“I just didn’t expect an acoustic version of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll All Nite.’”
— Ace Frehley
I heard about Serena-Maneesh years ago, and downloaded a few songs. “Drain Cosmetics” ended up on one of my virtual mix tapes from 2006 or so. But I never really pursued my mild interest in these Norwegians. I think I got them mixed up with Autolux or possibly one of the other 10 billion bands [...]
Japandroids! This is a band that I begrudgingly adore! I heard about them from multiple people a while ago, and slowly started to listen to them, then bought their album. And with each listen I found myself grinning more often and enjoying myself more. Such fun! Such cheese! I sometimes pretend to be too old [...]
I don’t pay too much attention to bands that are hot on the internet: the p4k bands, the blog-hyped bands, the college bands, the hipster bands. But a few of my friends like The xx and I listened to them enough, and liked them enough, to check them out at 6th & I Synagogue on [...]
Saturday night I was excited to go check out Midnight Kids for the first time. They are a local band that I don’t know much about, but the City Paper linked to their free EP and I listened to it a bunch. I am only mildly familiar with The Apes who were a kind of [...]
I like almost every style of music, but there a few exceptions. I don’t mind dance music (though I am not super into dancing) but I just don’t really like the dancehall permutations of it, or, really, funk and genres like that. It is ok — even reggae, my least favorite genre of all, has [...]
Went to the Black Cat last night for no particular reason — a friend of mine wanted to go out and then looked up the band The Mantis and was mildly interested. So I was like, ok, sure. Ten bucks, something to do on a Wednesday night. We hit the backstage one or two songs [...]
I didn’t know much about The Clientele, but what I knew I basically liked, so I was amenable to checking them out when a friend had an extra ticket. I liked them and would like to check them out more. They reminded me of all kinds of stuff, all of it good: Galaxie 500, Spiritualized, [...]
Over the past few years I have been more and more into old country and rockabilly. (My new favorite musician is Roger Miller — amazing!) So I was kind of intrigued by the prospect of seeing 72-year-old Wanda Jackson in the familiar confines of the Black Cat. I had some friends hanging out downstairs drinking, [...]
So last month I was waxing enthusiastic about the Sockets showcase at the Black Cat, and I went and brought a bunch of friends. And it was great! But I got a little burned out on all-Sockets, all-the-time music thinking, and so I’m just getting around to writing it up. It was a solid show, [...]
This has been a busy/strange time… holidays, epic snowstorms, bouts of H1N1, apartment/living situation drama. As a result I missed a lot of shows (and why didn’t somebody tell me that Grant Hart played at the Velvet Lounge???) and anticipate missing too many more. But one that I really didn’t want to miss (though maybe [...]