Tag: music

A New Year in Music

2009 was a dis­as­trous year for me and music. I was real­ly turned off to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that I might like any­thing. I revert­ed to old habits, lis­ten­ing to a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of met­al, with­out real­ly explor­ing fur­ther. For some­one who in the past prid­ed him­self on catholic taste, it was some­thing of a dis­ap­point­ment. Worse, I’ve not felt a part of the music scene for a while now and that real­ly trou­bles me. I mean, my title is music edi­tor, right?

With­out get­ting bogged down in all the hows and whys, I’m real­ly excit­ed for 2010 already. Two of my favorite bands, Spoon and Liars, have albums out this Jan­u­ary and it’s the time of year where I obsess over these releas­es, often at the expense of ignor­ing wor­thy albums that come along lat­er in the year’s pro­mo­tion­al cycle.

I used to think it was stu­pid for bands to release albums this time of year. Boy, was I wrong! When LCD Soundsys­tem releas­es albums in the dead of win­ter, they cap­ture more atten­tion than they would if they tried to shoe­horn their stuff into the March and Octo­ber gluts. It’s the per­fect time of year to real­ly get famil­iar with a record. You’re trapped in the house or car any­way, so you might as well crank up the stereo.

I cel­e­brate the new year in music by delet­ing every­thing in iTunes and start­ing over fresh. Right now I’m lis­ten­ing to Spoon, but I’ll be check­ing out new music from Yeasay­er, Ted Leo, Liars, Blood Feath­ers, Vam­pire Week­end and Gil-Scott Heron (!) soon enough. What a great way to start 2010!

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Mariah Carey in Atlantic City

It’s been almost two years since I went up to New York for Mari­ah’s Com­cast com­mer­cial shoot. Back then I was pret­ty opti­mistic about the direc­tion her career was head­ed. It’s been pret­ty amaz­ing to watch the bal­loon deflate.

I man­aged to get tick­ets to her recent Atlantic City show at the Bor­ga­ta. The seats were amaz­ing. The per­for­mance? Not so much. I think Helen summed it up best when she said her per­for­mance was more Atlantic City than it was Vegas, that it was more kitschy than cool. I’d say that was spot on.

After I read Jon Cara­man­i­ca’s ter­rif­ic review, I was look­ing for­ward to final­ly see­ing her per­form. Man, was I ever dis­ap­point­ed. It was a bru­tal com­bi­na­tion of bad sound, bad dancers, and an over­all lack of enthu­si­asm from Mari­ah, who seemed to just go through the motions. The back­up singers (and back­ing track) were so loud I often could­n’t tell when she was singing and I feared that might have been done inten­tion­al­ly. Over­all, it was just a lack­lus­ter per­for­mance by one of the few remain­ing super­stars in music.

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Anvil! The Story of Anvil

I know I’m late to the par­ty, but what a fun doc­u­men­tary! I wish I could catch their show at the TLA next weekend.

Anvil! The Sto­ry of Anvil remind­ed me a bit of Amer­i­can Splen­dor, except Har­vey Pekar’s ten­den­cy to accen­tu­ate the neg­a­tive aspects of pub­lic­i­ty are 180 degrees out of phase with Lips’ out­look. Who knows how far they’ll take it, but it’s great to see that they’re cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the film’s suc­cess and get­ting out on the road. It should be a great show!

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A Quick Word on Jack Rose

I was at a wed­ding when I got word that Jack had died. It felt like a punch in the gut. I did­n’t know him par­tic­u­lar­ly well, but well enough to say hi when I saw him around town. He lived around the cor­ner from me here in Port Fish­ing­ton, and I’d often see him smok­ing a cig­a­rette out­side his house on Cedar Street. I named this blog for the song he’s play­ing in the video above. Watch it and let it soak in.

Jack­’s music con­tin­ues to amaze me. His genius was revered with­in a small group of fans here, grew some­what when Kens­ing­ton Blues was released, and then shrank again. See­ing him play was always a treat and I saw him pret­ty often, most mem­o­rably in the First Uni­tar­i­an Church sanc­tu­ary when he opened for Sunn O))). I saw him play with Pelt when they opened for Earth in the church base­ment. Jack was the sort of artist who had his bonafides and did­n’t need crit­i­cal praise from Pitch­fork to grow a com­mit­ted following.

I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s one of the sad­dest sto­ries in music for me in 2009. I some­times imag­ine him still play­ing at 60, daz­zling a new gen­er­a­tion with his sin­gu­lar style. I want­ed to see where he’d take his music. It’s a shame that we won’t all get to see that hap­pen. I’m hope­ful that Thrill Jock­ey can release his final album and that Jack gets the recog­ni­tion he so rich­ly deserves.

Rest in peace, Jack. Your music lives on eternally.

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