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Neil Young serious about summer

April 5, 2010 /

Neil Young has added more dates to his “Twisted Road” tour with fellow folk musician Bert Jansch. The 14-date jaunt will feature Young playing solo, the first time he’s done so on a tour in many years. The dates are below.

05/18 – Albany, NY @ Palace Theatre *
05/19 – Buffalo, NY @ Shea’s Performing Arts Center *
05/21 – Worcester, MA @ Hanover Theatre *
05/23 – Wallingford, CT @ Oakdale Theatre *
05/24 – Washington, DC @ Constitution Hall *
05/26 – Louisville, KY @ Palace Theatre *
05/27 – Knoxville, TN @ Civic Auditorium *
05/29 – Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre *
05/30 – Spartanburg, SC @ Memorial Auditorium *
06/01 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium *
06/02 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium *
06/04 – Houston, TX @ Jones Hall *
06/05 – Austin, TX @ Bass Performance Hall *
06/07 – Dallas, TX @ Meyerson Symphony Center

No California love, I see. What gives, Neil?

Artists, Concerts, News

Steal This Song: Oh Mercy, “Lay Everything on Me”

April 5, 2010 /

There are few ways to get our attention faster than comparing an artist to Neil Finn. It’s a double-edged sword, though; there are scores of artists who try to emulate Finn brothers Neil and Tim, but almost none of them succeed in replicating his signature blend of rich melodcism with a healthy dose of neurosis. Still, when someone dares to make the comparison, we listen.

And, if the song turns out to sound more like the Go-Betweens than the Finn Brothers, we listen again. And again.

oh mercy

Alexander Gow and Tom Savage. The new McLennan and Forster?

“Lay Everything on Me,” the first single from Melbourne quartet Oh Mercy, feels like a lost track from 1987, the kind of thing that would have received heavy airplay in the early days of 120 Minutes. Think the Immaculate Fools, Danny Wilson, the aforementioned Go-Betweens, or if you want a modern-day comparison, Jupiter One. It’s insanely melodic guitar pop, with a simple, driving drum beat (and lots of cowbell) and a bare-bones scratch guitar line. But this is no retro hipster douchebag band cashing in on a movement; they simply favor melody over an ironic pose or sonic gimmicks – as it should me, damn it.

The band’s debut album, Priviledged Woes, is set to drop in the States soon, and after a dozen spins of this song and a quick glance of the songs on their MySpace page (which features a nifty cover of the Cardigans’ “Lovefool” that they recorded for an Australian radio station), it can’t come soon enough.

Oh Mercy – Lay Everything on Me

Alternative, Artists, CD Reviews, Downloads, Pop, Steal This Song

Scorpions: Sting in the Tail

April 5, 2010 /


RIYL: Bon Jovi, KISS, Spinal Tap

When the Scorpions announced that their new album, Sting in the Tail, would be their last, some cursed, others cried, but most asked, “Wow, really, the Scorpions are still together?” At this, the other two demographics immediately responded, “Well, they won’t be soon, but thanks for pouring a little more salt in the wound, you cruel bastards,” but at least the band has offered up quite a bit of music in their 45-year career – yes, seriously: the original incarnation of the band came together in 1965 – to keep their fans rocking well into the future. The Scorpions’ previous album, 2007’s Humanity: Hour I, found them teaming up with producers James Michael and Desmond Child for a concept album that was better than you might think (and, believe it or not, even featured a guest appearance from Billy Corgan on one track), but for their grand finale, the group has opted to go back to basics and re-embrace the straight-ahead heavy metal sound that earned them their greatest success.

When you first glance at the track listing, you may well be tempted to call the Rock Cliche police, given that there’s a clear violation on the allowed number of songs per album which feature the word “rock” in their title: while I believe it varies from country to country, it cannot possibly be acceptable in any nation to offer three on one record, as they do here with “Raised on Rock,” “Rock Zone,” and “Spirit of Rock.” Still, there’s something to be said for playing to the fans, and those individuals who can successfully scream “Scorpions ROCK!” without even the slightest hint of irony are not likely to complain about such a transgression, nor will they laugh out loud about the band’s daring decision to close the album with a song entitled “The Best Is Yet To Come” the way almost every critic in the world – including yours truly – surely did. But, then, we music journalists are jaded and cynical lot…unlike the Scorpions, who are clearly still enjoying themselves.

One of the aforementioned “rock” songs – “Raised on Rock” – kicks off the proceedings, and it’s good…or, at least, it sounds like the band made a conscious effort to write a track that would make those listeners checking in on the band for the first time since “Rock You Like A Hurricane” think that they were having a flashback. There isn’t an ounce of originality in the song – think about Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name,” then try to keep from laughing at the :44 mark – but it’s still a great riff and a monster chorus. The same can be said for several other songs on the album, too, including “The Good Die Young,” “Lorelei,” and…well, okay, you probably won’t be able to keep from laughing at “Turn You On,” either, given that it rhymes “if you wanna feel the sting” with “come on, baby, shake that thing,” but it, too, is catchy as hell.

Whether you’ll view Sting in the Tail as a worthy final chapter to the Scorpions’ 19-album career will, as you might suspect, depend heavily on how many of those albums you’ve actually heard (not to mention whether you can enjoy the music without choking on the lyrics), but for those who who haven’t bothered to follow the band since they whistled their way into the top 10 with “Winds of Change,” it at least serves to prove that the band can indeed still…wait for it…rock you like a hurricane. (UMG 2010)

The Scorpions MySpace page

CD Reviews, External Music, Metal, Rock

Barenaked Ladies: All in Good Time

April 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Camper Van Beethoven, Moxy Fruvous, The Housemartins

From the outside, it always looked like the Barenaked Ladies got most of their goofy humor from Ed “One Week” Robertson, and most of their moody depth from Steven “The Old Apartment” Page – so when Page quit the band last year, it might have seemed safe to conclude that subsequent BNL albums would contain a lot of tongue-in-cheek rapping and punny wordplay. Creative dynamics are never that simple, of course, but it still may come as a surprise to many fans that BNL’s first post-Page effort, All in Good Time, contains some of the band’s darkest, most mature work.

Barenaked_Ladies_04

Even better, Time goes a long way toward correcting the blandly pleasant drift of the Ladies’ recent efforts, restoring some of the bite and emotional depth that lurked beneath their sunny pop hooks. For the first time in recent memory, Barenaked Ladies sounds like an honest-to-goodness band here, and not just because songwriting credits are split relatively democratically between Robertson and his fellow remaining BNLers (Kevin Hearn, Tyler Stewart, and Jim Creggan). There’s an organic, lived-in feel to these performances that shines through the band’s usual production gimmicks; even the album’s requisite rap number, “Four Seconds,” sounds more authentically funky.

There are a number of tracks that sling arrows at departed friends and lovers, and it’ll be hard for fans to resist the temptation to wonder how many of them were inspired by Page’s absence. “I tried to be your brother / You cried, and ran for cover,” Robertson sings on the opening track and leadoff single, “You Run Away”; later, he spits “Can you forgive me for / What I had to do? / I’d use a metaphor / But I’m done with you” in the charging “I Have Learned.” But how truly personal these songs are isn’t as important as the breadth of their appeal – and both of those tracks offer more resonance, boast more feeling, than the band has shown in years. The same is true for much of the rest of All in Good Time. Call it addition through subtraction. (Risin’/EMI 2010)

Barenaked Ladies MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: I Learned the Hard Way

April 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Aretha Franklin, Black Joe Lewis, Mavis Staples

From the outside, it might seem like putting together an honest soul record isn’t such a hard thing to do – all you need is a nice-sounding room, a band of talented musicians, and some, y’know, soul – and from that point of view, it might be tempting to wonder just where in the hell Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have been since releasing the magnificent 100 Days, 100 Nights in 2007.

Making real soul music is sort of tricky, though; if it weren’t, the genre wouldn’t be in the mess it’s been in since the mid-to-late ‘70s. A lot of things have changed since soul’s heyday, leaving us in a musical bizarro world where people are more accustomed to hearing digital clatter than analog sweat, and as a result, it’s become extremely difficult to cut a soul record that doesn’t sound like a cheap pastiche. What can anyone add to the style of music that gave us Aretha, Otis, and Pickett?

Nothing, probably. Which is why it’s to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’ immense credit that they’ve been able to amass such a deeply satisfying catalog. They record using vintage gear, an affectation that sounds like a gimmick in the wrong hands – but their songs, while not as resonant as the true soul classics, deserve the retro treatment. Put another way: the band’s albums never sound like they’re trying to reach for the past – their traditional soul vibe sounds honest and earned, and the songs sound like they could have been recorded in 1968 or yesterday. You know, timeless – the way music is supposed to sound.

If you’re familiar with the band, you know what to expect from I Learned the Hard Way – raw, punchy rave-ups and bluesy ballads, all carried by an airtight rhythm section, shot through with bright brass, and topped off with Jones’ exhilarating vocals. You don’t listen to one of these albums expecting surprises; you expect some sweet soul music, and these songs deliver. These aren’t greenhorns imitating the form of those old classics and forgetting the function – like the title says, they learned the hard way. Let ‘em give you a lesson or two. (Daptone 2010)

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Soul

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