Jack Antonoff is the kind of guy that could easily be seen as cool by association – he’s one-third of indie darlings cum chart-crushers fun., as well as longtime partner of Gen Y superstar Lena Dunham. Don’t let this context misconstrue him at all, however: He has absolutely no issue with holding his own. Look at this breakout smash, which sees Antonoff take the reins of a stuttered piano sample, arena-rock guitar and a chock-a-block chorus that almost threatens to cave in on itself before reinforcing its foundations. An anthem for overcoming odds and being the damn best you can be.
Music video by Bleachers performing I Wanna Get Better. (C) 2014 RCA Records,
Against Me!’s 2014 album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, damn near killed frontwoman Laura Jane Grace. Written and recorded as she was beginning her gender transition and dealing with the struggles that came with it—taxing hormone treatment, invasive therapist sessions, and crumbling personal relationships—the album took a physical toll as she fought to maintain her sanity. The result was a primal scream of a record that will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important punk records of all time. Two years later, Grace is still trying to find her place as a woman in the world but is not the wound-up ball of anxiety and raging hormones she once was. Shape Shift With Me sees Grace starting a new life and discovering all the experiences that come with it—dating, friendships, and body image. And while there is still plenty of classic Grace-ian existential darkness here, there are also the occasional flashes of—gasp—excitement and optimism. Shape Shift With Me is the album where Laura Jane Grace got back on track, or, more accurately, found a new one.
The transformation of Against Me! lead singer Tom Gabel into Laura Jane Grace was the single most fascinating story of 2012 in rock music, bar none. On this acoustic teaser for 2014’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues, we are given our first proper insight into Laura’s struggles with identity. With barely more than a guitar guiding her words, we hear of regrets and distress delivered with palpable honesty. It resonates brilliantly in such a stripped-back format – and, admittedly, it doesn’t hurt that the track itself is catchy as anything that blew up pop radio this year. This is going to be a hell of an album. .
The erstwhile Talking Heads frontman was behind one of the year’s most critically-acclaimed and beloved live tours, bringing a barefoot ensemble of untethered musicians onto stages across the world with a celebratory, career-spanning setlist. The tour took place on the back of what surprisingly ended up being one of the year’s more overlooked LPs in American Utopia, Byrne’s first proper solo endeavour in years. “House” was its lead single, and is filled with a classic sense of Byrnian paranoia and unease while simultaneously peppering in a sizzling horn section and head-voice, Sampha-assisted melodies. Long may the grand Byrne spectacle continue.
“The chicken thinks in mysterious ways,” David Byrne informs us on ‘Every Day Is A Miracle’, and you can’t argue with that. The Talking Heads hero turned in a record that, he claimed, was not named ironically – the 66-year-old genuinely still believes in the power of positivity, despite the onslaught of horror-show headlines. Here, he revels in wonder and astonishment at the beauty and bizarreness of the world around him, his wonky art-pop more skewed than ever. This left-field approach (some tracks sound like alternate universe show tunes) is best realised on ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’, an eccentric ode to the power of community.
Recorded on September 15th, 2018 at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, NY.
Setlist: 0:00 Here 4:18 Lazy 9:00 I Zimbra 12:11 Slippery People 16:59 I Should Watch TV 20:17 Dog’s Mind 24:28 Everybody’s Coming to My House 28:13 This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) 33:15 Once in a Lifetime 39:00 Doing the Right Thing 43:35 Toe Jam 48:55 Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) – with band intros 55:32 I Dance Like This 1:00:19 Bullet 1:03:52 Every Day Is a Miracle 1:08:48 Like Humans Do 1:12:35 Blind 1:17:54 Burning Down the House Encore 1: 1:25:28 Dancing Together 1:28:46 The Great Curve Encore 2: 1:36:30 Hell You Talmbout – with Merrill Garbus from tUnE-yArDs
It’s funny that East Brunswick’s debut album was called Seven Drummers – when “Essendon 1986” kicks off in earnest, that’s exactly what it sounds like. Jen Sholakis is the central focus of this spiralling, seething number, her toms rumbling the earth beneath her as her bandmates carve into their respective stringed instruments. The band has never sounded this dark, this aggressive or this forthright – and it’s this immediate shift that ends up paying off to create their finest singular moment to date. A fading, sepia portrayal of restless outward Australia that, truthfully, couldn’t have come from any other band.
“Teddywaddy” is the band’s most profound and riotous statement, focusing the seasoned intensity of singer/guitarist Marcus Hobbs, bassist/keyboardist Rie Nakayama, guitarist Rob Wrigley and drummer Jen Sholakis. Named after a slumbering patch of country 90 minutes from Bendigo, Teddywaddy was recorded with rising producer Anna Laverty (Courtney Barnett, The Peep Tempel). It follows 2014’s Australian Music Prize-longlisted Seven Drummers and 2009’s mini-LP Dead Air.
EBAGC have sojourned in Berlin and toured Asia but always circled back to Victoria, with Hobbs dropping wry geographical pins throughout his detailed songwriting. Spanning both smouldering studies of isolation and open-air eruptions of catharsis, Teddywaddy revels in such whiplashing contrasts. For every spacious swath of majesty, there’s some punked-up exorcism to fray the nerves and throttle the senses.
Band Members
Marcus Hobbs, Rie Nakayama, Robert Wrigley, Jen Sholakis
‘Essendon 1986’ is taken from the East Brunswick All Girls Choir album ‘Teddywaddy‘ was released June 29th
The likes of Amanda Palmer and Nardwuar have waxed lyrical about the art of asking. So it went that Amy Shark reached out to her teenage idol, blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, to work on a song for her debut album. Not only did it eventuate, but it turned out to be the highlight of the record. “Psycho” offers a dark, duelling perspective on an intense relationship as soundtracked by pensive guitars and restrained drum programming. The latter eventually gives way to live drums complementing Shark’s high notes, and it’s one of the year’s best dynamic payoffs. Ask and you shall receive.
Amy Shark – Psycho (feat. Mark Hoppus) from the new album ‘Love Monster’ is out now:
Since the moment James Bay released his single, “Hold Back the River,” he instantly wooed fans all over the world. And after hustling for the past few years and playing small venues the British singer-songwriter clearly sang from the heart with the smoothness that’ll make you weak in the knees — but still had just enough rasp that showed that he’s not another pretty face . Similar to Bay’s own determination to make it as a household name, While some solo artists heavily rely on the slower side of things, Bay does the opposite, filling his set with explosive and upbeat songs, playing with so much energy and passion that you have to believe every lyric that he’s singing.
Aside from playing his LP, Chaos and the Calm, Yes, believe it or not, the singer had a Charlie Puth-style pop reinvention in 2018, releasing a decent coming-of-age record in Electric Light. In a weird way, however, Bay almost overshadowed himself – “Pink Lemonade” is so far ahead as the album’s frontrunner, you almost question why the other songs bothered showing up. A neon-tinged nu-rock number, the song sees Bay indulging a more soulful tear in his vocals while a wall of electric guitar churns against the slick production.
“Million Dollars To Kill Me” successfully positions Joyce Manor as modern guitar music’s answer to Guided By Voices, The band have been churning out likeable blasts of power-pop as quickly as possible and doing it at a remarkably consistent rate. On their fifth album, frontman Barry Johnson has mastered the simple affectations in his lyrics made to be scrawled in teen diaries. Elsewhere, ‘Silly Games’ transposes a yearning Roy Orbison-like melody to a modern indie rock band and ‘Fighting Kangaroo’ is a constant crescendo of an opener.
Of Joyce Manor’s five albums, Million Dollars may be its most cryptically titled. Does it allude to some sort of bounty? Defiance? Survival? The cost of living? The album’s title track doesn’t make it any clearer – in fact, it muddies the waters even further by detailing a demised relationship where, while both parties are still fond of one another, the proverbial writing is on the wall. Truth be told, none of that really matters when it comes down to it. “Million Dollars” is one of the strongest, sharpest songs Joyce Manor has ever written. What’s in a name, anyway?
‘Million Dollars To Kill Me’,Joyce Manor exist as a primordial example of a band growing up gracefully.
The Calendonian soul singer reworks solo material, jazz and blues standards on 39th album, featuring Hammond organ/trumpet player Joey DeFrancesco . Van reinvents jazz, blues standards and deep cuts from his catalog on the new LP, You’re Driving Me Crazy, released back in April via Sony Legacy Recordings. The soul singer collaborated with Hammond organ/trumpet virtuoso Joey DeFrancesco on the album, which is his 39th studio project.
Van Morrison’s third album in a matter of months – following the bluesy Roll With the Punches and the jazz-focused Versatile – seems to have been sparked by musical camaraderie as much as by any overt creative impulse. Both of those 2017 albums featured Morrison band regulars, while You’re Driving Me Crazy finds him working with organist Joey DeFrancesco and his sizzling soul-jazz combo. Both share an enduring desire to preserve mid-century music – but also to extend its reach. Like Morrison, DeFrancesco is no staunch traditionalist. They fiddle with the genre, revel in it. The results can’t exactly be called ground breaking, but You’re Driving Me Crazy crackles with wit and verve. That’s contagious.
Jazz journeyman DeFrancesco – who has previously worked with Miles Davis, John McLaughlin and Grover Washington Jr. – recruited his own band for the Morrison sessions, with guitarist Dan Wilson, drummer MichaelOde and tenor saxophone player Troy Roberts contributing to the LP.
You’re Driving Me Crazy alsoincludes reworked jazz and blues classics (Peter Chatman’s “Every Day I Have the Blues,” Eddie Jones’ “The Things I Used to Do,” Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets”) alongside tunes from throughout Morrison’s discography (“The Way Young Lovers Do from 1968’s Astral Weeks through the title-track to 2005’s Magic Time).
Ray Davies’ well-documented thrall with the U.S. continued to deepen, even as it found new complexity on the 2017 U.K. Top 20 album Americana. He keeps digging here, picking at old scabs (including his scary encounter with a mugger in 2004) but also exploring the promise that this country still offers. Like most sequels, it’s not quite the equal of what came before. In fact, the album’s best lyric – “All life we work, but work is bore / If life’s for livin’, what’s livin’ for? – comes from a redo of a Kinks song from 1971. Still, that doesn’t speak so much to the relative quality of Our Country: Americana Act II as to a towering legacy that he has to wrestle with every day.
This is a demo version. The simplicity of the recording and the piano captures the feeling of being alone and in love so well. I Go to Sleep is a song written by Ray Davies. It was never recorded by the Kinks, but Ray Davies‘ demo is included as a bonus track on the reissue of their second studio album Kinda Kinks. “I Go to Sleep” was covered by The Pretenders and released as the fifth single from their second studio album Pretenders II. The song was later included on the Pretenders‘ compilation album The Singles. The song was also featured in the films Romanzo Criminale and Sweet Sixteen.
Elvis Costello might be one of the most dexterous and accomplished pop songwriters of the rock era, but he’s not above dipping back into his own well on occasion. The singer has spent a lot of time in recent years touring and performing 1982’s Imperial Bedroom, so it makes sense that his latest outing, Look Now, smacks of that record’s baroque pop flair. With The Imposters back in tow, Costello’s first record of new music in five years is an intricately detailed and meticulously crafted affair, one longer on arrangements and musicianship than rock and roll spit and vinegar.
A veritable jack of all musical trades, Costello has canvassed just about every genre imaginable over the course of his 40-year career. He can play the part of the crooning balladeer (“Look Now”, “Stripping Paper”, “Photographs Can Lie” ) just as easily as he can the fiery bandleader (“Mr. and Mrs. Hush”, “Unwanted Number”). Look Now album boasts a little of both, but, generally speaking, the record is a relaxed hang defined much more by piano, strings, and winds than Costello’s rock and roll pedigree. But it’s hardly a snoozer, either. Subtlety might reign, but there’s a swanky, sophisticated cool coursing through Look Now that punches it up in even its hushest moments
Elvis Costello has always had a talent for writing songs that you feel with your whole body, and “Under Lime” might be his most orgasmic yet. Following up with the “Jimmie” we left “standing in the rain” on National Ransom, Costello delivers a peppy, poppy homage to an illicit backstage tryst between the older showman and the daffy young assistant on a low-budget “Mystery Guest” TV show. Costello’s vocals are satin-sinister, sweet as honey on one line and a dangerous purr in the next, and Pete Thomas’ clockwork drumming keeps everyone in check. But it’s Steve Nieve who steals the show with a ragtime piano that hits its frantic, fiery peak at the tail end of the last verse, and the song ends in a glorious shudder. I’m not ashamed to say I actually swooned when I heard him play it live this past November.
After canceling a slew of European tour dates, Elvis Costello is bouncing back from a “small but very aggressive cancerous malignancy” . Elvis Costello & The Imposters are Steve Nieve (keyboards), Davey Faragher (bass), PeteThomas (drums) they recorded Look Now in Hollywood, New York City and Vancouver, British Columbia.
This LP marks Costello’s first release since 2013’s Wise Up Ghost with The Roots and 2008’s Momofuku with The Imposters.
“I knew if we could make an album with the scope of ‘Imperial Bedroom’ and some of the beauty and emotion of ‘Painted From Memory’, we would really have something”, Costello says of Look Now. The album is entirely written by Costello, save for “Don’t Look Now,”“Photographs Can Lie” and “He’s Given Me Things” which were co-written by Burt Bacharach. “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter” was written with Carole King.
“Look Now’ is an outstanding 12-strong addition to his song catalogue. Elvis Costello’s 30th album –co-credited to the Imposters, basically the Attractions with a different bass player — is his strongest in years.
