You’ll forgive me if I wallow in a little self-indulgence this week – a new job and, more importantly, lethargy have prevented me from bothering to care about most music-related matters this week, outside of reminding myself quite how brilliant The Hold Steady truly are. If you don’t own any of their records, it’s important that you go buy one right now. In fact, buy all of them. They’re lovely. Two music matters that I…
Album name: Sweethead Artist name: Sweethead Genre: Rock Released: November 2 2009 Label: Strange Addiction/Play It Again, Sam ZME Rating: 5/10 Website: sweethead.net I sure hope the record company suit who decided it’d be a good idea to release Sweethead’s debut album in early November is picking bullet fragments out of his own navicular bone right now. Sweethead, if you didn’t know, are the side project of Queens of the Stone Age’s multi-purpose axeman, Troy…
One of my personal most anticipated release of the upcoming new year is definitely Spoon’s “Transference”. We’ve talked a bit about the new Spoon record in the past, more exactly about the few Transference tracks that have already been played live on the band’s last tour. It now seems people will get the chance to have a first hand account of the new Spoon sooner than one may think, as in the following months the…
The Gaslight Anthem | “The ’59 Sound” | 2008 From its Born to Run opening riff to its down-and-out, working man lyrics (including repeated lines), the title track to The Gaslight Anthem’s second outing is the best pure rock song of the Aughts. [Maybe I’m slightly biased. It is, as of the time of this writing, the second-most played song on my last.fm account.] To give you an idea of just how Springsteen-esque this song…
Spoon | “The Underdog” | 2007 Perhaps it isn’t surprising – or, isn’t supposed to be – that the most fun song Spoon released this decade features uplifting Motown-esque horns. The lyrics, too, are notably upbeat with a concise message of not giving up, laying down in the face of difficulty or, most importantly, being (or becoming) social garnish. The song’s lyrics are quotable ad infinitum, whether he’s describing what perfection is to most people…
“Realism”, the third Magnetic Fields record in the “no-synth” trilogy (following i and Distortion) is slated for a early 2010 release, so evidently a grand North America tour has been announced to support it. Merrit and company can be seen playing their soothing indie pop starting from February, when the tour will kick off in DC, before coming to an epic end in London towards the end of March. A somewhat brief trek, indeed, but…
SNL’s satire music video I’m on a Boat stirred a lot of comments when it first surfaced more than half a year ago, bashing auto-tune and the current MTV scene. Looks like some well intended good-doers decided to capitalize on the video’s viral success and produce a hilarious spoof to help raise money and donate goats for some of the poorest people and villages in India. People just have to head over to the project’s…
The Clash of the Titans 1991 tour was one of the most epic and spectacular series of metal gigs to ever have graced the planet, basically making various venues in the US and Europe the very center of the scene for a day. Now, Megadeth and Slayer are set to embark on a tour of almost equal proportions in 2010, called the American Carnage Tour. They even brought on Testament as openers to re-create the…
If only had to use one word to describe Les Savy Fav’s latest brand new song, titled “Shoes” and recorded for kids show Yo Gabba Gabba, then it would definitely be awkward. Hey, don’t get me wrong, they’ve made plenty of crazier stuff, but it’s this new cute side of theirs, which the band just unveiled as part of their soundtrack for the latest YBB episode, that really freaks me out. Even frontman Tim Harrington…
People are stupid. Unendingly, gruesomely stupid, like a lobotomised, shaved badger – every last one of us a fetid, gormless lump of uselessness. I apologise for the crass generalisation there, but really, it needed to be said. And really, I should have said it in big bold letters: a collection of blithe, oblivious pixels, squatted thoughtlessly right there on your screen, taunting the entire laughable idea of your pointless existence. A person is just a…
Al Byrne
Tibi Puiu
Steve Lampiris