We didn’t really know Babe the Blue OX in its 1990s heyday, when the band was a regular(-ish) feature on bills around New York City. We heard and appreciated some of its recordings, and were charmed by its Paul Bunyan-esque name and Barbra Streisand-ish album titles.
For whatever reason, we never saw Babe live until a couple of years ago, when the members decided to come out of accidental retirement and start playing on a semi-regular basis again.
(Full disclosure: We met and became friendly with singer-guitarist Tim Thomas through his day job as a fund-raiser for a nonprofit long before we even realized he was in Babe.)
You have less than a week to buy your weekend passes to this great festival before the price goes up
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? has told you before, and is taking this opportunity to tell you again: Solid Sound, Wilco’s music and arts festival at MASS MoCA is one of the best music festivals ever. We’ve attended the first two editions and have no intention of missing V3 this year — on June 21-23 at the museum in North Adams, Mass. Continue reading →
With the new album officially out, the long-MIA anti-folk artist is performing again, too
Nothing about Jamie Block suggests he’s a man of few words — just a man who doesn’t waste words.
For years, it even showed in his performance identity: Block. Not Jamie Block, just Block, thank you very much.
Jamie Block’s new Whitecaps on the Hudson
It seems that he was saving the words for his songs, which on his latest (and long-overdue) album, Whitecaps on the Hudson, are perfectly crafted stories of a man whose life has had some twists and turns.
It’s a memorable work that reminds us why the music world has been much poorer during Block’s overlong absence.
The powerful young R&B-inflected singer reminds us that Nina Simone is most definitely not Motown
It could have happened to anyone. Someone who wrote about Alice Smith‘s first night of a three-Tuesday residency at New York City’s Rockwood Music Hall made a mistake. In describing Alice’s set at the tiny Lower East Side venue, the writer said “she did a few covers of a few classic Motown tracks.” (We won’t name the blog or link to the post, but if you really want to see the whole thing, we’re sure you know how to find it.)
Sure, it’s a big mistake. But who knew that Alice read her notices? And who would have expected a critique?
If the predicted nightmare blizzard doesn’t bring New York City to a screeching halt on Friday, you should be at Barbès in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood to catch a surprisingly un-publicized gig by Stew & The Negro Problem.
Performs with many old friends in a sold-out ‘Club 47′ show at Boston Symphony Hall tonight
Watch starting at 7:30 tonight on Livestream (link after the jump)
Tom Rush (Photo by Michael Wiseman).
It’s hard to believe that singer Tom Rushhas been performing since 1962, but the calendar doesn’t lie.
Tom Rush onstage in 1962. (Photo by Jim Eng)
Tonight he’s marking the milestone with an intimate gathering at a little place in Boston – not far from his old stomping grounds at Club 47 in Cambridge – called Symphony Hall.
It’s a venue where Tom has held forth with his friends many times over the years. It can hold upwards of 2,600 people. Not bad for an old folkie to sell out a joint like that.
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? is planning to make the trek to Boston for this incredibly special show.
Check out lots of photos from Hanukkah Night 4, with Yo La Tengo, Kid Millions, Todd Barry and Real Estate at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J.
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? was pleased to see a relatively young local band, Real Estate, on the bill for Night 4.
We love the old favorites, like The Feelies. But there are more than a few upstarts out there, and some of them are really good. Real Estate qualifies. The band’s singer-guitarist, Martin Courtney, clearly loves many of the same musical influences that Yo La Tengo‘s members revere.
Real Estate did a solid set and gave us our first opportunity ever to see them perform. We already liked their recorded sound. We need to see them again.
Todd Barry gave a perfectly timed, just-long-enough performance. He’s a musician’s comedian whose wry humor fit well with the feel of the evening.
Yo La Tengo.
We have dozens out more images from last night’s show after the jump, including a gallery of an Ira Kaplan organ freakout!
But before we get there, take a moment to check out the new video from YLT’s upcoming album, Fade, which drops on Jan. 15.
Good stuff, with the ever-wonderful Georgia Hubley on lead vocal, and great animation by her sister, Emily Hubley.
Spec Bebop
We’re An American Band
The Crying of Lot G
20th Century Boy (T-Rex)
Out the Window
The Point of It
The Summer
Don’t Have To Be So Sad
Double Dare (acoustic)
Big Day Coming (fast)
Nothing To Hide
Decora
Mushroom Cloud of Hiss
*(encore)*
Burnin’ For You (Blue Öyster Cult) (with Todd Barry on drums)
Our Way To Fall (with Martin Courtney of Real Estate on vocals)
Yo La Tengo continued its massively wonderful holiday tradition, kicking off the first of eight shows — one for each night of Hanukkah — on Saturday night. The proceeds from tickets and most merchandise goes to charity. (This year all the charities support Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts.)_
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? managed to score tickets to four of the eight nights — not an easy thing to do the way TicketFly is set up.
Our first night was Night 2, when the amazing Sun Ra Arkestra (imagine a DOZEN musicians on the tiny Maxwell’s stage!) was the opener and Fred Armisen of “Saturday Night Live” and “Portlandia” was both the comedian and a musical guest.
Night 3 featured Hoboken’s hometown heroes The Feelies, which opened with a very strong set, and the members of which sat in at various points of YLT’s set. Guitarist and vocalist Glenn Mercer was absolutely on fire all night. And Brenda Sauter did a great job on vocals for “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” “SNL” writer John Mulaney was the comic for Night 3.
We’ll be back tonight, but wanted to share some images of nights 2 and 3 with you now.
This is a tradition that has been going on for 11 years, YLT’s Ira Kaplan pointed out last night. We hope it continues for many years to come.
Click through to the jump for lots of photos from Sunday and Monday nights’ shows.
It’d be difficult for even the most vitriolic Amanda Palmer hater to fault the controversial, publicity-seeking — oh, and talented, too — artist for canceling her touring schedule for the forseeable future.
Her best friend is struggling with cancer. “He has cancer. Leukemia. A bad kind,” as she put it in her blog.
So she’s going to stay home with him until the situation is resolved.
While that may seem to be coded language to suggest she’ll be there at his side until he dies, she doesn’t seem to look at it in such a fatalistic way.
“We don’t know what the outcome will be,” she says.
Good for her.
Amanda’s move is similar, in terms of its personality-revealing quality, to Fiona Apple‘s recent decision to leave the tour circuit to be with her dying dog.
Read the full text of Amanda’s announcement after the jump,
As predicted, Jihae did the unexpected last night at the Mercury Lounge.
She didn’t put on an artsy opera, and she wasn’t (except for one song) in girl-with-a-guitar mode.
Instead, she was a proud rock chick, complete with a leather motorcycle jacket that somehow didn’t manage to violate her Eileen Fisher fashion style. (And yes, at least one person from Eileen Fisher, the designer for whom Jihae is a key model, was in the audience. It was Rebecca Perrin.
Click through to the jump to hear what Jihae sounded like last night.
