Diamond Rugs hung out in NYC a bit recently for a David Letterman appearance and a gig opening last Sunday June 24th for Alabama Shakes at Central Park on Summerstage. On Tuesday, I met the Rugs at WFUV where they performed five tracks from the album and chatted with me […]
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The Heavy and The Hives have some things in common. Both gave hard driving, sweaty performances and interacted with their audiences in a way that fed their energy while working fans into a lather at sold out venues – The Heavy at The Mercury Lounge on Monday, June 18th, 2012 […]
I recently traveled to the home of Columbia Records in the Sony Building on Madison avenue to visit with Patti Smith. The hallways there are filled with beautiful framed photographs of legendary Columbia artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Adjacent to the door of the room where we met […]
I don’t remember ever having heard the 1979 classic Cruel to be Kind in concert before last month but I heard it twice in the span of a couple of weeks. The first was at the Nick Lowe show at Town Hall on April 25th. The 63 year old Lowe […]
Jonathan Meiburg is a fascinating guy and a wildly talented singer. He and the touring lineup of Shearwater favored me with four songs from their latest Animal Joy in WFUV’s Studio A this past Friday (2/24/12) before a show with Sharon Van Etten who, JM explained to me after the […]
Right! Another year in the books and the time to go on the record (pun intended) about what recordings offered the most moving, cathartic, revolutionary, kick-ass, and/or ones with a good beat that you can dance too music. First, in case you missed it, my top ten of this year: […]
Top Ten Albums of 2011 1. Paul Simon; So Beautiful or So What 2. Tom Waits; Bad as Me 3. Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: Rome 4. Wilco; The Whole Love 5. Wild Flag; Wild Flag 6. Feist; Metals 7. Real Estate; Days 8. Girls; Father, Son, Holy Ghost 9. […]
After seeing the first ever Horrible Crowes show at the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday evening, I was fortunate enough to host a session with them Friday. They were fantastic on both occasions and a bunch of good eggs. Brian Fallon (in the plain white T-shirt), whose established himself as a […]
One of my favorite songwriters, John Hiatt, gave me one of my favorite interviews on the occasion of the release of his 20th solo album, Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns. He talked with me about the process of making the album and how a new producer helped usher in some […]
The Vaccines – Justin Young (vocals, guitar), Árni Árnason (bass), Freddie Cowan (guitar), Pete Robinson (drums) – just released their debut album, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines, and back in January the London-based 4-piece did their first ever interview in the USA with me (representing WFUV and The […]
At the end of 2009, I was asked to pick the top ten albums for the last five decades. Having to choose at least ten for every decade significantly changed the list compared to what it would be if the parameters were simply the best 50 albums over the past […]
…the links are to my video reviews of the album or a concert appearance by the band. 1 Spoon: Transference 2 Corinne Bailey Rae: The Sea 3 Grinderman: Grinderman 2 4 Black Keys: Brothers 5 Erykah Badu: New Amerika 2 – Return of the Ankh 6 Broken Bells: S/T 7 […]
There’s no escaping the Irishness of Villagers. As I waited around a very crowded Mercury Lounge on Wednesday night, (November 3, 2010) I heard the word grand and the expression fair play more than is usual for that part of the Lower East Side. Half the title of the opening […]
Two CDs that I have been putting in the player a lot this year are The Liberty of Norton Folgate by Madness and REM’s Live at The Olympia. Despite the fact that the former was released almost a full year ago and the latter about six months ago, here’s a […]
Recently I was asked to pick top ten albums for the last five decades. Having to choose at least ten for every decade significantly changed the list compared to what it would be if the parameters were simply the best 50 albums over the past 50 years. If that were […]