, "No Intention" showcases the Dirty Projectors as summer pop band, as streamers in a park, as spangled yacht-sails in the harbour. But as airy as it feels, (like Spoon on a beach, or the instrumental middle-eight of Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa",) "No Intention" is virtuosic, utterly intricate. The arrangement of voices, of fingers on guitar-strings, of rhythmic twitch and back-step. There's the complexity of a bluebird hopping from branch to branch, snapping sunshine out of the sky. An illuminated colouring-book in grass [...]
[Editor's Note: This is Norwood's first article for the Decibel Tolls. Welcome him, and let's avoid the normal flaming we have here on this fine music blog, nerds. Don't scare him off too soon, now.] Last week, I was editing a chapter on garage rock for Piero Scaruffi's revised rock catalog when I stumbled upon a band that begged me for my curiosity. One of the few reviews about this outhouse-rock group was written by Julian Cope (for one of his album of the month pieces). I skimmed through his review, finding the nihilistic [...]
It's odd sometimes how an artist can be such a massive success outside of the U.S. yet still struggle to even get a toehold in the American market. One prime example is 23-year-old Katie Melua , the wildly popular singer in the U.K. and Europe who was the biggest selling female artist in England in 2005 and 2006, selling nearly 10 million copies of her first two albums. Full page ads in the NY TIMES, TV appearances and a string of U.S. concerts didn't make a dent, however, and [...]
If Waterloo Sunset was the song that set me of on a musical journey then the Small Faces "Tin Soldier" was the song that put the wind in my sails, I can remember hearing this first in a chill-out room during an all-dayer in Birmingham, it blew me away, Steve Marriott's vocal performance on this record is sublime, a white soul blitz. Brilliant intro, fantastic keyboards, given that '67 was a vintage year for music, and this was one of the very best tunes of that year it puts some context on it, t [...]
Growing up in Portland, there were two skating rinks I would go to. Usually it the one near Beaverton Mall. And although I wasn't the best skater, I loved going because rollerskating is one of the purest ways to experience recorded music (aside from vinyl on oversized headphones, late, late at night). One Saturday, the girl I'd had an unconfessed crush on for two years was at the rink, flanked by her two girlfriends, as my parents dropped my friend and I off. They were popular and we weren't, so social order dictated that every time I [...]
This year has been sentimental to look back on, and although we'd love to revel in what wer've discovered this year, in the great tradition of music, we must prey on what greatness is to come. The list below is a compilation of artists we've been following over this past year, have learned to love and feel their next move could be the one that will make the blogsphere go zonkers. Although if there was one group we could really have on this list, The Shout Out Louds, who have been speculated to come out with an album [...]
It's been so long since the Charlotte Mystery that transfixed the AFI community in 2007 ended; much to the surprise of everyone, it appears that it's started up again in anticipation of a new record from the band. On December 15th, the entire AFI official site was taken down and replaced with a single image. In just 3 days, amidst many speculations and morse code translations, it seems the AFI community is set to receive a special announcement from the band in the very near future. Since posting just 24 hours on the board, [...]
Here are my 50 favourite songs of 2008: the ones I really, really, really, really like. I decided not to include any artist twice, nor any songs from albums I heard last year. I made similar lists in 2005 , 2006 and 2007 . The best way to browse this list is to click the little arrow beside each song and then listen as you read. The things you like you can then download by right- or ctrl-clicking with your mouse. Please buy albums, singles and [...]
Part of the reason I haven't been writing lately is because I've been prepping for an epic 2008 year-in-review kinda post, sorting through the roughly 300 albums I've nicked this year and making top album and song lists, among other things. But before 2008, there was 2007: a year full of great releases. So I thought I'd wander through the dense forest of my iTunes and pick out my favorite songs-not from this year, but from the last one, in order to see what's held up and what's faded by the wayside. The result is a [...]
BAG MAN Conversion Party More No More self-released : 2008 [Download It] EAST RIVER Conversion Party More No More self-released : 2008 [Download It] HURRY, HURRY Conversion Party More No More self-released : 2008 [Download It] RON Conversion Party More No More self-released : 2008 [Download It] [...]
Day Three! We're Dying! In a good way! Today's contributors include (in no particular order) Kelly Clarke, Robert Ham, Nilina Mason-Campbell, Casey Jarman, Brandon Seifert, Byron Beck, Mark Stock, Whitney Hawke, Jason Quigley, Inger Katz, Arian Stevens, Heather Zinger, Jordan Strong (he took the one on the left) and video of the crazy Monotonix show by David Walker and some other stuff you can't live without. Before we even start, here's a Flickr slideshow from Nilina and a couple YouTube videos from David Walker, all focusing on the evening's nuttiest set, the [...]
Welcome to The Run-Off Groove #214. I apologize for the gap last week, the gap being "no column" but things have been busy so I had to make sure things were done and taken care of. Now that they are (for now), it's time to start. There's a hate I have for starting the first paragraph in a review with the word "I", so I decided to come up with some gibberish [...]
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
WKND PLYLST!! This has nothing to do with NEW MOON!
Bobby B's Top 50 Albums Of The Decade (#25-21)
HOT CHIP TAKE another crack at IT and I’m IN
Tila Tequila NSFW UStream Freak Out (Video)
