Bloc Party at Bangers in Austin on 3-17-16 during SXSW & at Governors Ball this Friday, 6-3-16. Bloc Party is one of the more interesting rock bands in the world. They are nothing but flavorful and modern; unpredictable from minute to minute within songs, from tune to tune on albums, […]
Live Music
503 posts
Bad Boy Concerts Celebrate The Notorious B.I.G. May 20th & 21st at Barclays Center About as big a hip hop hootenanny as could possibly occur happened on Friday and Saturday nights at The Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was the start of the Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour that sees […]
Youssou N’Dour & his longtime band Le Super Etoile de Dakar at BAM; May 20 (and 21) 2016 Youssou N’Dour is one of the most famous singers in the world and is without doubt the African artist with the greatest name recognition both on his home continent and off it. […]
Cage The Elephant, even though I had to recall the Bart Gets An Elephant episode of The Simpsons (season 5) to find the proper verb, ran amok in Central Park converting their fans into zealots and the non-committed into fans. After having an ear on them for the last eight […]
Soprano Ying Fang Shines At Juilliard’s Vocal Arts Recital on May 9, 2016 Last Monday on the Upper West Side was a great chance to savor the beauty of the human voice – the right human voice that is as projected by one Ying Fang. It’s amazing to see somebody […]
Bob Mould at Webster Hall April 29, 2016 “…Count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is […]
Bunny Wailer at BB Kings 5-1-16, Pearl Jam 5-2-16 I was almost resigned to missing the most important living reggae artist coming to NYC for the first time in a decade because I was holding Pearl Jam tickets. However, after being reminded by my pal Dr. Dub (yes, I do […]
Naughty By Nature with Smif N Wessun and Black Moon at Stage 48 on April 29, 2016 If you were around New York City in the mid 90’s and had any kind of interest in hip hop, the lineup at Stage 48 last Friday no doubt has some appeal. Naughty […]
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down captured 4-4-16 at WFUV HERE you go! The fabulous Thao and I in a conversation airing on WFUV tonight (at 8 on 90.7 FM and WFUV.org) and a generous 3 songs on video: Astonished Man, Departure, and Guts…which the woman has shown plenty […]
Graham Parker & Brinsley Schwarz at City Winery on Wednesday night April 27, 2016 The first time I saw Graham Parker, and got to appreciate his cool delivery of wicked, street-smart lyrics, was when I was just short of my sixteenth birthday in June of 1985 at the Worcester Centrum. […]
National Jazz Museum In Harlem Celebrates New Digs After 15 years in East Harlem, The National Jazz Museum In Harlem is now near the center of the action uptown. It’s at 58 West 129th Street just off Malcolm X Boulevard a few blocks from Red Rooster and Sylvia’s and Corner […]
2 Kinds of Bronx Tales: Dion & Pusha T Dion and Pusha T don’t have a hell of a lot in common but they were both born in The Bronx. Dion was born in 1939 and grew up around Arthur Avenue. Dion and his group The Belmonts, named for the […]
PINS Set To Drop In On NYC As a fan of PINS, having been exposed to their first record Girls Like Us as well as the follow up Wild Nights released last summer, I was determined to seek them out in Austin. Even though it wasn’t especially convenient to hop […]
Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair Hit Beacon Theatre 4/4/16 Some cool moments last night. Billy Corgan participated in a Bowie tribute show that happened a couple of nights before by playing Space Oddity. Liz Phair came out and sang backup for one. Corgan also covered Angie by The Stones, Zwan, and, […]
Loving Farewells To David Bowie At NYC Tribute Concerts – Quick peek at Radio City show on 4/1/16 and interview with Woody Woodmansey The series of tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall, that Michael Dorf (best known as the man behind the Knitting Factory and now City Wineries) began in 2004 […]
Hiromi Plays In Colors, At Highline Ballroom This Week (3/30 & 3/31) Whew – Hiromi can play! As she explained when I had a chance to speak with her this week, she was born in Hamamatsu so she she shares a hometown with the manufacturer of the pianos she plays […]
Basia Bulat, The Kills Impress At SXSW – On Way To NYC I’m a relative rookie when it comes to Basia Bulat but got turned on to her not so long ago by hearing her stuff on WFUV and began to fall under her spell. I saw BB when she […]
Peaches told me she had promised herself she’d never play the South by Southwest music festival again. She turned up in Austin for the shebang a decade ago and wasn’t sure she needed to do it twice. Fortunately the inimitable Canadian/Berliner/Los Angeleno decided to break that promise and put on […]
SXSW 2016: Iggy Pop To Loretta Lynn To ASAP Ferg To Infinity And Beyond 3-15 through 3-20-2016 I’ve never seen a more exciting performer on stage than Iggy Pop. Therefore, my top priority in Austin was connecting with Ig along with his recently minted group spearheaded by his new mainman […]
Dropkick Murphys Celebrate 20 Years At Webster Hall 3-9 (and 3-10) 2016 Twenty years; not bad for a band that was started on a bet! The man who took that bet was Dropkick Murphys founder as well as bassman and vocalist Ken Casey. The band formed in Quincy (part of […]
Brandon Curtis Unveils Cosmicide At Pianos 2-25-16; last of 4 show Thursdays in February residency I caught Secret Machines at the long-shuttered Annex in, I’m reasonably sure, the fall of 07 when I had just moved to New York. It was an amazing show: loud, swirling, and to use the […]
Not a lot of hip hop goes on at The Blue Note but Talib Kweli moved in for four shows over two nights last week following a similar run in February. The Brooklyn-raised MC known for his thoughtful, politically-charged rhymes, entered the game in 98 with the potent Mos Def & Talib […]
The Struts Back In NYC For Release Of Debut Album Everybody Wants The Struts were at Irving Plaza last night, March 3rd 2016, celebrating the worldwide release of their debut album Everybody Wants that comes out today. The quartet formed in Derby, England in 2012, are Luke Spiller who is from Brighton […]
The Loser’s Lounge is a phrase you may have heard of if you have been around the city since the early nineties when the concept was born. The prime mover is Joe McGinty who was coming off a five year gig playing keyboards with The Psychedelic Furs. He explained that […]
Rosanne Cash Crushes Carnegie Hall (Headlining) Debut 2-20-16 One might have thought that an artist of the stature of Rosanne Cash would have headlined Carnegie Hall before but that was not the case and it was clear that Rosanne was excited about the show. She and her husband of 21 […]