The Sea and Cake are invincible. I came to this conclusion after their performance at Philadelphia’s Theater of Living Arts, where they opened for Broken Social Scene. Continue reading
It’s kind of a wonder that Meat Loaf is still performing at all. When your stage name is a direct reference to your morbid obesity, career longevity is hardly a given. But there he was at Humphrys on Wednesday, the legendary performer whose 1977 album, Bat Out of Hell, is still the fifth best-selling album of all time. And, though still a far cry from skinny, the guy actually looked pretty fit.
His voice, on the other hand, showed more signs of aging. The set began strongly, thanks to a high-powered rendition of “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul” from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Meat Loaf also nailed “Bat Out of Hell,” a sprawling, ten-minute song that pushed his stamina to its limit. Meat Loaf complained that the song isn’t an easy one to perform when you’re sixty-two — or sexty-two, as he kept insisting — and the exertion would take its toll on his voice for the remainder of the set. Continue reading…
It’s hard not to love The Swell Season. Since winning the hearts of audiences — and an Oscar — with the 2006 film Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova have maintained that adoration through rigorous touring, refreshing humility, and the recent release of their second album, Strict Joy.
Before The Swell Season took the stage at House of Blues on Tuesday, singer/guitarist Ryan Bingham opened up with some astonishingly derivative blues and folk. His raspy voice dripped with affectation as he rambled on about times changing and winds blowing like some copy of a copy of a copy of Bob Dylan. Continue reading…
The mood of the night was determined long before Pinback ever took the stage. When a hefty drunk man began thrashing around to the pre-show soundtrack like it was a Smashing Pumpkins concert, it became clear what kind of night it was going to be.
Pinback’s gigs are the biggest contradictions in the music business. The San Diego-based band, which consists of main players Rob Crow (vocals, guitar) and Zach Smith (vocals, bass), produces some of the mellowest music around, yet their shows are anything but sedate. Imagine crowd surfers and mosh pits that resemble an Ozzy Osbourne concert, but swap the Mohawks and Doc Martins for fringe haircuts and dress shirts (on account of the horse races.) Continue reading…
In the liner notes of Cap’n Jazz’s 1998 anthology Analphabetapolothology, singer Tim Kinsella opined: “reissues…undermine our pretenses by making what was once special and precious in its rarity, somehow a little less in its convenient availability.†To Kinsella, the reissue served as a means of “getting over and past it†in terms of his own personal involvement with the highly influential Chicago band.
Now, twelve years later (and fifteen since their disbandment), one wonders what inspired Kinsella to get past getting past it; Cap’n Jazz have reunited for a handful of shows on both coasts. Supported on the eastern shows by their hometown contemporaries Gauge — who called it quits in 1994 and reformed earlier this year — both bands are giving audiences (many of whom were in elementary school during their existence) a taste of what made the music of the Midwest so important in the early 90’s. Continue reading…