Adams: "I got a plan."
I saw Ryan Adams and the Cardinals open for Oasis (!) in 2008 (!!!) but I only caught part of their set from across a basketball arena and anyway it was not an especially memorable experience. But I quite enjoyed the talky, sloppy Adams solo show — and opener Jason Isbell — that I review in today’s Washington Post. Continue reading
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Tagged Aimee Mann, Click Track, Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, music, Patton Oswalt, pop music, Ryan Adams, Strathmore, The Birchmere, The Washington Post
Bruce Springsteen announced U.S. tour dates this morning. He’ll be here in DC on April Fool’s Day. So I’ll just get this over with: Bruuuuuuuce!
Thank you. And now, let us proceed.
When The Boss announced the title and release date of his forthcoming album Wrecking Ball last week, I just couldn’t see past its abysmal cover, an area in which he has been a career offender. I noted that Wrecking Ball is also the title of a very fine Emmylou Harris album from 1995. Dana Stevens, Slate’s superb film critic, noticed that too.
(When I was on the Filmspotting podcast the week after Stevens, I tried to say how much I admire her writing and how honored I was to follow her on the show, but it came out wrong. I apologize for that, Ma’am.)
Anyway, we exchanged a few Tweets about that title. “Title re-use doesn’t infringe copyright, but it’s crass,” Stevens wrote. I pointed out that Emmylou got the title from Neil Young, whose song “Wrecking Ball” (from his 1989 album Freedom) Emmylou covered on her album Wrecking Ball. Got all that?
“If Bruce covers the Neil Young song on this record, then the nab is vindicated,” Stevens concluded. Continue reading
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Tagged Bruce Springsteen, concerts, Dana Stevens, Emmylou Harris, Filmspotting, music, Neil Young, Twitter, Wrecking Ball
You can’t judge an album by its sleeve, and that’s good news for Bruce Springsteen.
My admiration for The Boss is a matter of public record, and it was from a place of love that I took the occasion of his last album’s release three years ago to point out that nearly all of his album covers are terrible. Today he announced that his 17th studio album will be called Wrecking Ball and will be released for sale on March 6. Any resemblance to Emmylou Harris‘s great album from 1995, Wrecking Ball, is completely coincidental, probably.
That’s the cover of Bruce’s Finger-Painting With Bird Shit Wrecking Ball at the top of this post. Hideous, right? He probably paid Danny Clinch a lot of money to take the photo before scrawing his name over it in Wite-Out. What this says to me is Eh, only a fraction of those of you who bother to listen to this at all are actually going to pay for it, so why I should I sweat the packaging? Just sit tight, we’re gonna play “Badlands” later.
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Tagged album covers, Bruce Springsteen, knee-jerk reaction, music, tracklists
It’s not much of a photo, but it was a pretty fantastic way to spend New Year’s Eve. That’s Booker T. Jones, stage-right, performing at the 9:30 with the Drive-By Truckers, a band I love and that I’ve written about a lot. The first time I saw them play was at The Troubadour in Los Angeles in 2003 or 2004. All I remember about that show is that my then-girlfriend had a pain in her leg and we left early. Since then, I’ve seen DBT play the 9:30 probably 10 times. When they were there for a Friday & Saturday night stay last February, I made a table to show how different the two setlists were. Hey, some people care about baseball statistics. (DBT singer-songwriter Mike Cooley does not.) Continue reading
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Tagged 9:30 Club, Alabama Shakes, Booker T. Jones, Drive-By Truckers, music, New Year's Eve, setlists
Yippe kai yay, Christmas lovers! My sixth annual audio Christmas card has arrived to illuminate and/or obfuscate your yule! At two hour-long sides, the first of which you can hear right now, this is the longest yulemix ever. Remember those 120-minute blank cassettes introduced in the twilight of the analog era that allowed you to record more music at lesser quality and were highly prone to breakage? Continue reading
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Tagged Christmas, fair use, holiday obscura, mixtapes, music, yulemixes, yuletunes eclectic
I covered the first of Beirut’s two-night, tour-ending stand at 9:30 Club last night for the Washington Post. Read all about it in the paper-paper version, or see the version on Click Track for a few more of Josh Sisk’s fine photos from the show.
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Tagged 9:30 Club, Beirut, Click Track, concerts, Francophiles, music, pop music, The Washington Post, Zach Condon
So the Washington Post sent me to a Kid Rock show. One of the best things about working as a critic is that it forces you to broaden your taste! It was my first visit to the Fillmore Silver Spring, the new Live Nation concert venue across from the AFI Silver Theater that finally opened its doors two months ago after years of preamble. Here’s my report of what all went down.
Kid Rock is 40 years old. His most recent album, the year-old “Born Free,” was produced by late-career rejuvenation specialist Rick Rubin and evokes 1970s Bob Seger more than it does the Clinton-era rap-rock that made Rock a multiplatinum star. He hasn’t been arrested at a strip club or a Waffle House in years. He’s recorded a duet with Sheryl Crow. Twice, actually.
But chin-and-middle-fingers up, Kid Rock fans. While these harbingers of mortality are unmistakable, Rock’s 105-minute set at a tightly-packed Fillmore Silver Spring last night demonstrated that maturity hasn’t laid its liver-spotted hands on him just yet. Continue reading
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Tagged bros, Click Track, Fillmore Silver Spring, Kid Rock, music, pop music, The Washington Post
Hayes Carll's devotion to the songwriter's art entails contemplating sex with Ann Coulter if necessary.
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Tagged accents, Brichmere, country, deleted scenes, Hayes Carll, interviews, music, songwriting
Matthew Sweet, photographed by Matthew Sweet
I chatted for a minute with Matthew Sweet about the 20th-anniversary-of-Girlfriend tour he’s bringing to the Birchmere tomorrow night, for Washingtonian. It’s my first piece for them.
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Tagged interviews, Matthew Sweet, music, songwriting, The Birchmere, Washingtonian
Sally Timms sings "The Letter." In real life, she appears in-focus.
Their sit-down acoustic set at IOTA last night was mostly devoted to Ancient and Modern, a new album I hadn’t heard prior to the show. Didn’t matter. Read all about it.
British folk phenom Laura Marling.
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Tagged Laura Marling, Mercury Prize, music, Sixth and I Synagogue, Washington Post
Hayes Carll's devotion to the songwriter's art entails contemplating sex with Ann Coulter if necessary.
I’ve been doing the Capital Fringe Festival and not a ton else this month, but I did cheat on Fringe & Purge long enough to write this little ditty about Hayes Carll, a country singer-songwriter whose KMAG YOYO is one of my favorite records so far this year. Fun fact: He grew up in The Woodlands, TX, which are the very suburbs that inspired one of my favorite records from last year, Arcade Fire‘s The Suburbs.
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Tagged Hayes Carll, interviews, James Carville, Mary Matalin, music
OUT: More Cowbell.
IN: Enough with the Goddamn Vibra-Slap Already.
“We’re opening for ourselves!” CAKE frontman John McCrea announced last night at the first of three consecutive sold-out evenings at the 9:30 Club. He was explaining their appearance at earlyish hour of 8:15. It’s “an evening with CAKE,” he said, stretching out the word “evening” in his mouth. Sounds like the eclectic Sacramento group — riding high on the strength of Showroom of Compassion, their first new music in seven years — had prepared a lengthy program and we’d all best get comfy, right?
Nope! They played exactly 90 minutes, the minimum acceptable amount for a band with a 17-year catalog. Which would’ve been okay if they didn’t do everything possible to drain the gig whenever any momentum or excitement threatened to accrue. A 20-minute intermission after only 45 of music? Allowable if you’re going to play at least double that upon your return, or if you’re an aged legend who physically requires a midshow rest. These guys? All in their mid-40s.
Post-intermission, they burned another 10 interminable minutes giving away a tree to an audience member. And eliciting a promise from the unlucky winner to re-plant said tree. And to use it to teach his students — he’s a teacher — “where food comes from.” And to post photos of himself with the tree on the band’s website. I have a compost pile in my apartment, and this was, even to me, insufferable. Continue reading
Lucinda Williams at the 9:30 Club, Tuesday, March 15, 2011
01 I Just Wanted to See You So Bad
02 Fruits of My Labor
03 Metal Firecracker
04 Still I Long for Your Kiss
05 Pineola
06 Drunken Angel
Continue reading
My WashPo review of is right here. Click on that Kyle Gustafson photo up there to get the Click Track version featuring more of his images.
Rockabilly pioneer Wanda Jackson, after taking the stage at 23:35 hours Friday night: “I said, ’9:30 Club?,’ looked at my watch and said, ‘Heck, I already missed it.’” What a voice, what a lady, a proud daughter of the great state of Oklahoma. Here’s my Washington Post review.
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Tagged 9:30 Club, Elvis Presley, music, The Washington Post, Wanda Jackson
I live-tweeted last night’s very fine John Mellencamp concert at DAR Constitution Hall, then tried in the cold light of day to organize my tweets into coherent, largely numbers-based recap of the show. Maybe better just to read the tweets, I dunno. But I know the gig was excellent; more generous and more somber than the 85-minute, hits-only set I somehow had it in my head that Mellencamp prefers. More than half the set was stuff released in the 21st century, and while I delighted to hear “Check It Out,” which I thought for the first time sounds like an old Staples Singers jam, and “Cherry Bomb” — all told, four songs from 1987′s The Lonesome Jubilee, wow; plus and “Jackie Brown,” too — I thought the newest stuff was the best. I’m always interested in how old-timers with deep and much-beloved back catalogs balance their desire to perform new material with their fans’ presumed expectation that they rock the hits.
Anyway, go read.
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Tagged DAR Consitution Hall, John Mellencamp, music, Washington City Paper
Those halls ain’t gonna deck themselves, yuletide thrillseekers! May I recommend for your tree-trimming merriment this humble playlist; a mere suggestion for filling two sides of a Maxell XL II high-bias 90-minute cassette, you understand.
Side A
Ain’t No Chimneys / Sharon Jones & The Dap-kings
Presents for Christmas / Solomon Burke (1940-2010)
WGBH Station Identification Continue reading
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Tagged Christmas, compilations, holiday obscura, music, yule
I am pleased to present Santa’s Magickal Ho-Ho Bag, the fifth (!) in my annual (so far) series of radio Christmas cards featuring yule-tunes eclectic and inexplicable (TM), for your hall-decking enjoyment.
If they’re loading slowly and that’s cramping your style, you can also listen here.
Posted in music, shameless self-promotion
Tagged bonus audio, Bruce Springsteen, Christmas, compilations, holiday obscura, music, radio
Actually, don’t despair. Just go read if you’re so inclined. Like many of the journo-types I know in DC, I spent Saturday at Merriweather Post Pavilion for Virgin Festival V, or Virgin Mobile Festival III, or Virgin Mobile Free Festival II. My breathless Twitter feed is here; I also penned a hasty roundup for DCist, which offers you another angle on things in addition to those written by friends and professional acquaintances of mine.
Over at former DCist music editor Amanda Mattos’s newish music site Pinna Storm, I introduce Exquisite Chord, a fun and educational new spin on an old smarty-pants game that you, too, can play.
I was just saying to TBD’s Ally Schweitzer aboard the FreeFest ferris wheel how most of the “ideas” I think I have are really just puns. Case in point!
Oh, I also wrote this nerdy thing for the City Paper’s Arts Desk blog about Washington Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare-in-Klington night, which I did not attend on account of if being scheduled directly opposite LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, y’all. I like this band this much.
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Tagged DCist, music, name-dropping, shameless self-promotion, Virgin Mobile Festival
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