WNEW | Where Rock Lives

Late Night Live: The Black Keys

Another great night for musical performances as the Black Keys performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

A.M. Nuggets: Death Cab Does Daytrotter; Phil Surprises Fans At Warfield

Not sure how we slept on this one, but this week's most in-the-news band Death Cab For Cutie did a great studio session at Daytrotter last month. Among the six songs they performed were Cath and Talking Bird - two of the tracks off the new ablum Narrow Stairs (iTunes). Also excellent is the final track from the session - Why You'd Want To Live Here - off The Photo Album. You can listen and download here.

Out in San Francisco, Phil Lesh and Friends are in the middle of a five-night run at the historic Warfield Theater, and fans in attendance on Night 1 got a nice surprise from the band. Perhaps taking a cue from Bruce Springsteen's stunt last week, Phil and the band played the Grateful Dead's entire first album (1967's Grateful Dead) during the first set, then came back out and played the Dead's second album (1968's Anthem Of The Sun) front to back during the second set. What's more, Bob Weir joined the band for a few songs in each set, making the whole affair a mini Dead reunion. Setlist here, and some excellent photos here.

A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsider the Classics

In Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics edited by Jim Derogatis, 34 young rock critics set out to destroy the rock canon of their parents: Pet Sounds, Sgt Peppers, Exile of Main Street; no stone is unturned in this rabid attempt to deconstruct the Rock of Ages.

“Why should anything be accepted as dogma in an art form (the devil’s music, no less!) that, at best, is about questioning everything?” says DeRogatis in the foreword. “A lot of people don’t think this way; a lot of people don’t like to think, period. Baby Boomers, the largest generation in American history ... are particularly prone to safeguarding works whose values they adopted as articles of faith in their youth, even though said youth is now several decades behind them"

Essentially this book is good fun, a sign of rock rebellion turning in on itself as it should. Once you get past the happy vitriol, however, the contributors do have some interesting points: isn't Sweet Black Angel by the Rolling Stones racist, why do we all have a copy of Pet Sounds but rarely listen to it, who really listens to the tepid Rumours, don't we all agree that Captain Beefheart is ridiculous ?

Here are some of the other albums ripped to shreds in Kill Your Idols...
-Tommy, the Who (1969)
-GP/Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons (1973/1974; rereleased in 1990)
-Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan (1975)
-Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen (1975)
-Nevermind, Nirvana (1991)
-OK Computer, Radiohead (1997)

Late Night Live: Death Cab for Cutie

A big night for late night music performances last night as Death Cab for Cutie performed on Late Show with David Letterman... 

Lost Chicago Album Found

This really is massive news for fans of the U.S. institution that is Chicago. It seems their lost album Stone Of Sisyphus (produced by Peter Wolf), recorded in 1993, will finally be released on June 17 2008!

Back in '93, Warner Brothers refused to release it because it didn't sound like the Chicago they wanted. The band were not willing to compromise and so left the company and took the album with them.

"We wrote songs that were more experimental, songs that were more daring in terms of musical direction and chord construction, more than anything," remembers James Pankow who played horns with Chicago. "We got into really feeling our oats in terms of being the voice of Chicago again. It had been a long time since we had made a record like that."

The album has a passion and energy that was missing from the albums directly before it, it's powered by horns too, something that I at least hope will take them back to when they were Chicago Transit Authority, although that might be hoping for to much.

Track Listing:
1. Stone Of Sisyphus
2. Bigger Than Elvis
3. All the Years
4. Mah-Jong
5. Sleeping in the Middle of the Bed
6. Let's Take a Lifetime
7. The Pull
8. Here With Me (A Candle for the Dark)
9. Plaid
10. Cry for the Lost
11. The Show Must Go On

Bonus Tracks:
12. Love Is Forever (demo)
13. Mah-Jong (demo)
14. Let's Take a Lifetime (demo)
15. Stone of Sisyphus (no rhythm loop)

A.M. Nuggets: Green Day Stealth Tour; NPR has Black Keys, Lou Reed

You might have heard the name Foxboro Hot Tubs recently, or seen it listed in our new releases section as a band with an album called Stop Drop and Roll coming out next week. What you might also know by now is that this band is really Green Day in disguise (or a side project, depending on who you ask). The tunes sound pretty good (have a listen here) - they have a kind of early-60's rock meets punk sound. The big news is that Foxboro Hot Tubs will be doing a quick club tour in support of the new record, appearing at such intimate venues as Emo's in Austin, Soma in San Diego, and one of this blogger's favorites: One Eyed Jack's in New Orleans. Tickets will only be availble on the day of the show, at the venue box office, so expect fans to begin camping out any minute now.

NPR continues to pump out the good tunes, most recently with last night's broadcast of the Black Keys from the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. The show should be available on demand at this page shortly - while you're there check out the sweet live set from Lou Reed, taped last month in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

The Five Worst Albums by Good Bands

You know that feeling when you’re looking forward to a new release by your favorite artist, and it turns out to be rubbish?

Here are my top five albums that don't just disappoint but astound, in terms of how bad they are compared with what these artists do best:

1. Music From "The Elder" by KISS. The album that killed KISS. Clear evidence that you can't make the transition from a brilliant novelty act to a serious progressive rock band, this concept album was reportedly smashed by Ace Frehley when he first heard it.

2. Bat Out of Hell III by Meat Loaf. Clear evidence that, while the first album was memorable, Meat only had one good idea in his career.

3. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Original Soundtrack. This album, from 1978, featured Peter Frampton, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Jeff Beck and Billy Preston, but by some astounding feat still came out crap. Don't mess with the classics.

4. Return of the Champions by Queen. Dr. Brian May is brilliant and Paul Rodgers is one of the best vocalists the world has ever seen. Put them together and you get a boring rehash of their prime. A cover band could do better than this.

5. Supernatural by Santana. God, I love Santana, but I find it really hard to believe why he sold out making this duets album. And he plays the same bloody solo on every track.

Let us know what your choices are...

Captured Live: Robert Randolph; Spoon; Animal Collective

We're digging through the Archive for this week's edition of Captured Live, bringing you choice cuts from two WNEW.com favorites and a progressive newcomer. If you're not familiar with Archive.org, it's an ambitious non-profit project whose goal is to preserve for all time the culture and artifacts of the digital age. Luckily for us music fans, a major offshoot of the archiving project is the Live Music Archive, a place for independent artists and taper-friendly bands (in the tradition of the Grateful Dead) to post recordings of live shows.
This week we're sampling recent shows from Robert Randolph & the Family Band and Spoon, two bands you'll hear plenty from on this station. The RRFB set is from the band's appearance at the McDowell Mountain Music Festival outside Scottsdale, AZ last month. Fans of this band will recognize Robert's instrumental cover of Michael Jackson's Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'; my personal favorite from this show is the ripping version of Diane (Summertime). The Spoon set was recorded at a club called Scala in London and captures the band running through over 20 songs, with new-ish tunes like Don't You Evah and The Underdog appearing alongside older tracks like Small Stakes, The Way We Get By and Jonathan Fisk. Both Spoon and Robert Randolph are hitting the road this summer, so check out their tour pages and make sure to catch them if you can.

Finally today we're taking a look at Animal Collective and a show they played last July in London. 'Progressive' hardly seems an adequate tag for this group - they're pretty far out there - but there is something captivating about the music if you get the chance to put it on without a lot of distractions. If nothing else these Animals are talented instrumentalists, as evidenced on the Pan Flute Jam (no, really), and the creepy Loch Raven. Think it's all a bunch of noise? Give it a listen and leave us a comment to let us know what you think.

Hendrix Sex Tape: Do We Really Care?

Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton… Jimi Hendrix?

Los Angeles adult video company Vivid Entertainment recently released a DVD showing a man that looks like Jimi Hendrix having sex with two women. Apparently they 'consulted experts' to verify its authenticity.

‘We are very comfortable this is the real thing," Steven Hirsch, chairman of Vivid Entertainment, told Reuters News Service. Vivid Entertainment also distributed the Pamela and Tommy Lee sex tapes – which were definitely real.

Representatives of Experience Hendrix, the company that controls the artist’s rights, are challenging the DVD’s release, saying they ‘strongly dispute’ its authenticity.

‘We view the release as nothing more than a callous attempt to trade on the image and reputation of a deceased artist who is unable to defend himself against such an outrageous and baseless assertion,’ the representatives said.

Hendrix biographer Charles Cross also disputes the claim. ‘It doesn't add up to Jimi,’ he said.

A.M. Nuggets: Richie Havens Tour; Somebody Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

Sixties icon Richie Havens announced almost a year's worth of tour dates yesterday, in support of his new album Nobody Left to Crown. If you were at Woodstock (or, like me, waited for the movie) you might remember his electrifying three-hour-plus set, which opened the festival and set the stage for the rest of that weekend's 'lightening in a bottle' performances. Havens' tour will literally take him from coast to coast, with stops from Freeport, Maine to Homer, Alaska and just about everywhere in between.

Lately we've been digging a new band out of Springfield, MO called Somebody Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Their newest release, Pershing (iTunes), is out now and is well worth a listen. Yesterday we stumbled across some great video of these guys, performing as a 'supergroup' with tourmates Via Audio. HTFF has the videos and some free downloads from the session - I Can't Focus is particularly good, and the acoustic Nirvana cover isn't bad either. SSLYBY (it's a mouthful even as an acronym...) is on tour now, and will appear on Last Call with Carson Daly this Thursday, 5/15.