If there’s no other Pitchfork festival band that you check out the full set for, make it Slowdive and you won’t regret it!
After their breakthrough third LP Too True and a Late Show with David Letterman appearance, Dum Dum Girls played two of their biggest headlining shows in NYC.
Midwestern rock duo makes music increasingly ravaged by winter, plays a show at the end of the worst one yet.
Two days, ten acts: Lizzo, Jeremy Messersmith, Best Coast, Matt and Kim, De La Soul, Valerie June, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Dessa, Guided by Voices, and Spoon.
Was it worth schlepping from New Jersey to Manhattan on the night of the city’s tenth-highest rainfall total in record-keeping history, to see these golden-voiced teenaged sisters from Indianapolis trill together? In a word: yes!
The Spudboys from Ohio land in the Big Apple and go down a storm, playing material recorded from 1974-1977.
An incomparable showman handles the violin with the light and playful manner his celebration rock requires.
Seven bands, two nights, thirty five bucks. What a bargain!
On the Emblems anniversary tour, the band is determined to articulate every sound as powerfully as possible, as if the songs, ten years older but ten times more vivid, can be made new again.
Day 3 of Boston Calling, featuring Modest Mouse, Brand New, Tegan and Sara, Phosphorescent, Kurt Vile, Built To Spill and more.
Karl’s voice is undiminished in its power and clarity after all these years, a time which included a brain aneurysm which left him with the inability to speak. That he recovered so well is a testament to his passion and drive as a musician.
Day 2 of Boston Calling, including sets from Death Cab For Cutie, The Decemberists, Warpaint and more.
Everything profound she follows with a laugh, sometimes in the middle of a song if she can break its spell.
Day 1 of the Spring edition of Boston Calling, featuring Jack Johnson, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, and Cass McCombs.
This show spotlighted the veteran trio’s new 32-song tenth LP Purgatory/Paradise, while Muses co-founder Donelly joined her half-sister Hersh on stage for five older numbers.
Yes, the night has darkness on it’s side but Elbow makes it all the more brighter and worth living, even if we still end up on the losing side.
This cozy mid-afternoon Greenpoint brunch gig, opening for veteran CT folkie Kath Bloom, was ideally suited to Draper’s soothing approach.
Annie Clark enacts a kind of science fiction story told in the relationship between herself and her guitar.
Not only does singer Nathan Hewitt bring to mind Swervedriver’s Adam Franklin, but the band also employs a similar no nonsense/no banter presentation, blasting through their ten-song set with workmanlike precision.
Sunday proved to be another very exceptional day of gorgeous sunny weather and psychedelic bands that challenged the mind and explored both the outer reaches of the genre and the melodic harmonies that it could fulfill. Unlike the way many shows and some festivals are right now, Austin Psych Fest is filled with people who want to actively listen and learn and that makes all of the difference for the bands and the mood overall.
It was another lovely day in Austin to experience all kinds of psychedelic music with influences from folk to drone to metal to pop to rock. The day seemed to be about people experiencing how far the genre could take them and enjoying both the onslaught of noise from the more aggressive bands to the relaxing sounds of music with a much different tone. Austin Psych Fest offered the whole spectrum of the genre for those with an adventurous spirit.
It was clear from the lineup that the entire festival is chocked full of psychedelic wonder but the ultimate and constant pleasure of experiencing that all day long under the sunny Austin sky was remarkable.
They squashed my ego, broke down all barriers of self-definition and aesthetics that one might use as quarantine, left me standing there stunned with only these words: What can I say, it’s a great band.
“Stand up, your father’s passing,” someone might have said.
The Rocket has returned.
WMBR’s Jon Bernhardt rallies some ’90s indie rock heroes for a celebration.
The greatest garage rock band in the world, brought to you by the Reverend Little Richard Penniman.
For the encore, they closed with an incredible version of “Coming Down” which featured Dee Dee bringing down the house with her vocal acrobatics. What a treat!
After closing the first set with “Dear Mr. Fantasy”, Mason took a short break, and soon returned with a clear focus on his solo work. “We Just Disagree” opened the second set, noting to all that this was now a Dave Mason show.
The trio’s first of two final shows focused on the bash ‘em out, ramshackle yet endearing punk days of their first two albums, and the career retrospective was a treat for longtime fans.
This rare, one-off Northeast appearance by superb new San Francisco ethereal band Slowness was hypnotic and resonant.
This was a bill so strong from top to bottom that we braved the icy tundra and slippery roads to make it out to this show.
Paisley Underground favorites The Bangles, The Three O’Clock, Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade reunited in December for a show benefitting Education Through Music – Los Angeles. Chicago-based rock photographer Philamonjaro was at L.A.‘s Henry Fonda Theatre to document the evening in this photo essay.
In which Samson’s big pants emphasize and also encumber the parts of the body her dance pop compels to movement.
For those in the audience, there was also a sense of joy to finally see such a heralded band during their first ever tour of the Southeast.
I suspect her band has tried the songs at every conceivable speed and then, finding the right one, often at the pace of deceptive leisure, they can finally play and let out their endless sigh.
In his shifting pronouns, in person, I got the fullest sense of Oldham’s expansive affection.
Last Splash, recreated with astonishing opulence and precision for at least the first five songs, then with forgivably less precision after that.
Dim lights, a carefully prepared stage: Some part of the band’s magic comes from these kinds of monumental concessions to Hope Sandoval’s shyness.
A long-awaited situation.
Case & Co. play music with unpredictable energy, regardless the clarity of the vocal that guides it.
If slightly bigger crowds are a sign of things to come for the band, then it is well-earned as the new album is great and their live show just keeps improving.
In late September, The Replacements played their final show of 2013 along with Iggy & The Stooges, Flag, Public Enemy and Naked Raygun in Byers, Colorado.
Their status as showmen quickly overrides any indifference to the substance of the show.
Though the title of their brand new album is I Hate Music, this past Tuesday’s show at Union Transfer proved (as if they need any at this point) that in fact the exact opposite is true.
