Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Watch Savages at 9:30 Club


In March, Savages performed inside Washington, D.C.'s iconic 9:30 Club. Now, the good folks at NPR have posted the entire concert up to stream. Take a look!

Read Our March Review of Savages at Irving Plaza

9:30 Club Setlist:
  • "I Am Here"
  • "Sad Person"
  • "City's Full"
  • "Slowing Down The World"
  • "Shut Up"
  • "She Will"
  • "Husbands"
  • "Surrender"
  • "Evil"
  • "When In Love"
  • "I Need Something New"
  • "The Answer"
  • "Hit Me"
  • "No Face"
  • "T.I.W.Y.G."
  • "Mechanics"
  • "Adore"
  • "F******"

Live Review: Noel Gallagher at Beacon Theater


"Tuesday, shit day for a gig," Noel Gallagher told the sold out crowd inside New York's Beacon Theater a few songs into his set. "Tuesday in New York is better than Tuesday anywhere else," he then declared.

The former Oasis songwriter is on the road in America touring his sophomore release, 2015's Chasing Yesterday. It is the third time within a year of the album cycle that the singer and songwriter has played the city and he seems to love every second of it. "This is the best city in the world, I mean that," he declared at one point.

Listen to Our Essential Noel Gallagher Playlist on Spotify

In his second time performing and selling out the famous Upper West Side venue as a solo artist, Gallagher started the night early and his near-two-hour set featured career highlights from Oasis and his own work.

Opening with "Everybody's On the Run," "Lock All the Doors," and "In The Heat of the Moment," Gallagher was on fire. He and his band, The High Flying Birds, sounded perfect inside the theater and production of his show seems bigger than ever before. Performing under a giant screen projecting random images as well as live footage of the band, everyone was in awe of what they were doing.



Reuniting with Oasis' final drummer, Chris Sharrock, now a full time High Flying Bird, the show was chock full of everything a fan of Gallagher would want.

"If any of you were at Webster Hall last year and think, 'fucking hell, it's the same setlist.' It absolutely is. I know it is...It's called getting your money's worth -- out of you," the cocky singer told the audience a few songs into the set.  He would later admit, "It is not the same setlist, my management wouldn't like that."

Aside from the music, Gallagher himself should be a talk show host. His witty banter with the audience is not only hilarious, it adds to the concert. He picks on the hecklers and basically admits this whole thing is for the money.

Performing a slew of Oasis B-sides like "Talk Tonight," "Half the World Away," "D'Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman," "The Masterplan," fans were in the palm of his hand. The most thunderous applause would obviously come during the well known Oasis tunes. Songs like "Digy's Dinner," and "Wonderwall," which Gallagher says "makes this whole thing possible," are given new life with him on vocals instead of Liam. The axeman even reinterpreted "Champagne Supernova" to make it an acoustic ballad rather than a psychedelic rock tune. Yet, it was the closer, "Don't Look Back in Anger," that tore the roof off the place. The audience simply goes mad for it. The song is an anthem of a generation and they won't let Gallagher forget it -- not that he ever will.

Pixies Announce New Album!


In September, Pixies will release Head Charger.

The record, which was recorded in London, features bassist Paz Lenchantin as a full time member.  The former Perfect Circle / Zwan bassist replaced Kim Shattuck in 2013, who replaced founding member Kim Deal.

She said in a press release: "There were these shoes I felt I had to fill and I tried to do the best I could for the fans, to make the live performances sound true to the originals. I spent three years learning to understand what being a Pixie meant, and now, my heart, spirit, and love for their music is embedded in me and I feel like I have become a Pixie. We had been more about the history of the Pixies, but now, we are about going forward.”

In a press release, drummer David Lovering said: "By the time we started recording, we all knew the songs backwards and forwards, so it took half as long for us to make this album as it did to make 'Indie Cindy.'"

Take a look at the cover, above, and the tracklisting, below, and hear the first single "Um Chagga Lagga."

01 Head Carrier
02 Classic Masher
03 Baal’s Back
04 Might As Well Be Gone
05 Oona
06 Talent
07 Tenement Song
08 Bel Esprit
09 All I Think About Now
10 Um Chagga Lagga
11 Plaster Of Paris
12 All The Saints

Quick News

Beck says that his forthcoming album was inspired by playing with The Strokes in Hyde Park last year in London. Beck told Rolling Stone: "It's a summer night, people have their hands up. It's a communal, celebratory thing. I wanted to take that into the studio, a kind of energy or joy. The thing that wakes you up a little bit." The untitled new album will be out in October.

Drummer J.P. Flexner has left Beach Slang. He posted the news on Tuesday on Facebook, saying in a statement: "I’m no longer in Beach Slang. Thank you for being a part of something that meant a lot to me. Now let’s hang out and do stuff." He will go back to work on a graphic design career he had before the band. A few hours later, Beach Slang released a statement on Facebook: "JP, the absolute best to you, my man. I’ll miss the dumb jokes and the loud thunder. I’ll miss how things were when things were really right. Thanks for the sweat and love. Go slay everything."

In September, The Verve will reissue their first two albums, A Storm in Heaven and A Northern Soul to celebrate the 25th anniversary of both records. The reissue series features a 3-CD set that has the remastered record, B-Sides, demos and a DVD of live performances.

Frank Ocean took to his blog over the weekend and continues to be coy about his new album, Boys Don't Cry, and hinted that it could possibly arrive this month. The LP was supposed to come last year but has been pushed back and has seen a series of rumored release dates. The latest post features a library card with a due date on it. Take a look at the post:


Ocean, along with Henry Rollins and Young Thug star in a new ad campaign for Calvin Klein. Watch the three below:

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Crocodiles Announce New LP


New York shoegaze rockers Crocodiles will release their new album, Dreamless, in October. 

Member Brandon Welchez wrote in a press release about the album: "I suffered insomnia throughout the whole session. I was literally dreamless. The past two years had been fraught with difficulty for us - relationship troubles, career woes, financial catastrophe, health issues,” he continues. “In that pessimistic mindset it was easy to feel as if the dream was over.”

Read Our 2011 Interview with Crocodiles 

 Take a look at the cover, above, and the tracklisting, below:

01. Telepathic Lover
02. Maximum Penetration
03. Welcome To Hell
04. I'm Sick

05. Go Now
06. Alita
07. Jumping On Angels
08. Time To Kill
09. Jailbird
10. Not Even In Your Dreams

Rising Artist: Dirty Orange


British rock and roll has morphed into many forms over the years but sometimes you need to go back to basics and appreciate the rawness and real power of what drums, bass, guitars and vocals can do. London trio Dirty Orange are here to infect the system with just that. Not since the Arctic Monkeys debut nearly a decade ago has Brit rock been this raw and real. In many ways, Dirty Orange are the last band to come from London with a pair of balls. The trio just released their debut EP, The Short Story About The Lady of the Night and is everything a rock and roll fan would want. Clever lyrics, catchy hooks, fiery riffs and loud, fast, dirty, ideas that show this genre is not dead but has rested for a whole new generation to resurrect it in proper fashion.

Bat For Lashes on BBC6 Music



Listen to Bat For Lashes perform "In God's House" and "Sunday Love" on BBC6 Music.

Underrated Classic: Oasis 'Dig Out Your Soul'

As Noel and Liam Gallagher still continue to duke it out in the press -- who is calling who a "potato" or saying how Oasis will never reunite, it is making for a great soap opera to play out. However, even though the brothers have failed to reconcile their differences when Noel left the band in 2009, dissolving one of the world's best rock and roll acts, we look back at their seventh and final studio album. It is the record where Oasis plunged the furthest into psychedelica and samples that made 2008's Dig Out Your Soul an interesting and different record for the Manchester band. Dig Out Your Soul was originally recorded inside Abbey Road then they had to finish the LP elsewhere after U2 moved in to record. Yet, the spirit of the famous studio gave way for the band to enter new territory. Noel allowed Liam more control over lyrics and each member of the group played various instruments, like the record's predecessor, 2005's Don't Believe The Truth. Dig Out Your Soul became classic Oasis with a new twists. Singles like "The Shock of the Lightning," "Falling Down," were textbook to the band's sound, yet, other tracks like "Bag It Up," "To Be Where There's Life," "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady," and "The Nature of Reality," heard them venturing into deeper sounds. While they claimed to be sober through the making of the album, it is their most druggy and spacey sounding LP since 1997's Be Here Now, where they were all actually on coke. This was the final chapter Oasis has left with us and it only opens the doors to what could have been.

Movie of the Month: 'Cocaine Cowboys'

A decade ago, filmmaker Billy Corbin took viewers into the depths of the Miami drug trade with his blockbuster documentary Cocaine Cowboys. The film explores what really happened in the city in the late 70s and early 80s and the story that viewers only thought they knew. Corbin interviews everyone from the drug dealers to traffickers to journalists and authorities that all became intertwined in the bloody, corrupt and strange era that actually ended up putting Miami on the map as a hotspot for tourists. What Cocaine Cowboys actually displays is how "La Madrina," Griselda Blanco actually became the biggest kingpin in America. The violent and ruthless female leader of the biggest cartel in the city would end the fantasy that this was a male dominated profession. It is the stories involved in the film that inspired Scarface, Miami Vice and nearly every other drug traffic movie that used South Beach as a backdrop. It is by far one of the most well crafted, well done and best documentaries ever made. It is still intriguing and a decade later worth watching again and again.

ZOMBY Announces New Album


Electronic artist ZOMBY will release his new album, Ultra, in September. 

Take a look at the cover, above, and the tracklisting, below:

1. REFLECTION
2. BURST
3. FLY 2 [ ZOMBY & BANSHEE ]
4. E.S.P.
5. I
6. GLASS
7. SWEETZ [ ZOMBY & BURIAL ]
8. HER
9. QUANDARY [ ZOMBY & DARKSTAR ]
10. FREEZE
11. YETI
12. S.D.Y.F. [ ZOMBY & REZZETT ]
13. THAW