After a quick and quiet release, (their album was done a couple of weeks ago and they released without any press involvement) the Raconteurs are hitting the road for a cross country tour.
Here’s the thing. I was excited about “Broken Boy Soldiers” but was eventually disappointed with the somewhat non-rocking album.
Their newest effort “Consolers Of The Lonely” delivers the album I wanted two years ago. And the idea that they said “screw you” to the press in terms of marketing is daring, proving that faith in the music industry is being flushed away like a rotten smelling turd filled with corn.
Check out “Five on the Five
OK, so we had that song streaming on the site for about 10 hours before we got an email from the “Web Sheriff” politely threatening us to pull it off. Since we don’t have any lawyers (or any semblance of an actual office), we adhered to the email.
However, since we are trying to promote music rather than steal, we were given a widget that had the new video for “Salute Your Solution.” It wasn’t compatible with Wordpress, which makes sense since it’s one of the widely used programs out there for blogs.
Instead, we present you with silence, which is all we can offer at the moment. If you’re in the mood for it, it’s at the bottom of the page.
04/14/08 Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
04/15/08 Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
04/20/08 Vancouver. BC @ Commodore Ballroom*
04/21/08 Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s*
04/22/08 Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom*
04/23/08 San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club*
04/25/08 Indio, CA @ Coachella
04/26/08 Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint*
04/28/08 Denver, CO @ The Fillmore*
04/29/08 Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theatre*
05/1/08 Dallas, Texas @ House of Blues*
05/2/08 and 05/3/08 Austin, Texas @ Stubb’s BBQ*
05/4/08 New Orleans, LA @ New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
05/13/08 Manchester, Tennessee @ Bonnaroo^
05/27/08 Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club^
05/28/08 Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club^
05/30/08 New York, NY @ Terminal 5^
06/3/08 Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion^
06/4/08 Montreal, QUE @ Metropolis^
06/5/08 Toronto, ONT @ Ricoh Coliseum^
06/7/08 Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore^
06/9/08 Columbus, OH @ LC Amphitheater^
06/10/08 Cincinnati, OH @ National City Pavilion^
06/12/08 St. Louis, MO @ Pageant%
06/13/08 Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music Festival
* with Birds of Avalon
^ with Black Lips
% with Fiery Furnaces
My girlfriend heard the news on the radio a couple of days ago and replied “Hey, those are all bands we like.” So true. But if you look at it in terms of demographics, the tour, like certain political candidates, reaches across the board of music fans.
R.E.M.: older, highly educated individuals who enjoy pop music that “says” something
Modest Mouse: stoners who get high enough to be crazy, but not so high as to make them tired/paranoid/out-of-it.
The National: everyone else (but especially for hipsters who enjoy songs about mid-20s confusion, sex and living in apartments).
BTW, I’m listening to R.E.M’s new album “Accelerate” and it pretty much kicks ass (and somehow only 34 minutes long). Get it now.
May 23: Vancouver (Deer Lake Park) May 29: Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl) May 31: Berkeley, Calif. (Greek Theatre) June 3: Denver, Colo. (Red Rocks) June 6: Chicago (United Center) June 8: Toronto (Molson Amphitheatre) June 10: Raleigh, N.C. (Walnut Creek) June 11: Washington DC, Md. (Merriweather Post Pavilion) June 13: Boston, Mass. (Tweeter Center) June 14: Long Island, N.Y. (Jones Beach) June 18: Philadelphia (Mann Center) June 19: New York (Madison Square Garden) June 21: Atlanta (Lakewood Amphitheatre)
Thanks to this upcoming Rilo Kiley tour, Jenny Lewis and I will finally be able to rekindle our love. It’s a love that has existed for years and been kept apart by distance and the evil soul of “the industry.” And it exists solely in my mind.
Don’t understand my fascination? Check out Rilo Kiley’s “Moneymaker” video and just try not to get all riled up (and yes, those are real porn stars).
04.17.08 - San Francisco, CA Concourse (SF Design Center)
04.19.08 - Portland, OR (Roseland )
04.20.08 - Seattle, WA (Showbox SoDo)
04.23.08 - Santa Cruz, CA (Rio Theatre)
04.24.08 - Pomona, CA (The Glasshouse)
04.26.08 - Indio, CA (Coachella Arts & Music Festival)
05.15.08 - San Diego, CA (Concerts in the Park)
05.19.08 - Denver, CO (Ogden Theatre)
05.20.08 - Omaha, NE (Slowdown)
05.21.08 - Omaha, NE (Slowdown)
05.22.08 - Minneapolis, MN (First Avenue)
05.23.08 - Milwaukee, WI (Pabst Theatre)
05.24.28 - Chicago, IL (The Riviera)
05.25.08 - Royal Oak, MI (Royal Oak Music Theatre)
05.26.08 - Cleveland, OH (House of Blues)
05.28.08 - Toronto, ON (Phoenix Theatre)
05.30.08 - Worcester, MA (Palladium)
05.31.08 - Providence, RI (Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel)
06.01.08 - Northampton, MA (Calvin Theater)
06.02.08 - New York, NY (Terminal 5)
06.05.08 - Philadelphia, PA (Electric Factory)
06.06.08 - Washington, DC (9:30 Club)
06.07.08 - Baltimore, MD (Rams Head Live)
06.08.08 - Richmond, CA (Toads Place)
06.10.08 - Norfolk, VA (The Norva)
06.11.08 - Asheville, NC (Orange Peel)
06.12.08 - Charleston, SC (Charleston Music Farm)
06.13.08 - Manchester, TN (Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival)
06.15.08 - Dallas, TX (Palladium)
06.16.08 - Austin, TX (Stubbs BBQ)
All those mentioned above, plus a multitude more, will be at the very first Pemberton Festival, located in Pemberton in British Columbia, an area most-known for Whistler Mountain and drunken donkeys roaming the streets (maybe not the last one).
It’s being put on by Live Nation, which explains why they got so many names involved with the inaugural show that include Coldplay, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Flaming Lips and My Morning Jacket (entire lineup after the jump).
It’s also the first “European-style festival” that Live Nation has put together from scratch, which means I expect it to be pretentious and exclusive in the coming years.
Not familiar with Canada? Find Vancouver (it’s north of Seattle) and drive north. If you end up in the middle of nothingness, you’ve gone too far.
We like to keep things fresh at 52 Shows. Concert reviews normally go up within a week of the show. But it’s taken my brain a few weeks to process the events that I witnessed at a stop of Cake’s Unlimited Sunshine Tour music festival in New Jersey last month.
The night involved:
a high school auditorium
a tuba fueled sexy asshole
a little person dancing hand-in-hand on stage with an elderly man
A little over a year and a half ago, my girlfriend convinced me to go see Belle and Sebastian at the Wiltern. It didn’t take too much convincing. She’d made me a really good Belle and Sebastian mix a few months earlier and she offered to pay for my ticket. I was sold.
Sadly, the concert was sub-par. It wasn’t awful, but the live experience, just wasn’t a catalyst for any of the various emotions I hope to experience at a show. I wasn’t excited, energized, inspired, astounded, educated, or even amused. I didn’t gain a deeper appreciation for the band, wasn’t left wanting more, wasn’t even happy when they played an encore. I wrote Belle and Sebastian off as one of those very talented bands, that just sounds better on my car stereo then live in person.
Naturally, when my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to see them again a month later, I declined. They were playing at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but never having been to the Bowl or seen the Phil, those weren’t really selling points. She went without me and came back RAVING about the show. Apparently, all the verbs that I crave at a live show, the ones that were so readily absent at the Wiltern, were there in spades with the addition of one of the nation’s best orchestras. I kicked myself and vowed to catch the next rock band who teamed with The Phil, regardless of who they were. That band happened to be The Decemberists.
It was my first show at the Bowl and an experience I’ll never forget. I staggered up from the Hollywood and Highland parking structure (the cheapest and easiest place to park if you don’t mind walking a bit), past a sea of camera toting tourists hoping to be “discovered” as they took posed photos on Cuba Gooding Jr.’s urine soaked star on the Walk of Fame. I walked past fleabag hotels and $20 parking lots. Eventually, the tourists and cars and smog subsided, and as I entered the Bowl, I was surrounded by honest-to-god trees. The Bowl was an oasis of solitude in a desert of tourists and materialism. It’s also an amphitheater that seats 40,000 plus, one that lets you bring in picnic dinners and bottles of wine without any hassle.
And so we sat, eating our fancy cheeses and drinking our wine, and happily enjoying an average performance by Band of Horses and a truly inspired one from Andrew Bird. The latter was so good, I was convinced The Decemberists would have a tough time following. I was wrong.
They opened with, “The Crane Wife, Parts 1 and 2,” and when the Phil’s string section all hit one of the opening chords in unison and the big bassy French horn kicked in, I started laughing hysterically. I suddenly found myself experiencing all of the aforementioned verbs, all at once, in unison, coupled with another wonderful emotion: surprise.
It was surprising just how tight the band and orchestra were together, how full and layered a sound they could create. The energy sixty plus musicians could create on stage, coupled with the enthusiasm of the 40,000 or so in attendance, was a unique live musical experience for me. I’ve seen orchestras and been part of massive rock band audiences, but never at the same time. It’s a special combination.
So a few weeks later when Bright Eyes teamed up with the LA Phil, of course I was going to be there. And once again, I was anything but disappointed. That thick, complex, vibrant sound, tickled my ears and left me in hysterics a few more times. Even with lofty expectations and a similar experience recently under my belt, the sound constantly delighted and surprised me.
The discovery of the Hollywood Bowl and the LA Philharmonic (especially when teamed with a kick-ass rock band) was probably my greatest musical discovery of 2007—a year in which I was exposed to dozens of new bands and a handful of new genres. I consider myself a connoisseur of fine live music, one who’s not easily impressed. That being said, I have no trouble laying down a prediction for 2008: any band teamed with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl will certainly evoke all the wonderful verbs that good life music should.
The world is severely lacking in the department of Rock and Roll at the moment. If only there was some sort of Rock power force that could return from deep within the Earth to restore balance and order in the world.
The same guys that unleashed the thunder of More than Words in the 90’s are reuniting as a sort of League of Super Heroes — Super RAWK Heroes. You remember Pornograffitti, right?
They are working on a brand new album and an extensive multi-national tour to support this new genius album. And they mean seriously tour. None of this half-ass, messing around touring that they’ve dabbled with over the past ten years.
Extreme is bringing back a funky booming flavor that isn’t available anywhere else in today’s market of tired blah. Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt explained the burden that is weighing on Extreme’s shoulders to Rolling Stone:
“Rock and Roll Famine … I know it might sound crazy, but there is a massive shortage of rock and roll on this planet. It’s almost extinct. I mean the true spirit of quality rock and roll — you know, Musicianship, when you would give up every moment of your day to master your instrument and create your own identity and sound so as to respectfully outdo all your past heroes whilst proudly wearing the badge of their influences.”
Lead singer Gary Cherone’s personal web site embodies the gravity of the situation here.
Futuristic animations, an artsy black and white Michael Bolton looking photo of Cherone staring down into the abyss, and a headline highlighted in bright blue: “EXTREME Rejoin Forces”
Holy Crap! This is for realz, yo.
Now all we can do is wait. Wait for Extreme to resurrect Funk Rock and deliver it to a nearby small-town municipal amphitheater.
Those lyrics open up the first track on The Else, the twelfth album from They Might Be Giants released over the summer.
TMBG did not fail to impress on Saturday at the TLA in Philly where they played the last show of a two month tour in support of the album. The guys put on a two set show, bringing out a three man horn section for the second set.
The opening act, Oppenheimer, was entertaining. A barebones duo, they have sort of a Rentals meets the Postal Service synth/homemade feel. They talked a bit too much between songs, but they made up for that, at least to me, by blasting an air horn once or twice during their music.
A team of cleanroom roadies setup the stage before TMBG’s first set dressed in full body zip-up white jumpsuits complete with hoodies. The roadies tossed out red foam fingers and glow sticks into the crowd. I angered a middle aged woman standing nearby when I snatched one of the foamie fingers above the hands of what must have been her teenage son. “You just stole that from a 14 year old!” she yelled at me. I felt like a dick, a dick with a giant red foam finger.
The band made it clear that they would be playing two sets with signs all around the venue and an announcement at the start. The first set lasted about an hour, with a mix of tracks from the new album (the Cap’m, Take Out the Trash, The Mesopotamiams) and old favorites (Puppet Head, Particle Man, Ana Ng). That set alone would’ve made for a fun show.
But after a short break, the second set kicked off with the Triceratops horn section joining the mix. The three man team featured a trumpet, a trombone, and a saxophone. They really beefed up the sound on songs like Birdhouse in Your Soul, the Guitar, and Doctor Worm.
The Johns returned to the stage alone for the encore and played Maybe I Know, a very mellow cover of a mellow 60’s song originally sung by Lesley Gore. Guitarist Dan Miller reappeared and rocked an amazing classical guitar intro to Instanbul (Not Constantinople). The rest of the band appeared and tore through the actual song with the crowd in a frenzy.
They closed out the night with a musical introduction of the band members. The intros ended with the drummer smashing violently on his kit while Flansburgh demanded that the crowd worship him. “He’s destroying his shit… just for you people!”
TMBG seemed comfortable at the TLA, a venue they’ve played plenty of times over the years. Flansburgh commented at one point on a recent name change for the venue which has been purchased by the Fillmore venue chain.
“We’re thrilled to be back the Theater of the Living Arts, also known as the Fillmore to people who have absolutely no idea where they are.”
Maybe it was the excitement of wrapping up a tour, or maybe strong doses of happy pills, but the two Johns were in high spirits. Of course, John Flansburgh kept the crowd pumped throughout with corny jokes and face to face guitar shredding battles with guitarist Dan Miller. But even the normally subdued John Linnell was all smiles and chatty.
Two years later, when my first real girlfriend broke up with me, I spent a lot of time blasting Rage’s self-titled album as I bounced around my room, heart pounding, fisticuffs flying, anger swelling, until the mental agony I was battling was replaced by a more manageable fury.
A few months after I moved to LA, I watched Tom Morello lead Audioslave in “Killing In The Name Of” from the roof of the El Capitan Theatre as thousands of mosh-pitters broke through police barricades on Hollywood Boulevard and the riot police were called in order to restore order.
And so it seemed fitting, that two days after I was laid off from a television job that I loved and cherished, (lead singer) Zack de la Rocha and (guitarist) Morello were once again at the forefront of my pain and passion.
The crowd at the State Theatre was transformed from reserved to rowdy over the course of the Drive-By Truckers show on October 25. Despite the venue, an old-fashioned movie theater, the atmosphere more resembled a Southern roadhouse before the show was over, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Drive-By Truckers - Puttin People on the Moon
Drive-By Truckers - World of Hurt
This was the final leg of Drive-By Truckers’ “The Dirt Underneath” tour, a string of shows in more intimate venues that aimed to showcase the band’s acoustic material. The Truckers are known for their Southern-fried rocking and this was a surprising change of pace. Frontman Patterson Hood assured me that the show would still kick ass, but I still wasn’t prepared for the amount of ass-kicking the band doled out over the course of two and a half hours.
Ryan Bingham and Dead Horses opened for DBT, playing to a sparse and sedate crowd. Bingham’s a west Texan, evident in the twang of both his accent and his acoustic guitar. As people filtered in he strummed and sang in a smoky voice of Dylanesque Americana, with the Horses keeping time. His urgings to the audience to get up and dance went mostly unheeded until his electric guitarist tore into “Bread & Water,” a screaming slide-guitar Texas blues meltdown. The house was full of whooping and hollering that wouldn’t stop until the Truckers took their final bow.
By this point the crowd had filled in. The guys in front of me took Bingham’s advice and danced between swigs from a flask. As Bingham left the stage, he thanked the Truckers for letting him accompany them on tour and lamented the damage it had done to his liver. Roadies lugged a cooler onto the stage and placed a bottle of whiskey by each chair to prove his point. When I went downstairs to get gum from the backpack I had checked at the front desk, the woman standing guard gave me a stern look. “Go ahead, but leave the beer in there.” The State Theatre doesn’t serve alcohol. I assured her that I would.
Drive-By Truckers took the stage to hearty applause. Their stories of Southern life may at times have seemed foreign to the central Pennsylvanians in the crowd but the meaning was lost on no one. Guitarist Mike Cooley sang with the voice Mick Jagger wishes he had and Hood spoke of tornadoes and unemployment over the hypnotizing ring of John Neff’s pedal steel. Everyone shouted requests at the stage and reacted to Hood’s between-song banter.
“He had never even been to Georgia before he met me,” Hood said about Neff. “He was conceived in Ohio.”
“Is that some kind of football thing? I don’t know shit about football,” Hood said. “All I know is don’t bet against Joe Paterno. I bet on an Alabama-Penn State game one time and Paterno crushed us.”
The entire theater had cheered at the legendary Paterno’s name, myself included. With the audience back in the fold, the band launched into another song. Bottles of Jack Daniel’s were passed from band member to band member. Bottles of beer from the cooler littered the floor. At one point, Hood circled the stage, pouring whiskey the other Truckers’ mouths as they played. The guys in front of me were dancing wildly, having finished their flask.
The show culminated in a rocking rendition of one of DBT’s oldest songs, delicately titled “Buttholeville.” “I’m tired of living in Buttholeville,” Hood sang. “Tired of my job and my wife Lucille.” The guitars, now overdriven, were roaring and the place was jumping. Hood himself was clutching the mic stand, swinging it around and rolling on the floor. As the band thundered to a close, Hood collapsed onstage. He picked himself up and promised the crowd that the Truckers would be playing in a bar and really rocking the next time they came to town.
If this was Drive-By Truckers’ idea of a laid-back acoustic show, I can only imagine what they have in store next.
All music and videos posted on this site are here in support of the artists. If you find anything that should not be posted, please let us know and we'll remove it immediately.
” and it pretty much kicks ass (and somehow only 34 minutes long). Get it now.
