Rolling Stones - 'GRRR!' CD Review (ABKCO)

"GRRR!" is sound most Rolling Stones fans make when realizing they have to buy yet another greatest hits compilation to hear two new songs (of middling quality). If fans choose to trade up to the 'super deluxe edition' ($139.88 on Amazon), they can also get the official release of the 1963 IBC Demos along with a 1964 BBC session (both of which have been widely bootlegged and readily available for the past couple decades). With all of the economic...

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Young Things - 'Hello Love / Goodbye Sexual' CD Review

After having recently slogged through too many releases where I either couldn't figure out what the band was trying to accomplish or was simply being bored by the release, Brooklyn's Young Things' debut disc Hello Love // Goodbye Sexual goes a long way toward re-establishing my faith that there is still exciting music out there. Young Things seem to take vocal queues from Queen but combine this with soaring melodic hooks and garage-rock riffs that...

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The Velvet Underground & Nico 45th Anniversary CD Review [Super Deluxe Edition]

I'll be glad when this wave of $100 'super deluxe edition' / 'experience edition' box sets passes. Most of these releases seem like overkill and are either targeted to the 'newbie' who wants a multi-disc, greatest hits collection (plus the inevitable 'bonus tracks' exclusive to the box set) or completists who think having '50 takes' of the same song is a cool concept. The problem I have with the "super deluxe edition" of Velvet Underground &...

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Fear (Lee Ving) - 'The Fear Record' CD Review (The End Records)

Well...I've done a side-by-side comparison between The Fear Record and Fear's - The Record (the 1991 Slash/London CD version) and here is how the two compare. To start with the obvious differences, the Slash/London contain the single "Fuck Christmas", which was recorded during the sessions for The Record but wasn't issued until after the record was released. The Fear Record contains re-recorded versions of all fourteen tracks that were originally...

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Stevie Ray Vaughan - 'The Fire Meets the Fury: The Radio Broadcasts 1999" CD Review

Let's start with the obvious questions - this disc was not recorded in 1999 but in 1989, on the final dates of Stevie Ray's tour with Jeff Beck. This disc is also not a 'bootleg' but a copyright gap CD where (if I understand the UK laws correctly) artist permission is not needed to reproduced radio broadcasts that are more than twenty years old. As such, the disc is readily available through Amazon.co.uk and third-party sellers have this disc available...

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Guillotine Riot: Porno-Punk Band Plays Fontana's on Nov. 28th / Recording New Album w/ Steve Albini in the Spring

I've read too many band bios that read something like the following - 'Timmy and Tommy were best friends since childhood and formed a Bright Eyes tribute band in high school. The duo started writing their own music (which Timmy's grandmother said sounds better than Bright Eyes) and moved to New York to make it big. Thus far, the duo has played legendary clubs like Sidewalk Cafe and Arelene's Grocery (where THE STROKES got their start!!)'. To that...

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Cotton Club Parade: A Celebration of the Music of Duke Ellington Made an Encore Return to City Center for a 6-Show Run

Broadway musical Cotton Club Parade opened for a limited six-show run at City Center earlier this month. The show is an exhilarating celebration of Duke Ellington's four year residency at the famed Harlem nightclub which started in 1927, "when the joint was jumping with revues featuring big band swing and blues, dancers, singers, comedians and novelty acts". Jazz virtuoso Wynton Marsalis serves as the musical director and he and the Jazz at Lincoln...

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Joshua James - 'From the Top of Willamette Mountain' CD Review ( Intelligent Noise)

Folk/Americana artist Joshua James spent five years touring the world in support of his first two discs, 2007’s The Sun Is Always Brighter and 2009’s Build Me This. In early 2011, he headed back to Utah, and, during this extended stay at home, James took to vegetable gardening, raising goats and chickens, and developed a heightened connection to the living things around him. Ultimately, his home and burgeoning farm were deemed ‘Willamette Mountain,’...

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Stone Cold Fox - 'The Young' EP CD Review / Show at Bowery Electric on Dec. 7th

Stone Cold Fox formed last year but the band has an immediately recognizable sound that is rooted in the post Brit-Pop sound of the bands of the late-90’s. Vocalist Kevin Olken has a distinctive and emotive voice and the band plays intricate and atmospheric indie-pop, which easily leads to comparisons to bands like Coldplay, The Walkmen and early Radiohead. Stone Cold Fox’ was formed last year by Kevin Olken and Ariel Loh and the duo’s acoustic...

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Sacred Reich - 'Live at Wacken' CD/DVD Review (Metal Blade)

STREAM: Sacred Reich - "Surf Nicaragua" (From Live at Wacken)It has been 15 years since Arizona political-thrasher Sacred Reich released their last disc but that changes on November 20th, when Metal Blade releases a DVD/CD of the band’s performance at Wacken in 2007. Live at Wacken was recorded on the band’s very brief 20th Anniversary tour with this show taking place at the Waken Open Air festival on August 4, 2007, in front of 60,000 metal fans.Sacred...

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Nathan Xander (Indie-Americana) Plays an Early Show at Mercury Lounge on November 19th

Nathan Xander by Nathan Xander"...it's sad, haunting, beautiful, universal and lingers in your brain... Nathan Xander's songs are simple but smart, sparse but with space and definitely get to the heart of matters of the heart." - Reglar Wiglar 'Indie-Americana' probably isn't an accurate label (but I couldn't come up with anything better) as this isn't the 'rustic alt-country twang' of many of the artists who occupy the Americana genre. Xanders'...

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Joshua James Premiers Video for "Queen of the City" from 'From The Top Of Willamette Mountain' (Intelligent Noise)

DOWNLOAD: Joshua James - "Queen of the City"(Photo: Jake Buntjer)From The Top Of Willamette Mountain (released Nov. 6th via Intelligent Noise) is a collection of 11 songs that hone James' singular voice and further establish him as a formidable artist. Sweeping album opener "Mystic" immediately sets the tone with its evocative dynamics and soul-searching lyrics, while "Surrender" is a classic, early '60s pop waltz through existential angst, and "Wolves"...

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Jah Wobble & Keith Levene - 'Yin & Yang' CD Review (Cherry Red Records)

Jah Wobble described the impetus behind this new album (and reunion with original PiL guitarist Keith Levene) by saying "I reunited with Keith a couple of years ago. He was off smack and keen to play again. We had a bash in a rehearsal room and it went well. To start with I got him to play on three tracks of the album (Psychic Life) that I was making with Julie Campbell (Lonelady). Since then we have performed ‘Metal Box in Dub’ live. These shows...

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The Doors - "Live at the Bowl '68" CD Review (Rhino)

"What the world needs now is another folk singerlike I need a hole in my head." - "Teen Angst" by CrackerOver the last decade, there has been overabundance of archival live material from The Doors so the key question with this release is whether the world needs yet another Doors' live album. While the other Doors live albums have all been previously unreleased (commercially), Live at the Bowl has an interesting heritage as this July 5, 1968 performance...

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The Heiress: Three Upcoming Performances Will Include Post-Show Q&A With Cast (moderated by Karen Holt - O Magazine)

The Heiress is the story of Catherine Sloper, the shy and sheltered daughter of a prominent New Yorker. Caught between the demands of an emotionally distant father and the attentions of a passionate young suitor, Catherine must navigate the terrain of love and regret, desire and duty, a chance for happiness and the burden of fortune…as only an heiress can. The broadway production was “suggested by” Henry James’s 1880 novel Washington Square, and...

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The Hounds Below (x-Von Bodies) Play Rock Shop Tomorrow (Nov-14) and The Delancey on Friday (Nov-16)

You Light Me Up In The Dark by The Hounds BelowAfter Detroit garage rockers The Von Bodies broke up last year, vocalist/guitarist Jason Stollsteimer wasted no time in making The Hounds Below his next full-time project. Moving from garage rock to post-punk, All Music called the band's debut disc Light Me Up in the Dark (released last month) "a meeting point between The Cure, early U2, The Pixies and a number of other bands of similar vintage".Last time through, The Hounds Below were supporting The Cribs so they played the not-so-intimate Bowery...

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Aimee Mann Posts Video for "Soon Enough" from "Charmer" (Superego Records)

The long awaited new album from Aimee Mann, Charmer, is available now on Superego Records. Influenced by what Mann calls the “super pop” of the 70s and 80s, the album is her first release since 2008’s celebrated @#%&*! Smilers, which the BBC called “undeniably beautiful.” Of Charmer, her eighth studio album, Mann comments, “I’m fascinated by charming people and the whole idea of charm. It's hard to remember sometimes that there is usually an...

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Queen - "Hungarian Rhapsody" CD/DVD Review (Eagle Rock)

With the flood of “deluxe edition” reissues and archival releases over the last few years, I’m convinced that most major labels don’t have a clue about the artists on their label or the demographic that they are attempting to target as many of these releases look like poorly designed cash grabs. With all the great Queen archival material that has been “floating around” as bootlegs over the last few decades, who thought releasing a full-priced...

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The Heiress (Jessica Chastain and Dan Stevens) Opened on Broadway on Nov. 1st

Seeing The Heiress in previews was one of the last things I was able to do before Sandy hit...the show opened at The Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street) on November 1st and this limited run engagement closes on February 10th.The show runs two hours and forty-five minutes but the time passes quickly as the play tells the story of naive and socially-awkward heiress Catherine Sloper (Jessica Chastain) who struggles to balance the demands of an...

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