Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, Lenny Kravitz has a new album! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah! Sorry, just got carried away there. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I did.
The first single, “I’ll Be Waiting,” is actually rather pretty, though is it just me or did the melody in the first verse instantly make you think of his 1993 song “Believe”? Just sayin’.
…and in this case, it all started with a friend of mine spotting Soul Asylum’s “Misery” on one of my never-ending series of iPod shuffles on MySpace, then asking, “Isn’t ‘The Best of Soul Asylum’ an oxymoron?” As a fan of the band since the first time I heard “Cartoon” and “Sometime to Return” from back in their stint on A&M Records, I immediately provided her with links to the videos for both those songs – which you can find here and here, respectively – and threw in the video for 1990’s “Easy Street” as well.
I also stood up for “Somebody to Shove,” which was the single that preceded the dead-to-me-now “Runaway Train,” but in the process of scouring YouTube to find all of these clips, I happened upon a live performance from a band called Traphiq doing a version of “Shove” which absolutely blew me away. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did…and since I enjoyed it enough to immediately head over to their MySpace page and send them a friend request, I’m sure they hope the same thing.
Road Warriors 46
Lifehouse will be playing a free show on Sunday in New Orleans’ Jackson Square, as they are headlining Allstate Fanfest in advance of Monday’s BCS Championship game between Ohio State and LSU. The band will then hit the road again in February.
In celebration of the 151st anniversary of the Academy of Music, Billy Joel will be performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra on January 26. Some other artists, including Blue Man Group, will also perform. Tickets can be purchased at www.philorch.org/academyofmusic.
In support of their second full-length album, In the Future, psych/folk rock pioneers Black Mountain will hit the road again at the end of this month. In the Future is set for release on January 22, and here are the confirmed shows:
01/31/08 Seattle, WA – Neumo’s w/ Yeasayer, MGMT, Howlin’ Rain
02/02/08 Portland, OR – The Doug Fir w/ Howlin’ Rain
02/04/08 San Francisco, CA – The Independent w/ Howlin’ Rain
02/05/08 Los Angeles, CA – The Troubadour w/ Howlin’ Rain
02/07/08 San Diego, CA – Casbah w/ Howlin’ Rain
02/08/08 Tucson, AZ – Club Congress w/ Blood on the Wall
02/13/08 Birmingham, AL – Bottle Tree w/ Blood on the Wall
02/15/08 Atlanta, GA – The EARL w/ Blood on the Wall
02/16/08 Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle w/ Blood on the Wall
02/17/08 Chapel Hill, NC – The Local 506 w/ Blood on the Wall
02/19/08 Washington, DC – The Rock and Roll Hotel w/ Bon Iver
02/20/08 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s w/ Bon Iver
02/22/08 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom w/ Bon Iver
02/24/08 Boston, MA – Middle East Upstairs w/ Bon Iver
02/25/08 Portland, ME – The Space Gallery w/ Bon Iver
02/26/08 Muncton, NB – The Manhattan w/ Bon Iver
02/27/08 Halifax, NS – The Marquee Club w/ Bon Iver
02/29/08 Montreal, QC – La Sala Rosa w/ Bon Iver
03/05/08 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace w/ Bon Iver
03/07/08 Louisville, KY – Headliners w/ Bon Iver
03/09/08 Knoxville, TN – The Pilot Light w/ Bon Iver
03/10/08 Nashville, TN – Exit/In w/ Bon Iver
03/27/08 Winnipeg, MB – Pyramid Cabaret w/ Ladyhawk
03/28/08 Regina, SK – The Distrikt w/ Ladyhawk
03/29/08 Saskatoon, SK – Amigo’s w/ Ladyhawk
03/31/08 Edmonton, AB – Starlite Room w/ Ladyhawk
04/01/08 Calgary, AB – The Warehouse w/ Ladyhawk
04/05/08 Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom w/ Ladyhawk
Toronto’s Hello Operator has been compared to “The Cars covering ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan,” so you know there is some ‘80s flavor to their music. You have to be intrigued, no? If so, you can catch Hello Operator on their current tour at these stops:
05 Jan – Beauty Bar Las Vegas, Nevada
07 Jan – Press Club Sacramento, California
08 Jan – Satellite w/ Pilot Way Reno
09 Jan – Club Moscow @ Boardners 18+ Hollywood, California
10 Jan – Beauty Bar San Diego
In a benefit for their city of New Orleans, which is still very much ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, pop/rockers OK Go and New Orleans funksters Bonerama have teamed up for a show as well as an EP release called You’re Not Alone, which will benefit the local musicians scattered by the storm. The event will take place January 10 and 11, with the concert on January 10 being billed as “Musicians Bringing Musicians Home III” featuring Jon Langford & Sally Timms of The Mekons, Patrick Hallahan of My Morning Jacket, Charles Bissell of The Wrens, Kimya Dawson, Timothy Bracy of the Mendoza Line, Janet Bean of Freakwater and Craig Klein, Mat Perrine, Eric Bolivar & Bert Cotton of Bonerama. The January 11 concert features Ok Go and Bonerama, and the EP will be released February 5. Tickets for the show are $10 and available at www.hob.com/venues/clubvenues/neworleans or by calling 504-310-4999.
I usually reserve this slot for new songs by relatively new bands, but since the music industry shuts down for a good two months at year’s end, we have nothing to promote but Christmas records from guys like Keith Sweat and Christopher Cross, neither of which I want to inflict on an unsuspecting public.
Instead, I am going to take a cue from our local modern rock station, which has unveiled the top 2008 “most requested” songs in its history. The songs they’re playing are awesome, but the order of these songs, in all objectivity, is freaking ridiculous. Today they played Crowded House’s “Mean to Me,” which ranked somewhere around 1,200 or so. Now, I love, love, love Crowded House, but I don’t buy for a minute that the station has received that many requests for Crowded House, not for a station that began in 1990. For starters, they almost never play the band, and when they do, they play “Don’t Dream It’s Over” just like everybody else. If they actually received that many requests for “Mean to Me,” you’d think that they play the song more than once a year. Second, they played Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” yesterday, and Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” the day before. Are they really telling us that they’ve received more requests for a Crowded House song, ANY Crowded House song, than they have for “Paranoid Android” and “You Oughta Know”? Not bloody likely.
Personally, I think they take the entire lineup from 101 to 2008 and shuffle them, and I’m perfectly fine with that. It makes the first week of the year the most enjoyable week of the year. Hell, I heard Shakepeare’s Sister’s “Stay,” the Lightning Seeds’ “Pure” and Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief” almost back to back. How the hell do you beat that? I can only imagine how awesome this station would be if they actually played those songs (or Robyn Hitchcock’s “So You Think You’re in Love,” which I heard yesterday afternoon) more frequently. But hey, they’re still pretty awesome as modern rock stations go (they don’t play Evanescence and they love Muse, Kaiser Chiefs and Hard-Fi), so take the good with the bad, I suppose.
But back to the video. The scene where Paul Hester points the trick gun to his head is more than a little disturbing now. Sigh.
…but kind of awesome to see how a guy like Nick Lowe can evolve from one of the most rockin’ guys of the ’70s new wave scene into one of the most respected singer/songwriters of his generation. Dig how, even almost thirty years later, “Cruel To Be Kind” can still make you smile…and not just because the music and video are running a second apart from each other.
© 2026 Eat Sleep Drink Music
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑