Music

Review: Amanda Blank | I Love You

Downtown (2009)
Like many a party person before her, Philly-based electro-rap filly Amanda Blank wants you to know that she has a sensitive side.

By MIKAEL WOOD | August 11, 2009

Review: Buffy Sainte-Marie | Running for the Drum

Appleseed (2009)
Recent live appearances by Buffy Sainte-Marie show her, once again, setting herself apart from early colleagues like Joan Baez and Judy Collins.

By GUSTAVO TURNER | August 10, 2009

Photos: George Wein's Folk Festival 2009

Photos of Deer Tick, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins and more at the Newport folk festival
Photos from George Wein's 50th annual Folk Festival at Fort Adams State Park, Newport.

By RICHARD MCCAFFREY | August 04, 2009

Don't call it a comeback

Six Finger Satellite never left. And never will
Six Finger Satellite founder and frontman Jeremiah "J." Ryan has news for anyone assuming that the upcoming Six Finger Satellite mini-tour is a harbinger for some big 6FS reunion, following the recent release of Half Control on Load Records, originally recorded in 2001 and remixed last year.

By CHRIS CONTI | August 05, 2009

Ziggy lives!

And FH13 offers a little bit of everything
Club Hell starts the weekend off THURSDAY (the 6th) with an early-bird experimental rock show featuring Houston's SCALE THE SUMMIT (currently on tour opening for Dream Theater) with Cranston's CALIFORNIA SMILE , who are reportedly finishing a new record.

By PROVIDENCE PHOENIX STAFF | August 04, 2009

Review: Cobra Starship | Hot Mess

Fueled by Ramen/Decaydance (2009)
Are Cobra Starship's gleeful Day-Glo appropriations and their unbridled enthusiasm really indications of a disparity between intention and expression? Or is their crime simply the meta-mania of their fusion of '80s retro kitsch and '00s celebrity worship? Really, it's neither.

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | August 03, 2009

Review: Howling Bells | Radio Wars

Independiente/Nettwerk (2009)
Australian dream-rock dudes (and dudette) toured North America earlier this year with Coldplay — and like Chris Martin's not-so-merry men, Howling Bells on their sophomore album attempt to dress up what might otherwise be a clutch of dour, namby-pamby white-person ditties with all manner of spicy studio-side textures.

By MIKAEL WOOD | August 03, 2009

Review: Pissed Jeans | King of Jeans

Sub Pop (2009)
Billy Joel told us that the future of Allentown was bleak, but he could never have predicted that out of the decaying Pennsylvania steel mills and a crumbling economy, a sound as ugly and exciting as Pissed Jeans would emerge.

By MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY | August 03, 2009

Review: Rite Hook | E.ye A.ssume D.amage

Leedz Edutainment (2009)
If it came out that Rite Hook had mysteriously suffocated his baby sister 15 years ago, his fans wouldn't likely be surprised. The Worcester-Boston MC is the kind of dude who tattoos himself, recreationally chokes on half-gram "gaggers," inseminates despicable local groupies, and writes about said activities when he wakes up in the morning.

By CHRIS FARAONE | August 03, 2009

Review: Matt Wilson Quartet | That’s Gonna Leave A Mark

Palmetto (2009)
Whatever else is going on in jazz — fractured meters, indie-pop fusions — it's always good to hear a couple of horns burning through the changes over swing cymbals and a hard-walking bass groove.

By JON GARELICK | August 03, 2009

Review: Speech Debelle | Speech Therapy

Big Dada (2009)
It's unfortunate that there's a glass ceiling in the US market for British hip-hop — but for the lovely, clipped London accent that gives truth to Speech Debelle's delivery, this release would be huge stateside.

By GUSTAVO TURNER | August 03, 2009

The Big Hurt: Pop eroticism, faux sincerity, and sperm motility

Music News in Brief
I am a man who loves a good corporate doofus, and this week's glistening-prize-hog-doofus quote goes to TOM WELCH , Wal-Mart's senior music buyer, who manages to make Foreigner sound even squarer than Foreigner.

By DAVID THORPE | August 05, 2009

Best Music Poll 2009: Anything goes

The underground: saved, salvaged, or savaged?
The underground: saved, salvaged, or savaged?

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | July 30, 2009

Best Music Poll Concert + Winners

The results are in
View the winners to Boston Phoenix's Best Music Poll; then take part in the live concert on August 1, 2009

By PHOENIX STAFF | August 03, 2009

Solid foundation

A promising debut from Big Tall Buildings
When Big Tall Buildings guitarist Jared Mann sent in a disc of six demos earlier this year, the raw potential behind songs "Natalie" and "Something with a Semicolon" had me dropping monthly emails on him with the subject header "WHERE'S THE ALBUM?"

By CHRIS CONTI | July 29, 2009

Making waves

Six Star General invade Newport
A packed weekend begins THURSDAY (the 30th) when the ladies take over at the Hi-Hat, with MELISSA FERRICK and locals Seriously Fierce (aka Heather Rose and Keturah) opening, call 401.453.6500.

By PROVIDENCE PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | July 29, 2009

Cage | Depart From Me

Def Jux (2009)
Despite abandoning his former vagrant persona, shedding about 100 pounds, ascending to a realm of alt-culture status in which he can screw hundreds of tatted Lower East Side crotch rockets, and becoming the subject of a movie developed by Shia LaBeouf, Cage remains a seriously afflicted sick fuck.

By CHRIS FARAONE | July 28, 2009

Various Artists | Comfusões

Out/Here (2009)
The Portuguese pun on this compilation's title suggests both "confusions" and "with fusions."

By GUSTAVO TURNER | July 29, 2009

Father Murphy | ... And He Told Us To Turn to the Sun

Aagoo (2009)
Harking back to an America where one's own lonely voice was the only radio and a BBQ meant a spit in the middle of the desert, Torino's Father Murphy hide detuned industrial textures within stripped-down, spacy folk instrumentation, like a man in a black hat picking up a bullet-riddled guitar with which to serenade his captives.

By DEVIN KING | July 29, 2009

Jeremy Udden | Plainville

Fresh Sound New Talent (2009)
Saxophonist and composer Udden (formerly of NEC and the Either/Orchestra) here dives deeper into the jazz-pop connections he began to explore in his 2006 debut as a leader, Torchsongs .

By JON GARELICK | July 29, 2009