The first thing one notices about Live at Newport ’58 is the sound quality. In a jazz world defined at the fidelity extremes by pristine Rudy Van Gelder remasters of legendary studio sessions and near-bootleg-sounding live performances listenable due only to their rarity, this previously unreleased concert from the 1958…
How is it that of nearly all the progressive rock combos of the 1970s, King Crimson sounds today the least dated and most relevant (aside from the fact it’s still around off and on these days, albeit with a different lineup)? Unlike, say, the Moody Blues or Genesis, Crimson —…
By Andy Vihstadt Jenna Bush loves R.E.M. If you’re bummed about having to sit this year’s SXSW out, NPR’s got you covered. At midnight on Wednesday, you can stream R.E.M.’s performance at Stubbs and on Thursday, tune into Yeasayer at 2:30 pm and Vampire Weekend at 4 p.m. Later that…
R.E.M. March, 8, 2008 Langerado Better Than:Realizing that your $50 bag of mushrooms failed to induce any hallucinations This morning we read an effusive article about REM’s performance at Langerado. The writer, Leslie Gray Streeter, described the show as “energetic,” and declared that their performance was “the lovely, light-hearted, serious-minded…
Ani DiFranco Sunday, March 9, 2008 Langerado Better Than: A Chocolate Seven-Layer Birthday Cake It’s a funny thing when you feel the “obsession” link with a musician kick in, especially when it’s been a few years since you felt so in love with the music. Such was the case at…
Part psycho, part Jane’s Addiction Blitzen Trapper March 8, 2008 Langerado Better than: A wake-up call from the hippie jam band tenting next door After a night of blustery winds and torrential rain ruined any chance for restful sleep at Langerado, day 3 of the fest kicked off with a…
Tuba Gooding Jr. at work. So the Roots showed hip-hop crews why they always reign supreme this past Friday night at Langerado. The talented Philly-based band was tight, crazy, fun, and definitely experimental as they worked out a few songs from their upcoming album, Rising Down, which is dropping April…
Ben Folds March 8, 2008 Langerado Better than: Whatever and Ever Amen on constant rotation I missed Ben Folds last time he came to town with John Mayer. I figured I couldn’t stomach the fans of pasty folk hipster Mayer any more than I could stomach his music. But I’m…
G. Love and Special Sauce March 7, 2008 Langerado Better Than:All the jam in Welch’s reserves. Forget Umphrey’s McGee and the Disco Biscuits and whatever’s left of the Dead (and that includes you, Dark Star Orchestra), ‘cause when it comes to full fest groove, there is but one band that…
Alright, Langerado is in it’s first full day and early reports are indicating that the music is rocking, the crowds are thick, and the drug busts have already started. Watch your ass people. Cops are on the lookout so be safe and stay out of jail. There’s a couple of…
Punk bands have short shelf lives. That’s the conventional wisdom: that the pace and other physical demands of the genre are so intense that even the greatest punk practitioners can expect only five, maybe ten years on the road and charts. The Beastie Boys must have anticipated this when they…
Call Ani DiFranco the ultimate overachiever. As an artist, entrepreneur, activist, and insurgent, she’s evolved over the years as a torchbearer for both feminist affirmation and DIY empowerment. For the better part of the past two decades, she’s helped recast the stance of the modern folk troubadour. Fans around the…
Somewhere in the pages of my mother’s supersecret blackmail photo album, there are pictures of me with fishnet stockings on my arms and creepy black eyeliner on my face. The neatly printed caption beneath reads something like: “Our daughter’s brief stint in the puberty-induced purgatory of teen angst and passive-aggressive…
It’s the sixth edition of the Langerado Music Festival, and what started out as a concert for jam-band enthusiasts has grown into a megafestival that all South Florida music lovers should be proud of. Every genre you can think of is here, and with lots of great bands playing at…
Why is Janice Turner grinning so widely? It’s just after 7 p.m., ten days before last Christmas, and she’s backstage at the Y-100 Jingle Ball show at the BankAtlantic Center. A bunch of performances are due to kick off in a half-hour or so, but just now, folks are squeezed…
By ANDY VIHSTADT Casino King For those of you holding out for the follow-up to LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver, Stereogum’s got something to hold you over. The song, “Big Ideas,” will appear in 21, the film adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House. The O.S.T. hits stores March…
Chalk another victory up for the super-cool promoter folks at New Art School. Their latest coup? The legendary Mudhoney!! I don’t want to use the “g” word (ok, grunge) here, but they were one of the first rad bands to come out of Seattle in the late Eighties/early Nineties. And…
Last July, thousands of folks, including the mayor of Detroit and the governor of Michigan, gathered in Motown at the NAACP’s annual convention for a symbolic funeral for the n word. This wasn’t long after Michael Richards flew off at the mouth at a Los Angeles comedy club, Don Imus…
“Have you seen the Futurama episode where they posit that in the future, Star Trek will be a religion?,” asks Arif Mirabdolbaghi, bassist for Canadian math-metal outfit Protest the Hero. “It’s probably true. I mean, there’s such a volume of text there that you can make a pretty epic series…
This weekend marks the impressive 15th anniversary of the local annual event known colloquially as the Bob Marley festival. It’s sponsored by his estate’s official organization, Bob Marley Movement, and each year’s headliners are composed of various configurations of his extended clan. And in the spirit of Marley’s humanitarian message,…
Rolling, writhing lesbians aren’t exactly a dime a dozen where I come from. My mama raised me deep in the heart of Texas (that red, cattle-ropin’, lethal-injection-givin’ stretch of pancake-flat land where everything is fucking bigger). And in my holier-than-thou hometown, good luck finding a decent drink special, let alone…
Jazz drummer Steve Reid (not to be confused with same-named New Age percussionist/composer) has a résumé that would make most musicians wince with envy. How many can lay claim to having played on Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” and having performed or recorded with Ornette Coleman, Miles…
