WNEW | Where Rock Lives

From the Front Row: Ladybird and Spit Hot Fire

WNEW was out on the town last night and caught a great show from two new bands that are worth a look: Ladybird (pictured) and Spit Hot Fire.

Spit Hot Fire bill themselves as 'Rock/Reggae/Pop' which is all true, but I would add "Ska" and "Jam" to round out the description of this quartet from NYC. Their self-titled EP is available at iTunes and is well worth a listen. The ska influence is evident on the EP, in particular on tracks like Slumming. Their live show is where the jamband influence comes through, as the guys indulged the crowd at Rehab with some wandering, but danceable guitar and bass jams reminiscent of Umphrey's McGee.

Equally talented but worlds apart are Ladybird, led by Victor Crespi on guitar and vocals. Hailing from France and New Zealand, this indie outfit has been on a mission to spread good will and good tunes to the world. Singing primarily about love and friendship, Ladybird charms you with their songs as well as their silly French stage banter. Now on the final leg of their first U.S. tour, which took them from San Diego to New York in a very smelly minivan, Ladybird will soon head back to Europe for some rest and to record, in Victor's words "...a very many songs" written during this trek through the States.

Ladybird performs once more at Rehab in NYC this Thursday (5/1). If you can't catch them there, check out the myspace page where you can hear some tracks and purchase their full-length debut Love Will Conquer All.

What the Hell Is the Post-Punk Revival?

What do the Arctic Monkeys, the Editors, the Rakes, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, the Futureheads, Bloc Party, the Rapture, Interpol, Clor and the Wombats all have in common?

They are considered part of the post-punk revival!

The term post-punk goes back to the early eighties, when bands like the Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division, XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen and U2 started to branch out from punk and experiment with new sounds; the essential ethos of punk remained, but the image was more arty, the stance was more introverted and synthesizers were added to the mix. Post-punk also drew on 70s disco and dub, adding a dance-ability that punk never had. 

The post-punk revival also still retains the original punk sound: spiky angular guitar, short sharp songs, British accents, but instead of adding disco sometimes adds electronic sounds or dance music.

Here's my top 10 tracks:

1. Apply Some Pressure by Maximo Park
2. Last Night by the Strokes
3. 22 Grand Job by the Rakes
4. Fake Takes of San Francisco by the Arctic Monkeys
5. Man Ray by the Futureheads
6. Kill the Director by the Wombats
7. Like Eating Glass by Bloc Party
8. Love and Pain by Clor 
9. Moving Pictures by the Cribs
10. Gravity's Rainbow by the Klaxons

A.M. Nuggets: New Orleans Jazzfest Underway

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is a behemoth, the granddaddy of all U.S. music festivals, spanning two weekends and countless musical genres. This year's headliners Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Buffet, Carlos Santana and Al Green are impressive enough, but they only tell half the story. The JazzFest is a non-stop, 24-hour extravaganza that takes place on the festival fairgrounds as well as every bar, club and street corner in town. Shows are booked around the clock, with some starting at 3am and going until the sun comes up.

Clubs like Tipitina's, Republic and One Eyed Jack's have already hosted late night sets from bands like the Disco Biscuits and Galactic, and are gearing up for the Fest's second weekend when they'll play host to bands like Gov't Mule, Eric Lindell and the the Whigs.

JazzFest is normally an annual pilgrimage for this WNEW staffer, so being unable to attend this year has been a bit of a downer. But the beauty of the internet is that now we can still experience these events - be it vicariously through someone's photographs or via live webcast. With the first weekend already wrapped up in New Orleans, our friends at JamBase have posted an excellent photo set featuring artists like Al Green, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, and Buckwheat Zydeco. Stay tuned here for more updates as we scour the web for more photos, reviews, and generally just pine away for a taste of some Crawfish Monica.

Weezer Prep 'The Red Album'

It has been a little more than two years since we last heard from Weezer. After the release of 2005’s highly anticipated, yet incredibly disappointing Make Believe, the indie music darlings virtually went into seclusion aside from the occasional touring stints. While commercially seen as a success, the band’s fifth studio album was felt by many as too predictable and water downed, lacking the spunk and spirit of Weezer’s past masterpieces. Gone were the addictive guitar rifts of Maladroit, the edginess of Pinkerton, and the full-fledged garage rock sound that we first fell in love with on The Blue Album. Whether a byproduct of misdirection or a causality of its own colossal hype, Make Believe failed to capture Weezer’s talents and listener’s ears.

On June 24, Rivers Cuomo and company will give it another shot when they release their new album, The Red Album. For the third time in six albums, Weezer are taking the self-titled approach, a more than appropriate move for an album expected to feature the sounds and lyrics of past glory, characteristics certainly exemplified in the album’s first single. Debuted last week on the band’s official website, Pork and Beans is reminiscent of classic Maladrot with the fury of electricity and innocent passion of Cuomo’s vocals blending perfectly together en route to becoming yet another in a long line of the band’s trademark sub-three minute pop/rock ballads. In other words, Weezer are back.

The Red Album apparently resulted from the band’s willingness to not only press the reset button, but also deviate from the game plan. Aside from the return of past Weezer sound, the album will also feature a series of longer, more experimental songs with electric guitars making way for synthesizers and 'Southern rap' replacing Cuomo’s characteristic vocal styles. What’s more the Weezer frontman chose to share the writing and vocal duties for a number of The Red Album’s ten tracks, explaining to Pitchfork, "Scott [Shriner] has the most naturally beautiful tone; Bri [Bell] has the stoker attitude; and Pat [Wilson] has the depth and complexity of expression.” Cuomo went on to note in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, “We put a lot of emphasis on blowing our minds with creative freakouts.”

While we won’t know for another two months the true critical and commercial success of The Red Album, based on early indications, we don’t really have much to worry about it. Weezer are set to deliver another masterpiece, featuring both a return to the past and the beginning of something new. Who cares if it took six-plus years to come about? 

Foals' Debut Is a Massive Surprise

U.K. band Foals have been called indie-meets-dance-punk, math-rock and electro-rock.

Whatever they are, their sound is pretty special, one that relies on repetitive-jarring-complex guitar that makes you dance: kind of like a sped up Fine Young Cannibals, maybe Steve Reich in the mosh-pit or an epileptic Strokes.

Foals' debut album, Antidotes, contains no chords (the guitars are only played above the 12th fret), synthesizers in the background and an overall driving beat.

Enough to suggest that we will look back on them in a few years and say they helped redefine indie rock, or at least picked up where the Futureheads, Bloc Party and the Klaxons (or their American counterparts, Vampire Weekend) have left off.

Check out their singles Cassius and Balloons, which prove they more than live up to the hype.

Captured Live: Raconteurs and Portishead from Coachella

For this edition of Captured Live let's take a listen to some fresh sets from last weekend's Coachella Festival. By all accounts the headliners Prince and Roger Waters turned in performances to remember, with Prince covering Radiohead, and Waters performing Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety.

But it's these sets from the Raconteurs and Portishead that you really need to hear. Jack White and company are fresh off the release of Consolers of the Lonely and just a few dates into their summer tour. Some of the new songs sound like they're still getting worked out for the live set, while tracks like Top Yourself and Salute Your Solution already sound really solid.  And since we know Jack White never likes to play a song the same way twice, tunes from the last album like Blue Veins and Steady, As She Goes sound even more delicious this time around. Download link is here.

I never got into Portishead the first time around, but the previews I've been hearing from their new album Third have been pretty good. Sounds like their Coachella performance has set the fans on fire - with multiple tracks from the new album bookending classic Portishead cuts like Glory Box and Sour Times. Grab the Portishead set here.
 

For even more live sets from the Coachella weekend, check out Largehearted Boy's page, he's keeping a running tally of the recordings from the festival.

Rockin' the Produce Aisle

Remember elevator music—that light and airy instrumental music you used to hear on hold, in medical offices and in other places in addition to elevators? I've heard elevator versions of Rock and Roll All Night by KISS, Synchronicity II by the Police, and Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol as well as reworkings of songs by Duran Duran, country star Waylon Jennings and late 80s mallrat idol Tiffany. Listening to them was like driving past a bad highway accident—terrible, but you couldn’t turn away. Today, however, elevator music has largely disappeared from public earshot, which denies us the bizarre treat of hearing the weirdest examples of it. The background music we encounter out in the world is a lot more hip today.

Take the music you hear in retail stores. It's often carefully programmed to facilitate the separation of people from their money. The music will match the taste of the store’s ideal customer, which is why Abercrombie and Fitch sounds different inside than Big Ed’s Denture World. You might guess that the broader the customer base, the blander the music would be. Given the colorful parade of humanity that passes through your neighborhood megamart grocery store, for example -- all ages, races, socio-economic groups and such -- you’d expect their music to be chosen so that it would appeal to -- or at least not offend -- as many people as possible. But you would be wrong, at least in my neighborhood.

Here’s a list of five unexpected songs heard at the grocery store.

-Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf: I wonder how fast this cart will go down that long straightaway in frozen foods?

-Love Stinks by the J. Geils Band: No, it’s just the meat department.

-Roots Rock Reggae by Bob Marley and the Wailers: Surveys show that the most popular seasonings sold at grocery stores playing Bob Marley are jerk seasoning and oregano (OK, I made that part up).

-Get Up Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine by James Brown: Seinfeld to Costanza, “So, she didn’t appreciate the erotic qualities of the salted, cured meats?”

-Wild Thing by the Troggs: “Wild thing, I think you move me” -- which is a good thing, because this checkout line isn’t moving at all.

Can anyone top that?

A.M. Nuggets: Tailgating Banned in Jersey; Phil Collins Retires

We got a whiff of this at the end of last summer, and now it appears to be official: Live Nation will be banning tailgating at select shows at New Jersey's PNC Bank Arts Center. For those of you who haven't been, the PNC (still known to many as the Garden State Arts Center), is a typical amphitheater venue with a parking lot tailor-made for the summer tailgate. We suspected Live Nation might take action this year, after two alcohol-related deaths at that venue last summer, but the decision to selectively allow tailgating based on the artist/tour is sure to raise the ire of music fans from across the spectrum. Among the tours on the banned list are John Mayer and Linkin Park; those with the "OK to tailgate" pass include James Taylor, The Police, and the Jonas Brothers.

In other music news, Phil Collins has apparently retired, telling the U.K.'s Times Online that while he will continue writing music he is done with performing and won't be recording any more albums. Say what you will about last year's Genesis tour, sans-Peter Gabriel, the man still leaves a major rock legacy. While we wait to see if this is a real retirement, or something more along the lines of Jay-Z, let's enjoy a look at Phil in his prime:

Radio 1's Live Lounge: Highly Recommended

Radio 1's Live Lounge, Volumes 1 and 2 are a collection of live acoustic tracks played on Jo Whiley’s Radio 1 show in the UK.

Most of the albums I highly recommend are 60s or 70s classics and certainly don’t contain covers of Gnarls Barkley or James Blunt tunes, but these recordings, released last October, are truly phenomenal, taking songs by popular artists and getting them covered by another popular artist, usually acoustically.

Among the highlights:

-The Kooks, Crazy (original by Gnarls Barkley)
-The Automatic, Gold Digger (original by Kanye West)
-Boy Kill Boy, Maneater (original by Nelly Furtado)
-James Blunt, If There's Any Justice (original by Lemar)
-Natasha Bedingfield, The Scientist (original by Coldplay)
-Sugababes, Living for the Weekend (original by HARD-Fi)
-Will Young, Hey Ya! (original by OutKast)
-Keane, With or Without You (original by U2)
-Franz Ferdinand, What You Waiting For? (original by Gwen Stefani)
-The Futureheads, Hounds Of Love (original by Kate Bush)
-Jamelia, Numb (original by Linkin Park)
-My Chemical Romance, Song 2 (original by Blur)
-Amy Winehouse, Valerie (original by The Zutons)
-Biffy Clyro, Umbrella (original by Rihanna)
-KT Tunstall, The Prayer (original by Bloc Party)
-The Pigeon Detectives, Girlfriend (original by Avril Lavigne)
-Avril Lavigne, The Scientist (original by Coldplay)
-Paolo Nutini, Rehab (original by Amy Winehouse)
-Arctic Monkeys, You Know I'm No Good (original by Amy Winehouse)

Best Albums So Far in 2008

It may be a bit early to be doing this, but there have already been so many great albums this year, it deserves some attention:

1. Panic at the Disco, Pretty. Odd. This would be a bizarre choice, if Panic at the Disco had not made a complete about-face with their second album, going from emo-whiny to a 60s psychedelic journey through beatlesque pop, with smatterings of the Kinks and even the Smiths.

2. Vampire Weekend. It’s hard to break new ground in the packed indie scene, but Vampire Weekend have done it with their syncopated rock tasting of African pop.

3. Black Mountain, In the Future. Another one that takes us back to British psychedelia –
not the Beatles in this case, but heavy Donovan and Black Sabbath mixed with… Neil Young?

4. The Mars Volta, The Bedlam in Goliath. Complex, funky, full bore brilliance from the Mars Volta, a band that proves we don’t need a quick fix when it comes to music (yes, in between MySpace, texting, watching DVDs and talking to their partner, the music buying public can still stop and listen).

5. Ayreon, 01011001. It's been four long years since the prog metal band’s last outing. This double CD sounds more atmospheric and progressive than their previous effort.

Not a bad start for the first quarter of 2008.

A.M. Nuggets: Coachella Rocked, Prince Covers Radiohead

The dust is still settling in Indio, California after the Coachella Music Festival rocked the desert this past weekend. Headliner Prince is said to have played quite a set, including a cover of Radiohead's Creep, to the delight of thousands of hot sweaty fans. Spinner has a huge set of photos from the festivities, which also featured Death Cab for Cutie, Jack Johnson and Roger Waters peforming the entire Dark Side of the Moon.

Back here at the ranch, we've been glued to the AT&T blue room all weekend, watching the live webcasts from the Coachella grounds. Among the many highlights were sets from the Raconteurs, John Butler Trio, and Brett Dennen. Check back all this week for video recaps of the festival, and get ready for more webcast goodness as the blue room covers the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this coming weekend.

Rock and Roll Dreams Come True

We all had our rock-star dreams, didn't we? I wanted to be Elton John, flamboyantly banging the piano. Perhaps you imagined yourself flailing away at the drum kit like Keith Moon or Carl Palmer, or wailing on lead guitar like Hendrix or Page or Clapton or Eddie Van Halen. And who didn't want to be a frontman -- like Robert Plant, Bono, Steven Tyler or Freddie Mercury?

For most of us, the dream ended when we realized that even if we had musical talent, we didn't have enough (for many, the dream lives on when we play Guitar Hero or Rock Band). But some of us find other outlets. Take Tommy DeCarlo who used his MySpace page to post videos of himself singing Boston songs. That got him a little closer to the dream, if only because he wasn't pretending in front of a mirror with a hairbrush for a microphone -- he found a real audience.

But that wasn't all it got him. Boston is preparing to hit the road this summer for its first tour since 2004, and its first since the suicide of original lead singer Brad Delp last year. Founder Tom Scholz replaced Delp with two singers: Michael Sweet, formerly of Stryper, and DeCarlo, formerly of MySpace, who first joined the band at its tribute to Delp last year after Scholz saw his MySpace page.

"I haven't heard anyone else sing like that in 35 years," Scholz said of DeCarlo, who does indeed sound uncannily like Delp.

And so, if a guy whose day job is credit manager at Home Depot can end up living his rock-star dreams well after he turns 40, there might be hope for the rest of us.

Maybe you'll get to be Eddie Vedder yet.