 |
Thursday, July 24, 2008
.jpg)
We’ve been so busy wrapping our heads around the new Deerhunter album, which leaked about two months ago (and is still not out till late October), we almost forgot how much we liked Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (Kranky), the gauzy debut full-length from Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox’s solo project ATLAS SOUND, which came out way back in February. Cox returns to the Middle East, this time by himself (according to his myspace, "solo performances using electronics, vocals, and guitar”; this guy says he's toting Animal Collective's sampler) to play downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | doors @ 8 pm | $14 | 617.864.EAST or www.mideastclub.com.
And in the meantime, Cox just posted an even newer Deerunter demo on his blog -- this one recorded in Atlas Sound/solo mode.
DOWNLOAD: Deerhunter/Atlas Sound, "Game of Diamonds" (mp3)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
No, Phoenix circulation manager Mike Awesome isn't gay for Cute Is What We Aim For. But he did serve time as their roadie, which is why we're now able to satiate the dreams of 16-year-old girls everywhere by providing these up-close-and-personal shots of the band taken on stage, backstage, and on the bus, taken over the weekend at their sold-out show at Middle East downstairs >>>
 
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
If we had a Best Music Poll category for most-improved, Mike Fiore's FACES ON FILM would've had another notch in their belt, not to mention a pretty-much unimpeded cakewalk to the victory. As it is, he's up for best local singer-songwriter, for which we apologize because we didn't know quite where else to put 'em. The live show has gotten to the level of stunning motherfuckers, and it doesn't seem to matter whether he's onstage by himself, with a stripped down trio (we highly recommend their recent Flophouse Session over at Band In Boston), or -- see above -- with the full band plus friends, recorded live at the Middle East during one of our recent Best Music Poll showcase concerts.
Voting, of course, has ended for this year's BMP. Results will be released May 9, just in time to preview the Best Music Poll Concert at Bank of America Pavlion on May 10 with Death Cab for Cutie, Bob Mould, Amanda Palmer, and a couple of recently-announced BMP winners: Eli "Paperboy" Reed and Passion Pit. Tickets are still available, but not for long.
PREVIOUSLY:
COMING SOON!: Hallelujah the Hills, Big Digits
Monday, April 07, 2008
The last time we tried to shoot Viva Viva, we made an ill-fated foray into infrared photography. This time, with the addition of actual lights, you may even be able to make out more than a Sasquatch-like outline. Which is good, because we love these dudes. Forget that VV grew out of two of our favorite early-00s bands -- the Lot Six and Officer May -- or that they've got this awesome Mutt-and-Jeff thing going on. Since the dissolution of those bands, their respective frontmen have taken their rock-and-roll hearts back to the classic shit: one second they sound like the Doors doing Beatles-in-Hamburg material, the next they're hybriding Stones/Stooges raveups in the manner of the first Verbena album. Here's the set opener, recorded March 29 at the Middle East as part of our Best Music Poll showcase:
COMING SOON: Faces on Film Live at the Middle East
Thursday, February 28, 2008
DOWNLOAD: Hooray for Earth, "Warm Out" (mp3)
Hooray for Earth: odd band. Get 'em drunk, and they're liable to belt out a Justin Timberlake hit, or maybe one of Jacko's. Left on his own, their singer has been known to crank out Magnetic Fields covers. In their own right, HFE have carved out a unique niche that's equal parts indie breadth and metal brawn, like a second coming of Queens of the Stone Age. "Warm Out," taken from their new Cellphone EP, staggers forward on a clawing, atavistic, baritone-guitar riff, the rhythm section lurching like mechanized infantry. But the bridge that follows is a thing of beauty: the guitars turn taut, lithe, and synchronous. Clusters of ascending notes flank and overwhelm the main theme; and the lyrics, a short paen to renewal that evokes the majestic/melancholic Mag Fields of "Love Comes Home To Paris in the Spring," turn sad and then frantic, just before the whole thing starts all over again. Grab the mpfree above, check out the video below, then see if you can help yrself from stampeding their EP-release gig on Leap Night -- that's tomorrow -- at the Middle East.
HFE: Warm Out (video)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
1/22/2008 8:11:09 PM by Will | |
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Come, "Hurricane" (Live at the Middle East, 11/10/2007)
Sure, it was only two songs. (Turns out they had a third ready to go, but decided against it. What, the applause wasn't loud enough? "Exactly," said Chris Brokaw.) But since this was the first time Come have performed since their 2 1/2-hour farewell gig at the MidEast's downstairs room back in -- what, 1998? -- well, this was pretty fucking rad. Brokaw, on loan from Thurston Moore's band and a zillion other projects, hopped up after Thalia Zedek's band played a more-blistering-than-usual set, providing the pentultimate thrill on the occasion of the Middle East's 20th anniversary as a rock club, which is not coincidentally Billy Ruane's birthday, and is also coincidentally ME booker Kevin Hoskins's B-day. Whew. Yes, Hallelujah the Hills and Helms and IV Diffusion and Drug Rug were great, but dude: Come played a fucking reunion show. And since you weren't there, we brought back this clip. We've got the other song in a holding cell, waiting for an encore, along with some awesome footage of Hallelujah the Hills covering the Beatles, which we haven't asked them for permission to post yet. More anon, then. Many thanks to Leslie McCleave for additional footage.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Isis, "Not In Rivers, But In Drops (Live at the Middle East, 11/4/2007)"
Hard to believe it's been ten years since Aaron Turner started Isis -- and eight years since we wrote this. Back then, Aaron was still at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, his LP sleeves were redefining the aesthetics of metal, Isis had released all of one EP (on Escape Artist, a label then-Relapse publicist Gordon Conrad had formed specifically to put out the Isis demo), and Hydrahead was home to Cave In and Converge.
He pretty much made good on all of it: shape-shifting his label, and his band, from niche-market bosses to breakthrough flag-bearers. Isis stands as the gold standard of undie-metal greatness, and they're in large part the reason that metal became the new indie rock. You could hear it on both nights that Isis played the Middle East last week, performing a career-retrospective set (we didn't keep a list, but they seemed to be playing about two songs off each album) that spanned horror-movie soundtrack; psychedelic doom-metal howl; and Slinty, lost-at-sea post-rock, often within the same song.
Above: a special treat from the second night of Isis's 10th Anniversary homestand at the Middle East on November 3/4, with footage from what may eventually become another live DVD. Extra-special thanks to Leah Xylona, Ned Hinkle, Ivy Moylan, and Kenneth Thomas for the shoot; in case you hadn't noticed, it's way better than anything we shoot, so it's a pleasure to host it.
BOSTONPHOENIX: "Homegrown Drone," Isis interview and mp3
ISIS 10th ANNIVERSARY TOURDATES:
Nov 15: Richards on Richards - 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW w/ These Arms Are Snakes & 27 Vancouver, British Columbia
Nov 16: Hawthorne Theater - 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW w/ Wolves In The Throne Room & 27 Portland, Oregon
Nov 18: Slim’s - 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW w/ Big Business & 27 San Francisco, California
Nov 19: Downtown Brew - 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW w/ Big Business & 27 San Luis Obispo
Nov 20: The Troubadour - 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW w/ Big Business & 27 Los Angeles, California
Monday, November 12, 2007
11/12/2007 1:37:39 PM by Caitlin | |
Friday, October 26, 2007
Damon & Naomi are calling their current tour “The Roaring Silence Revue,” a reference to the combination of their own subdued-but-steely folk sound and the deep-bass noise-rock of their tourmates, Japanese trio Boris. D&N are working their new Within These Walls (20/20/20), and even though their first CD after the breakup of Galaxie 500 was called More Sad Hits, this might be the saddest yet, inspired, they say, by a year of digging into Frank Sinatra and the weepiest albums of his that they could find — Only the Lonely and No One Cares. Combine Ol’ Blue Eyes’ long, slow breath control and unsparing emotional delivery with D&N’s abiding passion for ’60s Brit folk-rock and you’ve got the picture: by the time you get to Naomi’s album closer, the goth mother-daughter psychodrama dialogue “Cruel Queen,” you’ll be crying in your chai latte. Along for the tour are longtime D&N aides-de-camp saxophonist Bhob Rainey, trumpeter Greg Kelley, guitarist Michio Kurihara, plus cellist Helena Espvall from the band Espers on cello. (All are on the new disc.) And Kurihara — the Neil Young of Japan — will do double-duty in both bands | Middle East downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | October 29 | 617.864.EAST.
— Jon Garelick
10/26/2007 10:53:56 AM by Will | |
Monday, October 15, 2007
New suits, new ’staches, new songs — same old vaudevillian showmanship,
same old mathematically precise eardrum molestation. At a sweaty, stinky,
crushd-tin-box (sorry, we still have Radiohead on the brain) Middle East
downstairs last night the Hives lived up to Howlin’ Pelle’s ridiculous
tongue-in-cheek third-person boasts — as they always do, even if the shtick
starts to wear thin somewhere around two-thirds of the way in. They managed to
race through 18 songs — old and new — and almost as many Hives-are-law rants in
just over an hour. Highlights: a crushing rendition of “No Pun Intended,” one
of the best songs on the beyond-underrated Tyrannosaurus
Hives; the one-two punch of two ten-year-old songs, “Here We Go Again” and
“A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T,” both of which totally hold up; bassist Dr. Matt
Destruction’s facial expressions. Lowlight (yeah, just one, really): opening
and closing with songs from the new album, which, upon a scant two listens,
isn’t immediately turning our crank like Veni
Vidi Vicious and T. Hives did. Random
thought: Is Chris Dangerous the best punk rock drummer ever? Oh, and someone
over at LemmingTrail just posted the audio.
Setlist and photos here.
10/15/2007 6:17:24 PM by Will | |
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Rumors have been circulating for a couple of years about the ska-core-est band of all time getting back together. And last week the chatter picked up again, although the band played it pretty close to the belt. Offending speculative message board posts were deleted. Everyone kept their mouths shut ... which is not an easy thing for Dicky Barrett to do, mind you.
This time it's official. The 'Tones announced a full-fledged Hometown Throwdown -- which in its day was the precursor to Dropkick Murphys' St. Paddy's Day homestand and Darkbuster's Hometown Throwup -- at the Middle East, December 26-30. Tickets go on sale October 19 at 10 am via Ticketmaster.
"We just kinda stopped playing, we kinda stoped doing it for a while," Dicky said in a radio interview a few minutes ago. "Six months ago Joe Gittleman called me and said, 'What do you think about doing a Throwdown?' Then he said, 'Who can we ge to sing?' I said, 'Joe, why don't you let me take care of it?' "
Truth be told, we loved the shit out of the Bosstones, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing those dudes wreck shop with Murphy's Law and Fishbone back in the day. If eventually they became a clownish plaid phenomenon, they never took themselves too seriously. The records may not hold up as well as they could have, but they were better songwriters than people gave 'em credit for -- Bosstones fans scoffed at No Doubt, but you sometimes wished they'd have found a way to be bigger than the genre they created. After it was over, Nate Albert looked back on the band's legacy and sighed. "Have you noticed," he once told us, "that on every comedy show, or every commercial that’s supposed to be funny, the soudtrack is ska-core? Have you noticed this? I was watching America’s Funniest Home Videos, and it's like the whole soundtrack is ska-core. And I'm thinking, 'Is this what we gave to the world?' "
Yes it was. But for a time it was a glorious thing. The first Bosstones record is less ska than most people remember -- the title track to Devil's Night Out contains one of the most brilliantly evil metal riffs of the early '90s -- and they could be a pretty fun punk band when they felt like it. Mostly we saw them at Sunday all-ages shows at the Paradise and the Channel, but once, in 1991, we ran into them at CollegeFest, where they performed a cover of Metallica's (then) new single, "Enter Sandman." They thought it would be funny to cover the song before its official release, and they very nearly succeeded.
By the time their big-time debut came out, they seemed like the longest shot in the world. Devil's Night Out was the record that made us fall for them, though their rise to local kingpins rested on their knack for goofy pop songs. Their first gesture on Mercury was to release an EP of covers: at the time, they proudly touted that it was the first time a Minor Threat song (let alone an SSD song) appeared on a major label. They promptly went back to goofy pop songs, and the rest is football-stadium history.
We're still waiting to hear exactly who's in the band, stay tuned.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
10/9/2007 12:14:44 PM by Will | |
Friday, September 28, 2007
DOWNLOAD: Sleepyhead, "Whoville" (mp3)
Before Low and Bedhead made playing really slow an act of indie virtue (and virtuosity), there was Sleepyhead: a not egregiously sleepy band, but one whose noisy, shambolic-yet-deliberate pop felt identifiably post–Sonic Youth. Their nine-year run ended in '99; co-leaders Chris O'Rourke and Rachel McNally got married, procreated, and moved from NYC to Boston. Both are now teachers in the Newton school system. But they’re also making awesome music again: a Sleepyhead album called Red Letter Daze is in production. (Don't tell Buffalo Tom). From the demo pile, check out "Whoville." Then get ready for their comeback gig September 29 at the Middle East.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
9/18/2007 2:09:14 PM by Will | |
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Hives, for Nike
We've been marvelling these past few weeks that our old favourite band, the Hives, have managed to weather their sales-dip (unwarranted, as Tyrannosaurus Hives was fucking brilliant) without missing a beat: having fully embraced their commercial instincts, they made lemonade out of that Timbaland-collabo lemon by selling it to the WWE (see below) then snuck a sneak peak of their forthcoming single into a Nike commercial (see above). Now comes word that they'll play the Middle East in Cambridge on October 14 (huuuuge sigh of relief: this means we won't have to shell out to see them play the Garden the following night), with tickets going on sale this Friday, August 17, presumably at 9 or 10 am. We expect the MidEast show to be completely sold out by the time High School Musical 2 airs that night.
As we were pressing "publish" we also noticed that the Hives have just announced the title of their new disc -- The Black and White Album, a fantastic title which manages to trump Metallica, the Beatles, and Jay-Z in one fell swoop -- as well as its release date (Oct 8 UK, Oct 9 US), plus the identity of the first single, "Tick Tick Boom" (yes, the one from the Nike commercial) which will be available for iTunes download . . . in less than 48 hours. Of course, you can hear it right now via someone's crappy cellphone. Our first impression: a little on the genericky-Hives tip, but catchy enough to make us psyched for whatever comes next. Like maybe Pelle in Vanity Fair? Sweet. For those of you who can't wait until then, Hives fan community has YouTube links to unreleased/potential-album tracks here. And the Hives themselves have posted a wonderful teaser that mimics the old Metallica intros when they'd come out to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." See here:
DOWNLOAD: The Hives, The Black and White Album teaser (QuickTime) (or, for you iPod-video peeps, .m4v):
 
In this interview, Pelle tells NME, "Sometimes it felt like we were making Chinese Democracy," and that there are songs the feature "only piano and fingersnaps." Various reports have had the Hives collaborating with rap and pop producers for TB&WA, which has been making us nervous. The Tim thing was a total bust, and historically, garage-band collabos with big-name producers have ranged from things like this to . . . well, things like this. It's more than a little disconcerting that they were so willing to turn the enthralling lettrist/situationist animation of their best video into a thinly-veiled Sin City ripoff for an embattled pro-wrestling franchise. "Tick Tick Boom," though, sounds like their best Veni Vidi Vicious goodness, and since the best anyone's been able to offer up in the garage-rock arena is Black Lips (fine band, very funny, best song titled, not surprisingly, "Veni Vidi Vici"), and since some group called Belanova has had a monstrous hit everywhere else in the world by pairing a singer who looks like Amy Winehouse with a band that are dead ringers for the Hives, the time seems ripe for a reclamation of the throne.
Someone save us a seat at the side of the stage.
Hives + Timbaland + lady wrestlers = wtf?
p.s.: The Middle East is letting loose with a bonkers fall schedule; the following also go on sale Friday:
10/2 The Good Life
10/6 Mr. Lif
10/7 Sunset Rubdown
10/15 Township, Major Stars, Sky Pilot, Bald Eagle
10/28 Figurines, Dappled Cities
10/29 Boris, Damon & Naomi & Kurihara (Ghost)
11/18 The Gossip, Long Blondes, Panther
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Amanda Palmer's not-quite-solo show with her BF(s)F Aberdeen City as her "backing band" quietly went on sale and quickly sold out. We sent her an email to be, like, WTF? You and AbCity? Her response, which, of course, is probably not meant to be read completely literally:
I'm in my "experimental" phase, meaning that in addition to my forrays into professional velvet-painting, exxxtreme cow-tipping & studying esoteric forms of judaism and the like, I have been playing with different bands. Aberdeen City are one of my favorite groups to come out of boston is ages and I've always wanted to try to collaborate with them. We're going to arrange a handful of my new songs and play some covers. You know, nickelback, pearl jam, skynyrd, standard bar-band kinda fare. I'm also going to play on some of their tunes and play some classic amanda solo stuff sans band.
There you have it. Showtime is tomorrow night at the Middle East. Still a couple pairs left on Craig's List if you're desperate.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
An advance fourth-of-July gift for you: Radio Birdman -- Australia's answer to the Stooges, for those of you without record collections -- have booked a last-second gig at the Middle East tonight, aka Independence Day Eve. Don't expect them to have any idea what that is. It appears they were supposed to play Buffalo tonight but that one got cancelled. We're trying to imagine the booking agent being like, "Oh, no problem: we'll just reschedule at this place around the corner. It's called Boston." Since everyone's expected to be back at work on Thursday, this is pretty much your only chance to get your red-white-and-booze on.
Meanwhile, apropos of nothing, the Kino DV dudes are celebrating the Fourth by uploading another slice of punk-rock glory: the Dead Boys performing "Sonic Reducer" live at CB's in 1977. (Uhh, as you can see, it's also already on YouTube. Whatevs.) We can't quite figure the connection between this and our nation's birthday, except that the Boys were from all-American Cleveland, and the guy who introduces them is like some kind of Wavy Gravy character who got caught in a time warp, and what's more American than that?
Serendipity: after watching both of the above, go check out the lead track on Birdman's MySpace page and try telling us that "We've Come So Far" isn't a dead ripoff of "Sonic Reducer."
Bonus track: after repeated viewings of the above, we had a hankering to go listen to a bunch of Hellacopters records. Which then made us wish Nick would update this track by calling it "Everything Is On YT":
Friday, June 22, 2007
    The National
June 21 at the Middle East Downstairs
All
photos by Matt Teuten
It was difficult not to root for the National at the start
of last night’s show, when six scruffy, average-looking dudes walked onstage,
shyly and graciously, without a trace of hipster-ness - perhaps a sign of their
Cincinnati roots, though they now reside in Brooklyn. It was the first of two sold-out shows (the
other is tonight), on a sold-out tour, and this is new territory for the
not-so-new band. The National released four incendiary albums and became
accustomed to playing half-full (or less) venues before their fifth album, Boxer, came out last month (and leaked well before that) to a
virtual storm of hype and critical acclaim - all of it well-deserved. There’s
nothing particularly complex about Boxer
- it’s lead singer Matt Berninger’s baritone voice (often compared to Leonard
Cohen), brooding piano, guitar and strings, combined in a vaguely
Smiths-influenced Americana-type
way - except maybe for lyrics like “I’m sorry I missed you, I had a secret
meeting in the basement of my brain,” which are simultaneously mysterious and
yet all-too-familiar. But simple songwriting is the National’s brilliance. That
brilliance didn’t necessarily translate to the stage, however, no matter how
badly anyone wanted it to. Crowd chatter and sounds drifting down from the Middle East upstairs threatened to swallow the National
on slower numbers, such as “Slow Show” and “Brainy,” though the dedicated crowd shouted along
heartily on “Fake Empire,” and “Murder Me Rachel,” one of the band’s signature
old live favorites. Full review to come soon. --Caitlin E. Curran
Thursday, June 14, 2007
DOWNLOAD: The Dead Trees, "Shelter" (mp3)
Like a less-slanted but every-bit-as-enchanting Pavement, the band formerly known as Furvis sound as if they were off enjoying their own range life on this track from their new, self-released 6 Songs EP. Well, maybe "enjoying" isn't the right word: singer Mike Cummings seems to be suffering from a crisis of faith as he addresses the big guy in the sky: "God, I think I had a little failure . . . I'm starting to rot." He needn't worry: ever since they changed their name to the Dead Trees, everything’s been going their way. Particularly of late: Todd Dahlhoff has been sitting in on bass in Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.'s band, and the Dead Trees have been opening for Hammond at big gigs -- including the recent one that brought Drew Barrymore out to see them. They'll be back home to headline upstairs at the Middle East on July 3 -- and, to bring things full circle, opening for Mr. Hammond tonight at the Paradise. In the meantime, you can ponder whether the combination of Drew sightings a ttheir gigs and the whistling intro to this track is destined to make them the next Peter Bjorn and John.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
GOING:
"Throwed"
Tuesday May 29 at the Middle East, Cambridge
9 pm
Just a friendly reminder that the monthly THROWED thingamajawn is tonight, with lots of our favorite peoples: recent Boston transplant Chris Devlin (of Spank Rock fame), resident DJ E-Marce, and Cave In guitarist Adam McGrath's gargantuan metal band CLOUDS. Runaway sons of the nuclear a-bomb, all. As if you needed more carrots, E-Marce sent along his recently-Palms-Out-Sounds'ed rework of that awesome Pase Rock/Amanda Blank tune that you've been jerking off in the shower to for the past couple months. We haven't been on the blogs for a while, so we have no idea when Amanda's solo record is coming out or if there even is one (she's still signed to Warners or something, right?), but for fuck's sake, more more more please.
DOWNLOAD: Pase Rock feat. Amanda Blank, "Sexy MF (E-Marce's Fuckin' in the Shower Edit)" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Clouds, "New Amnesia" (mp3)
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The Cribs: "Men's Needs"
It's possible a few of you haven't seen the latest video from UK indie sensations the Cribs, in which the band performs its new single "Men's Needs" while trying to ignore the naked girl stumbling around the set, knocking over their gear and hacking off bandmates' limbs with an axe. Well, no more excuses. (Also, if you find yourself wondering exactly what's behind that little black rectangle, the lads over at NME have the uncensored dirty version for your streaming pleasure.)
As opening shots go, it's a pretty good idea of what to expect from the band's hotly-tipped album Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever, due out next month in the UK (preorder here) and a little further on here in the states. We can't leak it (erm, yet?) but we've got the next best thing: tickets to the Cribs' show at the Middle East tomorrow (Friday, May 4). To win a pair, be one of the first four people begging in the comments section -- and remember, use your real email this time.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Airhorns to Stereogum for leaking the new Buffalo Tom single -- album and tour coming in July, tickets go on sale Thursday for the Boston show -- thereby completing our Tuesday 90s Boston Alt-rock trifecta: the Dinosaur Jr album is officially out today, and we just got Joan "Dambuilders" Wasser's solo record in the mail. Even bigger shouts to the 'Gum for digging up the My So Called Life clip where Claire Daines and pre-30secs2mars Jared Leto hold hands to BuffTom's "Late at Night."
As it happens, "Three Easy Pieces" is a Chirs Colburn song, not a Janovitz song, which means you can bug Chris to sing a few bars of it when he plays at the Middle East tonight at the Middle East. Good bill, too, put together by Pipeline host (and Phoenix freelancer) Jeff Breeze: featuring Montreal's Sister Suvi, Portland's Phantom Buffalo, and Boston's own Shrinking Islands.
DOWNLOAD: Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces" (mp3, via Stereogum)
>> FRIEND THEM: at MySpace
>> TICKETS: to Buffalo Tom at the Paradise go on sale May 3
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Regular readers of OTD know we're all over Mark E. Moon's jock. Up til now he's focused on dropping Certified Bananas-style indie-rap smashups, but in honor of his joining the MySpace megaverse -- as good an excuse to revisit his way-too-slept on Neutral Milk Hotel remix -- he's put together a two-minutes-and-change minimix that throws gimmicks out the window and just kills shit, flipping the ubiquitous Justice/Simian track "We Are Your Friends" until it flips the bird at social networking. In other news, Mark E.'s been cooking up this thing where he's become the Jam Master Jay of Big Digits, live-mixing "ciara and kelis hooks, reggeaton umbrage, and comedy record laugh tracks" right into their backing beats. They're doing this shit live tonight at the Middle East for a last-minute gig.
DOWNLOAD: Mark E. Moon, "MySpace Minimix" (mp3)
Monday, March 19, 2007
Isis
Jesu
Zozobra
Isis, Jesu, and Zozobra
March 17 at the Middle East, Cambridge
Photos: Rev. Aaron
Thursday, March 01, 2007
So we heard you dudes were so stoked about the Clipse poster that someone stole the blown-up version right off the stand! We had our eyes on that thing when it was in the office. Whoever got it, we hope you were man enough to get it signed. Send photos!
And since so many of you were bugging Mike Johnson about where to get the poster after he ran out, we figured we'd upload you a super-duper pdf of the joint. It's a huge file, but it's ready for flash-driving to your local Copy Cop or whatever.
DOWNLOAD: Jef Czekaj's Clipse poster (pdf, 8mb)
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Photo by Sisto
Think of last night as the dress rehearsal: it was the show that got added after tonight's sold out, so yeah, the room was only half-full, and Low B cancelled due to the weather in Philly (which somehow didn't prevent the Re-Up Gang from making the trip north from the City of Brotherly Love). The thumbnail description: Clipse running through full versions of nearly every song you'd want to hear (we took a quick smoke break, maybe they did "Hello New World" while we were gone), with Ab-Liva and Sandman bringing a fresh package onstage when the rhyme supply began to run low. The only visible skeptic was the Herald's Chris Faraone, who bravely called bullshit on the evening's proceedings. Chris may be an indie-rap snob, but he wasn't wrong, necessarily: Pusha T and Malice were professional and on point, but their art takes place primarily on the notepad (Faraone would dispute even that: "it's ok for commercial shit," he winced). We have a soft spot for smart, earnest indie kids who sweat the technique: they remind us lots of their existentialist/rockist cousins from indie-punk's early-'90s heyday, always quick to draw out the distinction between craftsmen and salesmen. You know OTD: we're always trying to stretch the rules to suggest that the game is now played on multiple platforms, that the stage is not just the six feet between the DJ and the PA, but also the space where all that other mess happens -- the critics' polls and the YouTube vids and the blog buzz and the merch table and the message board hype. Which is to say that Clipse made their meaning long before they stepped on the plywood, and all they could do once they were there was live up to it, or not, as best as anyone can with two turntables, a couple of microphones, and a sampler set on glock-shot. Grade: B+.
That said, we expect to hear differently from Ben "This Is The Best Two Nights of My Life" Sisto, who appeared to know more words to these songs than we do, or at least is a better lip-syncher. Swing the point-of-view away from the dude who gives out the grades and it was a real | |