Burn to Shine is a series of DVDs recorded live in houses scheduled for demolition. Both include great perfomrances by bands both well-known and lesser-known (see the website for a list), but what really makes these special is their wonderful human quality. They not only capture live music, but the final human experience in an old house that had seen… Read more »
Label: VirginReleased: September 6, 2005 Here’s the thing about the Rolling Stones, they’ve become the world’s greatest Stones cover band. I’m not going to spend any time with the specifics of the music here, I’m going to focus on the feel of the album. It’s second-rate Exile-era Stones material. If you liked the Stones in the early 70s, you’ll probably… Read more »
Speaking about one of his pre-Dead bands, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, Weir said, “Playing in the jug band, I learned a healthy respect for the roots of music. You honor the roots of music, and you’re tapping into a vein – there’s juice in there.” I agree. It’s not just what made the Dead a great band (and like… Read more »
Here’s a backhanded compliment from allmusic.com‘s review of Sham 69’s Tell Us the Truth album: “Tell Us the Truth sounds passionate, belligerent, and kinda dumb, but that’s an improvement over Sham 69’s later work, where the band sounds overblown, strident, and really, really dumb.” I don’t mean to single allmusic out here, because I’ve seen this treatment of Sham repeatedly… Read more »
Here’s a new twist on the old battle of the bands thing. Instead of picking two bands that are musically similar, I’m choosing two bands that have something in their names in common. Sometimes its a common theme, sometimes they’re opposites, sometimes they just sound similar. It’s not as serious an exercise perhaps, but it might be fun. It was… Read more »
Label: TurnReleased: 2005 To be a truly great record, an album would have to transcend its genre and appeal to music fans in a nearly universal way. It has to be the kind of album that I’d give to someone and say, “I know you don’t like such-and-such-a-genre, but you have to hear this anyway.” If there’s a case to… Read more »
August 12, 2005, Ottobar, Baltimore, MD I’d been looking forward to this show since I saw it on the Ottobar site a few months ago all because of one Holly Golightly song, “Your Love is Mine.” The song is just that good. It’s probably hard for a show to really live up to the expectations of one great song, but… Read more »
I was going through some old mp3s the other day and I stumbled across Saxon doing “Court of the Crimson King.” I fully expected it to suck and I think that was a reasonable expectation. Saxon is a decent band, but they’re a down-in-the-trenches metal band playing rock in it’s most distilled but uneventful form, not an avante garde band… Read more »
July 10, 2005, Recher Theatre, Towson, Maryland Fifteen to twenty years ago, I would have looked forward to this show with unbridled enthusiasm. Sunday night, I was excited to see hardcore legends GBH, but only cautiously optimistic. Would they still exude the energy of their great 80s albums or would they just seem like old men going through the motions… Read more »
The best thing about 2003’s Elephant was that it was a near perfect celebration of 70s hard rock, paying homage without simply emulating, delivering rock in its purest form. The downside was that it really didn’t stretch out beyond hard rock and garage influences. Get Behind Me Satan is just the opposite. It stretches further, but lacks the punch of… Read more »