Last night I went to the opening of the new tapas restaurant on West Main, ‘Si’, and afterwards headed upstairs to the inaugural show at the venue formerly known as Starr Hill. With quite possibly (IMHO) the dumbest venue name ever, I had admittedly pretty low expectations. The space is great, though almost identical to Starr Hill. The only differences aside from paint and wall hangings was the position of the bar, which was moved to the left side. I actually like the bar where it is now. It’s much bigger and easier to see the band.
I’ll make some caveats here but the sound is still atrocious. »Read More
I just stumbled across this amazing site of remixes from Refused - quite possibly my favorite hardcore band of all time. Interestingly enough they also played their last show in a basement in Harrisonburg, VA but that is a story for another time. This site has both versions of the songs from ‘Shape of Punk to Come’ and the remix side by side.
The year isn’t even over and I have a new favorite record of 2008 - with the forecast that it may not even be eclipsed by the end of the year. Featuring legendary Detroit soul/rock icon Scott Morgan, this band powers through 11 songs that you’d swear were written and recorded in the heydey of midwest soul. You’d probably never even guess that the band itself was made of up of Swedish rock guys (notably Nicke Andersson and Mattias Hellberg from The Hellacopters).
First track from ‘Will Not be Televised’ - You Gotta Come Down:
The musicianship is solid, songs are well written and don’t try too hard to be throwbacks. These guys mean it, and Morgan’s voice is as powerful and honest as they come. I think that it’s one of those rare albums that you’ll thank yourself for buying and wonder how you had gotten through the year so far without it.
I was in Fox Park Coffee on the Corner this morning discussing the finer points of Slayer with a coworker. The root of the conversation was that if you didn’t have Slayer in your mp3 player you were definitely missing something out of life. In a moment of panic I looked at my ipod and realized (whew) OK I do have some Slayer - my day is not lost.
Moments later, a woman in her late 50s/early 60s with short gray hair turned around to us and said.. »Read More
I was sitting on my ass, looking out at the sunset west of town last night and I was thinking about hating. Yea, hating. I’m guilty of it - maybe too often - and a lot of times it is well deserved because lets face it there are a lot of things in this town to hate on. I mean there’s that abomination of terrible sound eminating from Coupe de Villes every weekend night during the school year and that terrible band that… OK .. breathing deeply…
There are also a lot of things about the music and arts scene here that I love. I’m really a lover at heart, and not a fighter. The heart of squidtank is only partially black and opaque, even though all of me loves the Cure. »Read More
This is a short post but it’s a great little nugget I have spent the morning re-reading. I was a devotee of Cripsy’s column in the 90s and early 00s. He definitely got out every weekend and really did make ‘the crawl’, as it were. There are some great bands from Cville’s past reviewed here (with photos!) - The Counselors, Wisher, and some GREAT Trax show reviews/pics. Be prepared to spend your morning here:
It is springtime. As the weather gets warmer I get more anxious, having been cooped up inside in front of a computer all day - only to come home and put myself right back in front of it writing or coding or gaming. I don’t feel too bad about it - after all every five days there is a weekend. I love listening to records with the windows open. I love being single. I love spending a saturday afternoon sitting on the couch and getting up every half hour to change the side.
More often than not my affections turn to a special young lady and I will be inspired to make her a mix CD. »Read More
I’ve been contemplating this for a while now, and I decided to put my balls on the table and list a few of the most underrated and overrated bands in town. There may be more of these but here are a few that have been on my mind lately.
Here: Trees on Fire, the Acorn Sisters, Falsies, and King Wilkie
Like you, I have always loved the WTJU Rock Marathon. However, I’ve always been bummed that I missed some of my favorite shows because they were on at 3am and I just couldn’t rouse myself out of bed to record them. Now with internet streaming audio and wonderful (FREE) media players - we are able to rectify this problem. I’m going to show you how. NOTE: this article assumes a basic knowledge of installing software, and it’s geared towards a windows platform but the options are the same in Mac and Linux (I set it up in Ubuntu last night). »Read More
