Tweet [Photos by Jill Harrison at For the Love of Brooklyn] Paul Damian Hogan The Third (if you wonder why the full name, Google "Paul Hogan" - he's Crocodile Dundee, in case you're wondering) is one of those artists that doesn't slow down. Visit his website and you'll find links to no less than eight albums, film scores, compositions, production (Friend Roulette's EP, strings on Passion Pit's Manners ), and a few TV commercials - oh, and he's also in the [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by acidjack] It's possible to forget the point of why people go to concerts. We have music at our fingertips at all times - studio releases, live stuff (sites like this don't hurt), comps, outtakes - it's all out there. We don't really need to go to concerts to hear what a band sounds like live, anymore. YouTube and LiveStream and other streaming services promise to beam The Concert Experience right to your laptop. Enter Frank Turner [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by acidjack] METZ lead singer/guitarist Alex Edkins introduced their new song "Can't Understand" as being about "all the totally messed up people in the world". They left the spoken statement at that and then let the music do the talking. Over and over, the screamed refrain of those two words over the incessant backbeat and howling guitars framed, in simplest terms, the way people may have been feeling about recent events. Sometimes the best [...]
[Photos by acidjack] Little is known to date about the Brooklyn band Zoned Out, though they have quietly been building a following around town. Featuring current and former members of La Otracina , Grateful Dead cover band Dead Tape , Titan , Polygamist and Mirror Queen , they serve up deep multi-part psych meditations grounded in the rock aesthetic. For this Union Pool show, the band played under the swirling light show of Planetary Projections , adding to the otherworldly vibe of the night. Expect to see a new album from [...]
Tweet ' [Photos by acidjack] Sky Picnic is the psych-driven rock band fronted by guitarist/vocalist Chris Sherman and bassist Leah Cinnamon, who on this night were joined by a friend filling in on drums who did an admirable job in the absence of band regular Pete Meriwether. This Union Pool show was made extra memorable by the liquid light show of Planetary Projections , who coated what is usually a drably lit shade with intense swirls of color. Sky [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by acidjack] One of the missions of the Wordless Music Series is to help bring classical and contemporary music together by pairing rock and electronic artists with more conventionally classical acts. On this night at the Society for Ethical Culture, the ACME String Quartet joined Low (that recording here ) for an incredible evening of music that began with a set of ACME performing a series of contemporary string pieces. The group [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by acidjack] One of the missions of the Wordless Music Series is to help bring classical and contemporary music together by pairing rock and electronic artists with more conventionally classical acts. On this night at the Society for Ethical Culture, the ACME String Quartet joined Low (that recording here ) for an incredible evening of music that began with a set of ACME performing a series of contemporary string pieces. The group [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by P Squared Photography] Seeing Low inside a non-denominational church (the Society For Ethical Culture, a favorite spot of the Wordless Music Series ) seems appropriate. The by-now-legendary Duluth, MN band, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has a sound that demands reverence. This audience of superfans gave it to the band, too, as the church stayed as pin-drop quiet during the mellowest parts of the band's catalog as it filled with applause after every number. I [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by Jill Harrison at For the Love of Brooklyn ] The look of pure joy on the face of Booker T. Jones on this night said everything that needs to be said about why a person becomes a musician. As he sat at the organ, settling into the upbeat groove of "Hip Hug-Her" from the Booker T & the M.G.' s album of the same name, Jones beamed. And the Brooklyn Bowl crowd - most [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos by P Squared Photography] Hans Chew was kind enough to play a show for us for the second time in five months, taking the stage at Cameo Gallery as a bit of a sequel to his performance at Cake Shop during CMJ back in October. As with that show, Hans delivered a barn burner of a set, this time in a venue with a loud, upgraded sound system that put extra oomph behind his [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos courtesy of P Squared Photography] Just before ripping into "Burroughs", their first song, Thurston Moore opened this show by his new band Chelsea Light Moving with a quote from Mike Watt: "When you're not playing, you're paying." I had to remind myself at several points during this show that the exuberant, youthful guitarist and vocalist on the cozy Maxwell's stage in his band's own t-shirt was a 54-year-old member of rock royalty who [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [photos by acidjack] The Grateful Dead graced the stage of the Capitol Theatre on the 23rd of February exactly forty two years before this Grace Potter & the Nocturnals show. They may not be the Dead, but Grace Potter & the Nocturnals have clearly been sprinkled with some of that early 70s pixie dust. The band, formed in 2002, has come into their own over the last few years as their [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [Photos courtesy of P Squared Photography] One of the first things you notice at an Arbouretum show is how clearly you can hear frontman and lyricist Dave Heumann's vocals. He enunciates, he articulates each word carefully, in a way that suggests he wants you to actually hear what he's singing. And if you don't pay attention to that, you're missing out. This is, after all, a band that wrote an entire album ( The Gathering ) inspired by [...]
Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc [photos by acidjack] Bleeding Rainbow just released their first album, Yeah Right , under that band name, but the husband-and-wife team of Rob Garcia and Sarah Everton have been making music together for several years. As the band Reading Rainbow, the pair put out a couple of lo-fi records that hinted at, but didn't fully deliver on their potential. With Yeah Right , the band has a masterfully produced record that does. Now joined by Greg Frantz [...]
[Photo by acidjack] Virtually all of the music we cover on this website, partly by design, but partly by inertia, falls somewhere along the spectrum of "rock" music. Even if that's the case, that represents only a fraction of the music we listen to, or are interested in. New York remains a hotbed of activity for the still-vital jazz scene, and one of the easiest and most low-key ways to get some exposure to the scene right now is through The Palimpsestic Series, curated by Oscar Noriega at the Park Slope bar Barbès every Wednesday [...]
[photos by acidjack] I can still recall my short, sharp gasp upon first hearing Shara Worden, aka My Brightest Diamond , bring the song "Be Brave" to its climax. It was one of those precious moments for me when an artist's gift comes into focus, and goosebumps and rapt awe follow; when you realize you're hearing somebody who is that good. The song's theme of metamorphosis is expressed in both the mask Worden wears while performing it, as well as in its explosive peak. "Be changed, or be undone" is the [...]
[Photos by Dominick Mastrangelo ] Hospitality 's eponymous LP on Merge Records was one of the more underrated records of 2012. Short on gimmicks but filled with concise pop songwriting and excellent hooks, Hospitality is one of those records that may not blow your mind, but it can make your afternoon. Here in New York, the band sold out Glasslands handily for the record release party, and played other area shows at bigger venues like Brooklyn Bowl . But their Bowery moment ended up being postponed; this show [...]
Eidetic Seeing are continuing work into next year on a successor to their first LP, Drink The Sun , and since I last caught up with them at Public Assembly earlier this year, they've already made some evolutions in the new stuff. On a night filled with different psych/noise leaning artists, the Brooklyn psych rockers were easily the youngest band on the bill. If it scared them to be opening for Gibby Haynes, Dave Shuford's latest project and a Japanese guitar god, they didn't show it. Among the treats of this 33-minute set was [...]
The Japanese guitarist Suzuki Junzo 's latest album is entitled Ode To A Blue Ghost , and that is an apt description for the spectral noise that Junzo wrings from his guitar. I was not familiar with Junzo before this show, but he has had a long career in the Japanese guitar underground, cranking out a host of self- and label-released records. This show at Union Pool with fellow avant-gardists Rhyton , Eidetic Seeing and the Gibby Haynes and Kohoutek-affiliated Ultimate Vag gave fans of far-out psych and noise a lot [...]
[Photos courtesy of Bleary Eyed Brooklyn ] Donate to Jersey Shore Relief [ HERE ] We had several nights with incredible collaborations. We had "quieter" nights, and ones dedicated to guitar freakouts. But the final night of Yo La Tengo 's 2012 run was the night for obscure cover songs and left-field tunes. Of course, there was also a fitting almost entire-set collaboration, with Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub, whom YLT had opened for back in the 90s. YLT also brought up several other [...]
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And We'll Run
Noteworthy (Stream): Kanye West – Black Skinhead (SNL Performance)
Watch Fred Armisen’s SNL farewell with Carrie Brownstein, Kim Gordon, J Mascis, Aimee Mann
