Tagged: livereview

photo by Jim Bennett by Jonathan Hamilton I remember when I was barely a teenager I thought that a mosh pit happened at every concert and that proper concert etiquette required anyone at the front of the stage to participate in said pit. Eventually, I went to enough shows to learn that moshing is only appropriate for certain types of music and certain types of crowds. The all ages crowd at the Neptune for last weekend's Los Campesinos! show never learned these valuable mosh pit lessons, [...]

New artists, The Sleeping Bags and Electric Guests, are two bands to keep an eye on, and we caught them at The Echo in LA.

Led by Chino Moreno, Crosses put on an inspiring show at Slim's.

Mechanisburg, Pennsylvania's Alec Koone – aka Balam Acab – can certainly be said to occupy something of a lonesome nether zonal void left in the mournless wake that followed the relieving demise of the ever-gruesome 'witch house' genre categorisation. We ought not forget that SALEM were once perceived to be the savours of all things unholy , that the questionable talents of the trio carried them from one dank corner of the globe to another far-flung yet equally glum. Koone trades in similarly flatulent bass lines while employing equally ethereal vocal strains often warped beyond human recognition [...]

Some artists dabble in paying homage to their favourite era in music. Others go full-on method - Jonathan Wilson belongs firmly in this category. The LA-based singer-songwriter resembles a finalist in a Harvest -era Neil Young lookalike contest with his lanky hair, dishevelled attire and air of perma-stoned laidback-ease. Little in tonight's relaxed but spirited performance suggests Wilson and his four-piece band are aware it's 2012 and not 1972. Lifting judiciously from Wilson's debut of last year - the wonderfully dreamy Gentle Spirit - with a few [...]

I first encountered Robert DeLong through his orange duct-tape, segmented X symbol, the street-art piece that seemed suddenly everywhere this fall. Then, in December, when my power was out after the freak windstorm, I found myself at a friend's music studio/storefront on Echo Park Ave. where DeLong was shooting a music video. Not at first realizing he was the "rockstar" in the room, I found him to be a pretty unassuming, even polite guy. But when he began the 10-15 takes of his "radio" song for the cameras, he transformed alchemically from normal human being into full-on performer. If you've [...]

Charles Bradley says "I love you all" and I believe him. We all believe him. Then, as if there is any doubt, he walks to the edge of the stage, looking for a moment like he'll take a stage dive, climbs off the stage and starts hugging people. He makes his way through the crowd for what seems like a long time, just hugging his now fans. - 63 year old Charles Bradley, after years of poverty, living [...]

Photo by Lisa Schaffer Raphael Cutrufello's country/folk band Hezekiah Jones rocked out at Johnny Brenda's this past Saturday night, February 4th. Eight musicians filled the relatively small stage, including a keyboard player, violinist, and harmonica player, in addition to the typical drums/bass/guitar instrumentation (although in this case there were three guitars). The ever-changing Philadelphia-based outfit bears resemblance to folk-rock greats like Simon and Garfunkel, a folk-ified Velvet Underground, and even The Beatles in terms of absurd tempo and time signature transformations. Cutrufello's heartwarming stories came alive the other night through tight-knit guitar-picking, sizzling keyboard work, wailing [...]

• Hezekiah Jones - "Borrowed Heart"

Up, down. In, out. A trial by Twitter can see a career soar, crash, then burn before a single is released or live show played; a rising star can burn white hot only to be quenched without becoming a household name. The ascent of Azealia Banks would appear to be on such a trajectory – with a banging hit that could be considered novelty due to its expletive nature, and the unforeseen embrace from the glossies and fashion world on account of her Disney Ts and cut-off shorts (radical right?) – only her groundwork would imply a steadier ramp, approached [...]

For all those to have been reared predominantly on secondhand smoke on the booze-splatted viscosity underfoot on the carpets and plastics of Brixton's Academy, La Femme's debut London show at The Garage on this significantly more salubrious corner of Highbury is for we. And for seemingly every Frenchman and woman currently shacked up in the capital. For the Le Pré-Saint-Gervais retrospection-revelling outfit hark back to glorified ages and eras past, delving into a history of all things Gallic, groove-laden, and New Wave as the sextet surf triumphantly towards the brightest of horizontal futures. Needless to say horizontal is [...]

After an unplanned, unofficial hitatus, The Jealous Sound have returned with a solid show filled with shining new material.

photos by Brittney Bollay There was no doubt that the Alabama Shakes would be welcomed into Seattle with open arms. The Athens, Alabama, band's down-home garage soul sounds like it could have been culled from select parts of what various local artists aspire to be, and with the voice of dynamic frontwoman Brittany Howard thrown into the mix, the result is a group that seems almost tailor-made to leave Seattleites frothing at the mouth. Few figured just how fervent the anticipation would be, however, as the show-like several other dates on the [...]

2 Hearts and Chemicals lit up The Airliner like a pinwheel.

Okay, so this isn't the sort of stuff we generally cover at Crack in the Road but if we like it, we write about it, and I like Bags of Rock . Chances are I may be the only writer for the site that would enjoy their style of music, but I think it is well worth writing about. Yeah they do covers of classical rock songs such as Black Betty as well as their own material but don't let that put anyone off, they're a talented bunch. The set up is a typical 2 guitars, bass [...]

A collaboration between The National 's Aaron and Bryce Dessner and visual artist Matthew Richie, The Long Count is a mishmash of ideas encompassing the Guatemalan creation myth, Popul Vuh, the tale's hero twins (played by the Dessner brothers) and baseball. The UK premiere of the production features guest vocals from Shara Worden ( My Brightest Diamond ), Tunde Adebimpe ( TV on The Radio ) and Kelley Deal ( The Breeders ), as well as backing from The Heritage Orchestra. Fine pedigree aside, there's little narrative to the 75 minute [...]

Much ado has been made – progressively emphatically – about the sparsity within the work of the almost unfeasibly juvenile Nicolas Jaar . First and foremost the hype and hubbub around tonight's sold out show in the capital's finest musically-orientated establishment is, superficially, equally inconceivable: commuters haggle for spares on bustling tubes and every spluttered word centres upon the man who, at the wondrously tender age of twenty-two, is over to showcase his very own label and multimedia outlet, Clown & Sunset. The venue itself meanwhile is ideal in that it is later to give superlative sounds from the [...]

It's been 18 months since Cathy Davey has graced a Dublin venue with her presence, and tonight marks the beginning of a three date residency at Whelan's. One of the forthcoming shows is to be a reprise of Davey's 2008 Fringe Festival show Songs That Scare Children , the other a celebration of her favourite artists of decades gone by – but tonight's show is all about the woman herself, delving into her back catalogue to perform the best of her own material albums to date. It's a shaky start with 'Habit' and 'Reuben', the band hit [...]

photo by Olivia Jaffe L.A. people love Graveyard. Even though I got to the Bootleg Theater before 9 p.m., I had to wait forever to get in. It was only by the skin of my teeth that I got through the ginormous line backed for blocks up Beverly Boulevard and got a classy microbrew in my hand in time to see the Shrine . Actually, you don't "see" the Shrine so much as you feel them. Their first song, "Zipper Tripper," was so loud that it bypassed my ears entirely, plowing [...]

First, guitars. Many people have apparently spent the first month of 2012 suggesting that guitar music is dead, or ill, or on the wane, or something else equally fatuous. And by "many" I mean a small handful, and by "people" I mean journalists, and by "journalists" I mean music hacks old enough to know better, with a vested interest in such an observation being true. But in leaving the term "guitar music" tantalisingly undefined, the argument falls apart: from the enduring success of Download/Sonisphere, to the Gallagher brothers (and their followers) bothering the album charts with rock-slanted LPs, [...]

Supported by fiN As we walk in to a very crowded Kasbah tonight and squeeze ourselves up against the bar, the support band are already playing. They're called fiN, yes that's 'fiN' with some eccentric reverse capitalisation, a lowercase 'f' and a capital 'N', presumably to distinguish themselves from early 90's band Fin, not that it makes a jot of difference to google. As they play away we barter with the girl on the bar to find exactly what's actually available tonight, beer - nope, San Miguel - ran out, wine - nope, [...]