It was a no-brainer to take a road trip up to Syracuse when I learned I’d have an opportunity to sit down with none other than Ringo Starr! The occasion was the first gig of a tour by the All Starr Band featuring Steve Lukather and Todd Rundgren on guitars, […]
Rock
383 posts
Sunflower Bean at Flamingo Cantina in Austin for SXSW 3-16-16 & coming to House Of Vans as part of the annual Brooklyn hootenanny known as the Northside Festival on Thursday 6-9-16 Love the Bean! The Wednesday afternoon performance that you get a taste of in the accompanying video was a […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Jeff Buckley’s You And I was released on 3-11-16. It was met with praise from artists like Adele and Chris Cornell among many others, especially here in NYC, who were touched and continue to be touched by his music. The two men who were in the studio with Jeff Buckley […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Cult Brings Hidden City Tour To Gramercy Theatre 2-17-16 The Cult rolled into town to play a pair of intimate (for them) venues after unleashing their tenth studio album this month. Frontman Ian Astbury explained that Hidden City completes a trilogy of 21st century Cult albums that began in 2007 with Born […]
Antibalas Talks Afrobeat & Brooklyn Bowl Residency Antibalas has been an essential NYC band since they came together around the turn of the century. This year, in a monthly series of concerts, they are unveiling new material, cross-pollinating with some guests like Angelique Kidjo. and basically opening up the well-oiled, high-powered […]
Pop.1280: Intense Album Release Show At Silent Barn Pop.1280 has nothing to do with pop. They are named after the excellent Jim Thompson novel Pop.1280 which is a reference to the population of a small Texas county that a homicidal sheriff presides over. Ivan Lipp and Chris Bug, who were […]
Iggy Pop Will Spearhead Tibet House Benefit Concert; Philip Glass Interview A tremendous lineup headed by Iggy Pop has been unveiled for this year’s Tibet House benefit concert happening Monday, February 22nd at Carnegie Hall. FKA twigs, Sharon Jones, Basia Bulat and Dechen Shak-Dagsay with Helge van Dyk will all perform […]
Derek Trucks Reveals Special Sauce of Tedeschi Trucks Band – Epic show on Tuesday at The Apollo by the TTB! They are a twelve piece juggernaut and, as Derek explained in the interview, with trust as their foundation, they’ve never before been this locked in…this dangerous and ready to go […]
David Bowie Obit: “He Was The Best There Is” I woke up, I suppose like most of us did today, to find the world was a poorer place; to find that David Bowie had died. Along with the news was a directive from my editor at NY1 requesting an obit […]