Score: 7.5/10 Sometimes artists have “mantra songs,” so to speak, songs that for them are like a warmup, songs that cause them no anxiety to perform, and get them into the physical act of doing music, loosen them up. I’ve seen this with my own two eyes with Califone and “Michigan Girls” — Tim Rutilli … Read more“DD Review: The Doors – Live in Boston / 1970.”
Score: 3.5/5 stars . “No one man should have all that power” was Kanye’s ode on the strange and beautiful statement of blackness “Power,” made even stranger by the recent publication of his plans to run for presidency. Roommate, on Make Like, sound like a band afraid of having too much power. Of course, they are … Read more“DD Track Review: Roommate – ‘People on Screens’”
Score: 8/10 “A beach house is a house on or near a beach, sometimes used as a vacation or second home for people who commute to the house on weekends or during vacation periods.” – wikipedia.org . Vaudeville ’70’s Linda Rondstadt influence meets glam rock meets Clipse/Dope Head crack rap all on the first track … Read more“DD Review: Beach House – Depression Cherry.”
Man, mama, I been nappin’ too long, I ain’t even know this slumgullion was out. Five songs in, I remember why I was sleeping in the first place. Seeing as John Fogerty is hardly miring in obscurity these days, a couple topical points make themselves prominent given the obnoxiously good-ol’-boy praising tone of liner note … Read more“DD Review: John Fogerty: The Long Road Home / The Ultimate John Fogerty * Credence Collection.”
God damn Passion Pit, ya know. They’re just having so much fun making another Passion Pit album, it’s impossible to hate them. They even seem to KNOW that they’re like Phoenix but not QUITE as good, and this makes them even more endearing. “Droll” is an operative word I’d use. While it’s been publicized that … Read more“DD Review: Passion Pit – Kindred.”
There’s Chinese writing on the cover of the new Blur album, and when you open the liner notes to uncover any further mummified Blur truths, it looks for a second like everything’s going to be Chinese. This is trivial, and also noteworthy, depending on how you look at it. First of all, allow me to … Read more“DD Review: Blur – The Magic Whip.”
Success, when wielded properly, gets people opening their mouths and nodding a little bit, saying, “Oh, yeah!” It can be politics, it can be art, or sometimes it can just be a sunny day. But it’s a delicate process. You can’t have too much of any one thing. And in this, lies sacrifice. But it … Read more“DD Review: Dan Deacon – Gliss Riffer.”
Around the time the closeur on Everclear’s So Much for the Afterglow “Like a California King” faded out, I think, rock music lost its visceral focus. A lot of this is understandable, I guess, with things turning to rap, and the nation’s siege under the 9/11 attacks. It seems, though, that for a while, the … Read more“DD Review: Moistboyz – V.”
Which came first, the goose or the gander — the sense of humor or the persona? My first impression upon spinning disc 1 of Sukierae, the two-disc solo collection of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (just “Tweedy” here), was wow, it’s punk, this guy likes punk. Not to say Wilco necessarily became the “anti-punk” in their years … Read more“DD Review: Tweedy – Sukierae.”
For whatever reason, Pearl Jam, in their theoretically tenuous post-Binaural days, seem bent on making records The Offspring should be making. As a joke, a few days ago, I wrote on Facebook, “Yo, Ed Vedder, you gotta hook up Lightning Bolt for free.” And in fact, I half expected to actually get it. I wouldn’t … Read more“DD Review: Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt.”