Category: Alt rock

My top 25 albums of 2016 – #’s 10-6

We’re into the top ten!

#10 

If you know me well, then you shouldn’t be surprised that a new record by Deap Vally made it into my top test list of any given year.  Femejism, besides having the greatest album title of the year, is solid beginning to end with the sizzling guitar, sexy / snarling vocals, and powerhouse drumming they do so well.

#9 

The debut LP from Goggs (or is it “G0ggs?”) is the loudest, wildest punk rock record I’ve heard all year.  Ty Segall, who plays guitar on the record, has quickly become one of the most prolific artists in music, and everything he puts out is worth hearing.

#8 

Of course a Radiohead record was going to be in the top 10.  A Moon Shaped Pool continues the band’s metamorphosis into this generation’s Pink Floyd.  It’s beautifully crafted, but a heavy listen.  It might be the saddest break-up (Thom Yorke from his long-time girlfriend) record of 2016.

#7 

“Holy crap” is the way I described my reaction upon first hearing A Tribe Called Quest‘s We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service to a friend.  This friend, Dee Tension, is a hip-hop producer, beat maker, and MC in Boston, and he claimed he’d been listening to it daily since its release.  You might, too, upon hearing it.  It’s not only a loving tribute to founding member Phife Dawg, but also a sharp critique on race, politics, gentrification, and much more.

#6 

Speaking of great returns, Underworld had another one we needed in 2016.  Barbara, Barbara, We Face a Shining Future is the most uplifting and optimistic record of the year.  Every song is about seeing good times ahead and remembering how every moment is divine.

We’re almost there.  Who makes the top 5?  Tune in tomorrow!

Keep your mind open.

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My top 25 live shows of 2016 – #’s 15-11

Who killed it live this year?  Keep reading!

#15 – Death from Above 1979 at the Chicago House of Blues October 13th

Yeah, the whole show was this crazy.  It was a rough pit, but worth a couple spins through it to feed off the energy DFA1979 were throwing at us.

#14 – Buzzcocks at the Vic Theatre in Chicago September 22nd

Speaking of rough mosh pits, I helped break up a fight in this one.  I’d been waiting a long time to see Buzzcocks, and it was well worth it.

#13 – Clutch at Pierre’s in Fort Wayne, Indiana June 10th

“Hottest show of the tour.  No question,” said Clutch lead singer Neal Fallon.  It was indeed damn hot in there, and Clutch seemed to use the heat like a furnace to create some sort of alchemical spell.

#12 – Golden Dawn Arkestra at Levitation Austin May 1st

My wife and I were front and center for the funkiest show we saw all year.  The crowd was bonkers by the end of their set.  “I almost left,” said one woman as we were leaving the show.  “I’m glad I stayed.”  Shame on you if you missed it.

#11 – Ceu at the City Winery in Chicago June 24th

This was a beautiful show in an intimate venue, and Brazilian bossa nova / eletro siren Ceu had the whole room in the palm of her hand by the end of it.  I couldn’t stop grinning through the whole performance.

 

Who’s in the top 10?  Come back tomorrow to see!

Keep your mind open.

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My top 25 albums of 2016 – #’s 15-11

We’re halfway to #1 on the countdown!

#15 

The Kills released a great album for their 15th anniversary.  Ash & Ice oozes with their sweaty, smoky, whiskey-tinged rock and is one of the best albums about love and sex from 2016.

#14 

I didn’t expect a full record of shoegaze from the Duke Spirit, but Kin is the best shoegaze record I’ve heard all year (and probably of the last two or three years).

#13

All Them Witches released a live album last year (which I still need to get), teased a new album for this year, and started 2016 with Dying Surfer Meets His Maker – a great blend of stoner metal and blues voodoo rock.

#12 

Comacozer contacted me through this website and asked if I’d like to hear their record.  I’m glad I said yes, because this stoner metal album, Astra Planeta, is amazing.

#11 

The KVB make excellent dark wave and shoegaze.  It’s a bit difficult to believe at first that just two people produce that much sound.  Of Desire was recorded on vintage synthesizers and sequencers, and the rich sound produced is excellent.

Who’s made it into my top 10 for 2016?  Come back tomorrow to find out!

Keep your mind open.

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My top 25 live shows of 2016 – #’s 20-16

Let’s keep rollin’ with this countdown of great live shows from 2016!

#20 – Seal at Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, MI August 27th.

It was just him, a DJ / synth player, and a guitarist, and they knocked it out of the park.  He even dabbled in some dark wave versions of some of his songs and he knows how to work a crowd.

#19 – Wolfmother at the Double Door in Chicago, IL July 10th

The whole show was this crazy.  It was probably the sweatiest show I attended all year as well, and completely worth it.

#18 – Jeff the Brotherhood at Middle Waves Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN September 17th

That photo, taken by yours truly, pretty much says it all.  They hammered out a loud set in the post-rain sunlight that won over many new fans.  They played a lot of new material that was quite good.  I need to get their new album soon.

#17 – Bully at Middle Waves Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN September 16th

They closed one of the Middle Waves stages on the first night of the festival and had everyone roaring by the end of their set.  They were the best act that night.

#16 – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Chicago House of Blues October 13th

BRMC always puts on a good show, and this one was no exception.  They played a shorter than normal set due to some equipment malfunction (I think it was a screwed-up monitor.), but they worked around it by playing songs they hadn’t planned on playing and altering some guitar parts.  It was a great example of a band on top of their game and able to improvise if things get weird.

Who’s in the top 15?  Check back tomorrow to see!

Keep your mind open.

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My top 25 albums of 2016 – #’s 20-16

The countdown continues!

#20 

This is the best funk / Afrobeat record I’ve heard in a long time.  Golden Dawn Arkestra will get you moving and possibly transport you to another dimension.

#19 I happened to catch Ron Gallo at a show in Fort Wayne and was glad I did because his RG3 EP is one of the best EP’s I’ve snagged all year.  I need to get his full album pronto.  He plays a neat style of garage blues-influenced rock.

#18 

Morphine is one of my favorite bands of all time, so it’s no surprise that I was going to love Vapors of Morphine, which includes two of the band’s original members and a new singer and bass player performing glorious low rock and blues.

#17 

There’s no way an album by Goat wasn’t going to be at least in the top 50% of albums I’d like, and Requiem is full of their usual weird voodoo rock.  It’s mellower than previous releases, but still trippy.

#16 

I discovered the new Cosmonauts record late in the year, and I’m glad I did because I think they’re going to be one of my new obsessions.  A-OK! is full of neat psych-rock and shoegaze.  I’m all in if you can combine those two genres.

Who cracks the top 15?  Come back tomorrow to see!

Keep your mind open.

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My top 25 live shows of 2016 – #’s 25-21.

I had a blast at live shows this year, seeing nearly 50 different bands.  I hope I can match or beat that in 2017.  I’m going to highlight the top 50% of the bunch, five at a time.

#25 – Imarhan at Levitation Austin April 29th.

Levitation Austin always brings in at least one Tuareg artist, and Imarhan played a packed house at the Empire in downtown Austin.  It was early in their first U.S. tour and they put on a fine show of uplifting music.

#24 – Gourisankar and Indrajit Banerjee at Levitation Austin May 1st.

These two maestros of their respective instruments (Gourisankar on tabla and Indrajit Banerjee on sitar) wowed the crowd at the Stoop Inn.  My wife and I were right in front and their energy had us and the whole crowd buzzing.

#23 – The Blind Owls at Levitation Austin April 28th.

They were the first band we saw at Levitation Austin in 2016, and they had to play an abbreviated set due to showing up a bit late (Thanks, Austin traffic.).  As a result, they played a wham-bam-thank you ma’am set of all their rockers.  They threw down the gauntlet early.

#22 – Bleached at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, Ohio October 21st.

They were a blast, the venue was great, and the crowd was appreciative.  They were even better live than I thought they would be and friendly to anyone who stopped by their merch table after their set.

#21 – Night Beats at Levitation Austin April 28th.

I saw Night Beats three times in 2016.  This was the second time, and the third time I saw them came in at #26 on my list of live shows and was only two days later at San Marcos’ MR Fest.  They closed the first night of Levitation Austin, after nearly everyone had learned the festival had been cancelled, and they made everyone forget their blues for a little while.  It was a raucous set, and we all needed it.

Which shows made my top 20 for 2016?  Come back tomorrow to find out.

Keep your mind open.

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Dinosaur Jr. announce 2017 tour dates.

Alt / grunge rock legends Dinosaur Jr. have announced tour dates for 2017 in support of their new album Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not.  Catch ’em if you can!

DINOSAUR JR. TOUR DATES (new dates in bold)
Sat. Dec 10 – North Adams, MA @ MASS MoCA
Thu. Jan. 12 – Sydney, Australia @ The Metro w/ Luluc
Fri. Jan. 13 – Newstead, Australia @ The Triffid
Sat. Jan. 14 – Miami, Australia @ Miami Tavern
Sun. Jan. 15 – Byron Bay Nsw, Australia @ The Northern
Wed. Jan. 18 – Perth, Australia @ The Capitol
Thu. Jan. 19 – Adelaide, Australia @ The Gov
Fri. Jan. 20 – Thornbury, Australia @ The Croxton
Sat. Jan. 21 – Thornbury, Australia @ The Croxton
Mon. Jan. 23 – Auckland, NZ @ The Studio
Thu. Jan. 26 – Nagoya-Shi, Japan @ Club Quattro Nagoya
Fri. Jan. 27 – Tokyo, Japan @ EX Theater Rappongi
Mon. Jan. 30 – Osaka-Shi, Japan @ Club Quattro Osaka
Thu. Mar. 9 – Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre
Fri. Mar. 10 – Toronto, ON @ The Danforth Music Hall
Sat. Mar. 11 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
Sun. Mar. 12 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
Mon. Mar. 13 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
Thu. Mar. 16 – Bloomington, IN @ Bluebird
Fri. Mar. 17 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre
Sat. Mar. 18 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
Sun. Mar. 19 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall
Wed. Mar. 22 – Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall
Thu. Mar 23 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom
Fri. Mar. 24 – Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre
Sat. Mar. 25 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
Tue. Mar. 28 – St. Petersburg, FL @ State Theatre
Wed. Mar. 29 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Culture Room
Thu. Mar. 30 – Orlando, FL @ The Beacham Theatre
Fri. Mar. 31 – Jacksonville, FL @ Mavericks
Sat. Apr. 1 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Keep your mind open.
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Tim Darcy of Ought to release solo album in February 2017.
“If ‘Tall Glass Of Water’ is meant to be a song of himself, as it were, Darcy visualizes it in terms that would be familiar to Walt Whitman, and that are consistent with the concept of Saturday Night: As an artist, he contains multitudes.” — NPR Music‘s “Songs We Love”
There’s a line in “Tall Glass of Water,” the lead single off Tim Darcy’s debut solo album, Saturday Night, where Darcy asks himself a rhetorical question: “if at the end of the river, there is more river, would you dare to swim again?” He barely pauses before the answer: “Yes, surely I will stay, and I am not afraid. I went under once, I’ll go under once again.” That river shows up again and again in the lyrics of Saturday Night. It’s about how wonderful it can be to feel in touch with that inner current. It’s about how good it feels to make art, and how terrifying; how you don’t always get to choose whether you’re swimming or drowning as we grow and move through life, just that you’re going to keep diving in. That’s the impulse that links all the songs on Saturday Night.

Each track on Saturday Night is woven to the next in a winding, complex journey through a charged, continuous present. Darcy’s unmistakable, commanding voice and lyrical phrasing are, as they are in Ought, vital to the entire affair. He over-enunciates. He whoops and croons. He makes damn sure you know there are no tossed-off lines here. At the same time there is an evident softness in these songs and an accompanying musicality. While there are moments that take their strength in sparseness, Darcy is unafraid to paint in economic technicolor as his wry lyricism floats nimbly upon chorused guitars and the occasional synthetic artifact.

The album title comes in part from the nights and weekends when it was recorded: a six month period that overlapped with the recording of Ought’s second album where Darcy gathered with friends to record in the storage room of a commercial studio in Toronto. The result sounds like a person exploring his voice in a room full of people he trusts: joyful, shot through with struggle, unfakeably honest. Intimate and rollicking as a house show, delicate as a late-night phone call.

Born in Arizona, Tim Darcy made his way to both Colorado and New Hampshire before ending up in Montreal where he found university, the city’s rich DIY scene, and the other members of Ought. He began writing poetry as early as the third grade and performed often, and his first attempts at songwriting were him feeling around in the dark to set some of them to music. In Montreal, he played in various projects, his and others, before settling into a groove as the singer and guitarist of Ought.

Tim Darcy’s Saturday Night is out February 17th via Jagjaguwar. All iTunes preorders come with an instant grat download of debut single, “Tall Glass of Water,” presented today with the video directed by Jonny Look. Darcy and band will tour North America throughout February and March (all dates are below).

Watch Tim Darcy’s “Tall Glass of Water” Video — 
https://youtu.be/MbgPiAGspB8

Saturday Night Tracklisting:
1. Tall Glass of Water
2. Joan Pt 1, 2
3. You Felt Comfort
4. Still Waking Up
5. First Final Days
6. Saturday Night
7. Found My Limit
8. Saint Germain
9. What’d You Release?
10. Beyond Me
11. Joan Pt 3 [HIDDEN TRACK]

Tim Darcy Tour Dates:
Mon. Feb. 13 – Hudson, NY @ Half Moon
Wed. Feb. 15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
Fri. Feb. 17 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake
Mon. Feb. 20 – London, UK @ Lexington
Tue. Feb. 21  – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Wed. Feb. 22 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
Thu. Feb. 23 – Rennes, FR @ La Route Du Rock D’hiver
Fri. Feb. 24 – Paris, FR @ Olympic
Sat. Mar. 4 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
Mon. Mar. 6 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott
Tue. Mar. 7 – Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
Wed. Mar. 8 – Washington, DC @ The Black Cat
Thu. Mar. 9 – Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
Fri. Mar. 10 – Raleigh, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Sat. Mar. 11 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
Sun. Mar. 12 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Sat. Mar. 18 – Dallas, TX @ Not So Fun Wknd
Mon. Mar. 20 – Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room
Wed. Mar. 22 – Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop
Thu. Mar. 23 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Sat. Mar. 25 – Detroit, MI @ Marble Bar

Pre-order Tim Darcy’s Saturday Night –
timdarcy.lnk.to/saturdaynight

Failure offer “Fantastic Planet Live” through PledgeMusic campaign.

failure

1990’s shoegaze / alt-rock maestros Failure have begun a PledgeMusic campaign to offer a live album from their October 2016 tour (which, sadly, I missed).  They played their outstanding album Fantastic Planet in its entirety and chose the best versions of each song from the tour for this live record.

In case you don’t know, Fantastic Planet is one of the best records of the 1990’s and a masterpiece of engineering.  You deserve to hear it, so jump on this campaign before all the signed stuff is gone.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Public Broadcasting Service – The Race for Space (2015)

pbs

Widely heralded as one of the most innovative albums of 2015, Public Service Broadcasting’s (J. Willgoose, Esquire – banjo, guitar, sampling, Wrigglesworth – drums, piano, electronics) The Race for Space is an amazing concept album about / tribute to the space race of the 1960’s.

Beginning with the title track of an angelic chorus behind JFK’s speech calling for the exploration of space, the album moves into “Sputnik.” The electro beats and bleeps are perfect for a song about the first satellite to round the Earth. The first sample you hear is a man saying, “This is the beginning of a new era for mankind.” It was. We weren’t the same after it. The song builds in synth grandeur, not unlike something from a John Carpenter film score.

“Gagarin” is a funky electro-lounge jam and salute to Yuri Gagarin. The funky guitar and drums make him seem more like a super spy than a cosmonaut. “The whole planet knew him and loved him,” says one man in a sample before a brass section puts down a great groove. “Fire in the Cockpit” is lonely and cold, despite the title. The soft bleeps seem miles away, and the synths sound like a car engine trying to start on a cold winter morning as a man reads aloud a news release about the cockpit fire on a test flight of the Apollo 1.

“E.V.A.” brings us back to a sense of wonder with building guitar work, snappy drums, groovy keyboards, and samples about weightlessness and walking in space. “The Other Side” samples real transmissions from the Apollo 8 mission control about the inevitable loss of signal when the satellite rounds the moon. The synths build as you imagine Apollo 8 getting closer and closer to somewhere no one has ever gone. What’s great is that all music stops during the loss of signal. It’s silence until the synths return at the moment a signal is received from the Apollo 8, and burst loud when the Apollo 8 crew calls back all the way to Houston.

“Valentina” is a beautiful song you could put on a St. Valentine’s Day mixtape and a wonderful tribute to Valentina Tereshkova – the first woman to fly in space. “Go!” is a fun ride that builds from soft synths to rock drums to transmissions from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The calls of “Go!” from all the mission control members become a stadium chant, and you can’t help but tap your toes and cheer on the mission that you know was a success.

The album ends with “Tomorrow,” an uplifting song about the Apollo 17 mission and the future of our exploration of space and of mankind. The xylophone gives it a cool “space-lounge” feel, and the fade-in is heavenly. I hope someone has sent it to the international space station for the astronauts’ wake-up music.

I hope this whole album has been sent there. It’s wonderful. The Race for Space would easily have been in my top ten albums of 2015 if I’d started this blog last year.

Keep your mind open.

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