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24 Jun 2010 22:37

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Music: One-word album reviews: Jimmy Fallon’s house band made an record

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 May 2010 16:19

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Music: These budding Deerhunter fans are more talented than we are

  • As some of you may know, one of of favorite bands is Bradford Cox’s Deerhunter, one of the more ambitious, experimental acts out there. And these kids above, well, just nailed their most well-known song. We’re not talking like knowing three chords. No. We’re talking the bass part on the intro that hooks you in. We’re talking the distortion. We’re talking the dueling guitar solos at the end of the song. It’s the kind of performance that makes music fans like us realize exactly how mediocre we actually are. Yeah, we’re pretty mediocre.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Apr 2010 20:43

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Music: Metacritic: MGMT currently embodies the sophomore slump

  • Let’s face it, MGMT is feeling the heat. An indie band that got really popular on its first album thanks to some memorable hit singles, they now have to follow that album up. And as our One-Word Album Review noted, their latest is not exactly getting consensus critical love. How does “Congratuations” as a sophomore slump compare to other buzz bands? Well, according to Metacritic, you can either be Caribou (have a second album way better than the first), The Arctic Monkeys (stay exactly the same), The Strokes (dip noticeably in quality) or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (completely crap out on album two). MGMT is closer to The Strokes than Clap Your Hands Say Yeah right now, but it’s still not flattering. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

05 Dec 2009 20:54

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Music: Our Saturday Mixtape wants to live in Montreal or something

  • 1. This song has been embedded in our brains for approximately two weeks. Montreal’s Think About Life, who come out on paper as a combination of TV on the Radio and Chromeo, is somewhat hit-and-miss, but when they hit, as on “Havin’ My Baby,” it’s a sugar rush you can’t ignore.
  • 2. Land of Talk – a fellow Montreal band fronted by Elizabeth Powell who comes off as a guitar superhero live – mixes the low-key and the guitar-smashers deftly. The centerpiece of their new “Fun and Laughter” EP, “May You Never” mixes calm and chaos (and the gift of hazy atmosphere) into a tasty stew.
  • 3. Disclosure: Plants and Animals will be in the mixtape two weeks in a row, because their 2008 album “Parc Avenue” is that good. “A L’Oree Des Bois” has this way of starting out loose and then expanding slowly.
  • 4. There’s a few obvious picks that can go on this list: Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, and so on. Handsome Furs are sort of on the cusp of that, but we admittedly like Dan Boeckner’s non-Wolf Parade band a little more than the main act, especially on “All We Want, Baby, Is Everything,” which manages to come across as unpretentious dance-rock. At least it’s less pretentious than Toronto’s Crystal Castles.
  • 5. The Lovely Feathers have a little of the Arcade Fire rising hugeness going on with “Lowiza,” but what’s really interesting is that the chorus sort of breaks into a group oy-style endeavor. It’s like they’re the Dropkick Murphys doing “Neighborhood #1.” (Well, kinda.) It’s pretty awesome to hear, actually.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jun 2009 21:31

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Music, Politics: Iggy Pop has a huge problem with wannabe-brainy bands

  • I took great pains not to think first, because the thing I can’t stand is a rock star who thinks he’s got brains. They’re always so damned dull!
  • Rock god Iggy Pop • In a video where he bashes “crappy music” by “idiot thugs with guitars.” He was talking, specifically, about modern rock acts like Smashing Pumpkins and (uh) Limp Bizkit. Pop, by the way, is going a completely different direction with his latest album, “Preliminaires,” which is jazz-influenced and probably a better idea than that Stooges album which critics hated back in 2007. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Apr 2009 21:44

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Music: This is like an indie kid’s dream tour … almost

  • one Dan Deacon: King of Wham City, Baltimore hipster freak, Casiotone supergenius, holding the Raymond Scott baton for a new generation of hipsters. Awesome.
  • two Deerhunter: Atlanta’s shoegazing innovators, creators of our favorite album of last year, complete with iconoclast lead singer Bradford Cox. Also pretty awesome.
  • three No Age: Pretty much the band responsible for bringing noise back to the forefront of indie rock. Leaders of the scene at L.A.’s Smell hipster dwelling. Overrated.
  • four The format: Round robin. All three bands set up at once. One band plays a song. The audience moves. Another band plays. The audience moves again. And so on. AWESOME! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Jan 2009 09:35

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Music: The Coachella lineup’s out; Macca’s a headliner?

  • Even weirder: So are the Killers. That said, this year’s lineup sounds pretty killer, with TV on the Radio, Girl Talk, Fleet Foxes, Morrissey, Leonard Cohen (!), Clipse, Lupe Fiasco, Amy Winehouse, Gaslight Anthem, Conor Oberst, Drive-By Truckers, Calexico, M. Ward, Fucked Up (hey, we’re not a newspaper, we can print that word!) and many other bands totally worth your time fronting a stage in the middle of the California desert between April 17-19. The downside, of course, is that the headliners (barring The Cure) are usually better than this. :( source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink
 
 
 
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