Despite ailing from the flu and a failing voice, singer/drummer Michael Benjamin Lerner of Telekinesis gave the Casbah his all last Friday night. The set might have been abbreviated (the next night’s was canceled), but note to all under-the-weather musicians out there: when your voice fails, let the audience fill in. Or, in this case, a few brave audience members. Click here to view Natalie’s photos…
Broken Social Scene treated their devoted fans to extra helpings of captivating instrumentals and classic indie stylings during a two-hour performance at Houston’s Warehouse Live. Continue reading…
The Decemberists might be immensely popular right now, but their success wasn’t earned overnight. The King Is Dead debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 last month, but it’s their sixth album, and longtime listeners are well acquainted with their literate, anachronistic folk-rock. But one thing even diehard fans may not know about the Portland minstrels is that they put on a heck of a fun live show. Continue reading…
If there is one indisputable fact about last night’s Cee-Lo Green show, it’s that everyone was happy to be there.
Be it openers The Nervous Wreckords, who were thrilled to play a packed house, or Vokab Kompany, who earnestly believed that their performance might attract crossover fans, or Cee-Lo himself, who may have confessed to being high on ecstasy (“My nipples are half-erect!”), the performers were all elated in their own ways. The audience, too, didn’t seem to think there was a better place on Earth to be, despite the crazy melting pot of spastic dancers, drunk-as-fuck frat boys, tarted-up Gaslamp girls, and a handful of out-of-place indie fans. Continue reading…
Upon hearing that Keith Richards was writing a biography, my first thought was, “Wow, how can he even remember what happened, given his proclivity for illicit drug use and all-around hell raising?†Now, having finished the book, I am even more amazed at the vividness of his recollections. Everything is there that you would expect, including the requisite sex, drugs and rock and roll. But it’s the unexpected things in Life that enrich the reader’s experience and provide a genuine sense of historical context about how the The Rolling Stones thrived in the midst of such a socially volatile time.
Every man dreams of being in Keith Richards’ shoes at one point or another. After all, this man is the archetypal rock star: living a life of excess, denying himself no pleasure, and keeping the world perpetually at his fingertips. In recent years, Richards has become a pop culture caricature — a Hollywood pirate, an old dude who should have croaked years ago, the crazy guy who snorted his father’s ashes. There’s a degree of truth to all of those characterizations, but if Life is any indication, the man is much more than that. Continue reading…