Blogs

In the early 1960‰'s jazz scene, freedom reigned, and it was good. The birthing pains of the free jazz movement had ceased, leaving a rich placenta for musicians to feast upon. Emerging from this feast with bloodstained lips of magic came a young tenor saxophonist...

I have never met you, James Murphy. And I won‰'t ever be lucky enough to cross paths with you. I‰'m not reviewing or analyzing or criticizing anything in this ‰ÛÒ I‰'m just sharing. Since you‰'re not ever going to read this piece (THAT would be embarrassing), let this...

Grinderman, Nick Cave‰'s relatively new collaboration with three of his Bad Seeds bandmates, played their noisy blues at the 9:30 Club last Tuesday. The band was born when Cave decided to write music on a guitar rather than his preferred piano. He discovered that he...

I‰'ll begin with a brief warning. You will probably not have fun listening to Brian Eno‰'s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. This is not dancing music. This is not driving-down-the-highway music. This is not makeover montage music. Some people wouldn‰'t even consider the...

There‰'s a story that I heard growing up in North Carolina about a spot known as the “Devil‰'s Tramping Ground.‰” This is a place where no trees grow. Animals avoid going near it out of fear of something. Local legend says that this is the place where the Devil...

Newly Subpop‰'d signees Jaill released their album “That‰'s How We Burn‰” in July to moderate acclaim. Please do not be thrown off by the extra “L‰” and judge them for the worst like‰ÛÓ you will be doing yourself a disservice. Among the teaming multitudes of mediocre...

One of the greatest parts of CMJ was reading band descriptions off the official pamplet. You can just tell the interns of CMJ toiled endlessly up until the week of shows to come up with 1,300 descriptions for each of the bands. The official description of Kisses read,...

CMJ has lots of panels, but the one I was most excited about was called, “So You Want to be a Music Blogger: Who Cares?‰” Not because I want to be a music blogger, but because the panel included Matthew Perpetua, founder and sole writer of Fluxblog (www.fluxblog.org)....

On Sunday night a little bit of Montreal descended upon D.C., taking up residence at the Rock & Roll Hotel for an evening of music. First up was Little Scream, a one women show who self described herself as “Aerosmith meets Enya.‰” This audience member absolutely...

I first heard Lord Huron after reviewing his music for our station and last week I got the chance to catch up with the LA-based, Michigan-born musician about a week before he headed out to New York for CMJ. Lord Huron has been making a steady amount of buzz around the...

To be honest when I first heard the band’s name, the nascar-allure gave me no interest in ever listening. I’ve definitely heard too many American indie rock bands that sound too much the same, and i wasn’t into spending my night in NYC living that...

Of course Screaming Females were my favorite act I saw at CMJ! The stalwart indie (four albums and not so much as a Pitchfork review) rockers played at Williamsburg Music Hall, to an appropriately packed and bouncy audience. Front woman Maria Paternoster (I hope...

Braids, a quartet from Montreal, are experts at the slow build up. At the small show at Arlene‰'s Grocery I stood entranced, a cup of poutine, in my hand, as they began to draw out their sounds. At first you could only hear the quiet bubbles and murmurs of a melody,...

Dean Wareham plays the music of Galaxie 500 (Bowery Ballroom 10/22/2010) Galaxie 500‰'s career arc reads like a college rock mad lib: three Harvard students get together, record three albums beloved by critics and overlooked by everyone else, and break up within the...

Combine the Ramones‰' snot-nosed punk brattiness with MGMT‰'s vocal stylings and you get Dom. The quartet from Worchester, Massachusetts (this fact was constantly mentioned between songs), led by the charismatic Dom [no last name because he doesn‰'t want his creditors...