Archive for the 'bands to watch' Category
First Impression & First Aid Kit
Author: HJ Mills
Greetings to my fellow admirers of audio rivers. My name’s HJ. I’ve been writing my own music blog semi-frequently since September ‘08. It started as a class assignment, then grew into one of my favorite things. Music is my passion, and I’m here to share and celebrate my passion with you. I always love metaphors, a ripe mango, tea with steam dancing on the top, scarves that are lovely, silver rings, scripture, and the gritty smell of camp fires. Read the rest of this entry »
read comments (3)From Princeton to Virginia Woolf
Author: Adrienne Brown
When driving on the crowded roads of Middlesex County, I often seek the solace of music that allow me to reflect on simpler times. Growing up on the Jersey Shore, some of my best memories occurred during spring visits to the seashore. This winsome feeling is encapsulated in the carefree sounds of the indie pop trio Princeton. Hailing from Los Angeles, Princeton is an aural fix for the winter blahs. Read the rest of this entry »
Iraqi Jazz Fusion!
Author: Anthony Medici
So, are you into Iraqi jazz fusion yet? Or maybe you never heard of it? I had a chance to listen to it last night (Saturday, Feb 7) at the Smithsonian’s Freer Museum Meyer Auditorium, in a performance by Amir El Saffar’s Two River Ensemble, with El Saffar on trumpet, santur, and voice, Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto sax, Nasheet Waits, drums, Carlos De Rosa, bass, and Jason Adasiewicz, vibraphone. The place was packed– and your intrepid blogger was almost shut out. Read the rest of this entry »
SHERAZADA UPDATE!!!!
Author: Leigh Silbernagel
$herazada is going into the studio on Feb 2nd to record their second EP with Chris Badami who also produced:
-The Dillinger Escape Plan
-Trophy Scars
-Midtown
-The Early November
-Fenix TX
The online merchandise store is up: .<br style=”display:none” gauntlet_tokenizer_reserved=”"/> Just click on the nifty image below, shirts are real cheap! With each purchase you will recieve a FREE EP (extremely loud and incredibly close)
(signed if you please) !
ALSO
Round 1 of The Break Contest to play Bamboozle is THIS SUNDAY at the Cedar Grove VFW. For tickets contact the band.
-leigh Silbernagel
Top Ten Musician’s List for 2008
Author: Jeff Boule
Happy New Year to all! On my recent visit to the Princeton Record Exchange, the sheer volume of inventory overwhelmed me. The things that were available were equally astounding. Yes, I have been blogging about PREX site unseen until now. I can only further recommend getting down there and checking things out. That is, if you have a ton of time to peruse the massive inventory.
All those artists and genres, it would take hours upon hours to examine everything they have that one might have an interest in. The scope of the variety that the Exchange contained has inspired and reminded me that it is time for my picks of this past year and overall.
SHERAZADA UPDATE!
Author: Leigh Silbernagel
Last night i saw ADAM BIENER of SHERAZADA.
He told me that they have a new bassist and drummer.
They will have new merchandise available soon.
they are heading back to the studio to start writing, recording and mixing, mastering and cutting new tracks.
They have 4 shows coming up.
-leigh Silbernagel
FASTER THAN FATE: Pandora’s BOX
Author: Leigh Silbernagel
This band has shown consistently strong song writing skills, as well as ample stage presence. Drawing forces from punk-hardcore-alternative, the result is a unique and innovative sound, remarkable and unforgettable. Despite time and distance, one can not forget the sounds of Faster than Fate.
Steel Train
Author: Shira Karsen
In the basement of some suburban house in Princeton, New Jersey, four lanky and teen angsty men formed a band. Yes, this does seem incredibly cliché, but Steel Train, a band that easily defies every my-life-sucks-basement-band faux-pas is worth spending time listening to. Their quirky beats and melodramatic harmonies are reflective of their lead singer Jack Antonoff’s story, in which he fell into a deep depression after his sister died, his cousin died in Iraq and he broke up with his long-term girlfriend.
Their sound is like The Killers meets Ben Folds, if they were married and had the psychedelic folk of Joan Jett and the morbid lyrics of death cab as their in laws. Cutting, blatant lyrics from Antoff’s personal experiences are contradicted by electrifying piano pop and upbeat vocals.
Their latest album, Trampoline, which debuted in December of 2007, is like a therapy session strung over tunes of instrumental funk and jaunty anger. The first song “I feel weird” starts off telling his basic story: “ When I was 18/ everything was alive/ then the planes hit the towers/ then she died/ then he died/ a part of me disappeared/ six feet in the ground…./ a fire burns and it’s mine/.
In “Kill monsters in the rain,” lyrics like “together we can/ together we’ll kill monsters in the rain” harmonize over Ben Folds-esque keyboard’s. And the fun 80’s intro reminiscent of journey in “Alone On the Sea,” give this album it’s lighter side— the therapy sessions where time has passed and they’ve found something else to talk about.
This band should without a doubt be on our watch list. They were on tour this past summer, playing with O.A.R, performing at Bonarro in June and Lollapalooza in August, and are now performing all over the U.S.
Scars On Broadway Leave Marks on System, Serj.
Author: Jeff Boule
Once upon a time there were four Armenian boys who formed one of modern rock’s heaviest bands. I am recalcitrant to say heavy metal, as, especially with Scars On Broadway, all these artists can play soft as well as heavy. But back to our four Armenian friends, they formed a band. One considerably older gentleman (Serj Tankian), and the very unusual bass playing style and sound of Shavo Odajian, and two childhood friends Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan.
Now the childhood buddies had very distinct ideas on how the music should sound. But so too did the older gentleman and the unusual player. Four opinions in one small band is toxic.
At the absolute pinnacle of their career, nothing could go better, they decide now is the time to split up and do solo things. So the older Serj went and did his the fastest. His came out first to modest fan/critical response. Next came the project of the buddies Malakian and Dolmayan.
It is easy to see that Shavo will have a tough act to follow.
The heavy dissonances, speedy beats, time/tempo changes, humorous lyrics, inventive keyboards, all belong to the Malakian/Dolmayan connection.
Because as Scars on Broadway, these guys got it dead to rights!!!
My hunch is that the vast majority of people reading this are not independently (or even dependently) wealthy. That means that most likely, we’re all looking for ways to get some impact out of the money we have in terms of everything, including music. While I didn’t plan it this way, I’ve had a lot of cool little music things happen over the last 12 days – and they’re all cheap. So why not share?
Review of Invaders – Kemado Records
Author: John Linden
Something strange has been happening in a certain subgenre of metal in the past few years. It started, depending on who you ask, either with the release of Wolfmother’s self-titled album or The Sword’s debut Age of Winters. The subgenre was stoner rock, and the strange thing was it was becoming…hip. Yes, hip. Well, about as hip as any sort of metal can get, which is not very. Still, Austin’s The Sword getting signed to indie label Kemado was an eyebrow-raising move, to say the least. And yet it worked. Positive reviews came steamrolling in, and the quest to make stoner rock mainstream began. And that brings us to this compilation, which feels influential already. Read the rest of this entry »
Rose Hill Drive – Moon is the New Earth
Author: John Linden
In this Boulder, Colorado trio we have a strange case. They are a band who has radio-ready songs but is on an indie label. They are a band who are steeped in classic rock tradition but not bound by it. They are a band who, unlike most of their peers–if these boys even have true contemporaries–craft original, thoughtful songs and then play them like the bastard children of Cream and Led Zeppelin. Sign me up. Read the rest of this entry »
Woods [Family Creeps]
Author: Steven
I recently went to see a show in Brooklyn. Typical. What was not so typical, however, were the band who graced my ears upon arrival at the Silent Barn. Read the rest of this entry »
Album Review Samantha Crain: The Confiscation
Author: Rose Taglieri
21-year-old singer-songwriter Samantha Crain, jumps into the Folk Rock world with her debut EP “The Confiscation.” The EP was released by indie label Ramseur Records on July 22nd. It’s already gaining praise for its literate story telling and whimsical sound.
[Monotonix/Crystal Antlers/]Cut Off Your Hands/Bear Hands
Author: Steven
Money is hard to come by when you’re a college student (and your parents aren’t sending you “allowances” for “spending money” because you make “necessary purchases” every week that require hundreds). So whenever I save up the requisite $22.50 to get a round trip to NYC, it’s a BIG DEAL (for me). Phones ring, Brooklyn floors are cleared for my crashing, and plans are made.
Well, don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this Todd P fella, but his shows are, seriously, a dream-come-true for kids (or adults) on a budget. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $7 for a show, and the bills are always about 3-4 bands. And it’s an all-ages deal…which is amazing so that kids under 18 can actually get to see live interesting stuff instead of sitting at home and watching MTV. This last Saturday had a 4-band bill…unfortunately, I was only able to see 2. And a half. Or something.
St Vincent at Clinton Castle, NYC – Jul 10, 2008
Author: Andy Sosnowski
I did not start out to write a series of reviews of women with musical muscles but it’s turned out that way. Here is the latest in the series about Alpha Females who make music with abandon.
St Vincent, fronted by Annie Clark, brought a 6 piece band including electric violin, flute, and French Horn. They made dynamic high-contrast music to go with their Black and White outfits. In this concert the live music sounded as good to me as the recordings; the songs were varied in style and mood. At times she wielded her electric guitar as mentioned before with abandon and force. She ends her songs unexpectedly and interestingly. Read the rest of this entry »
Montreal Jazz Festival – part two
Author: Andy Sosnowski
In this post I wanted to include a link to still more reviews from the Montreal Gazette of concerts I was unable to attend:
http://communities.canada.com/MONTREALGAZETTE/blogs/wordsandmusic/default.aspx
Also there are 2 local noteworthy bands that we saw:Gadji-Gadjo who play East European tunes. I endured the first blazing sun of the festival to watch them and they played a long set of stirring music to celebrate the sun. Read the rest of this entry »
Fleet Foxes
Author: Steven
Everyone can appreciate a beautiful voice. I don’t care what kind of music you are into…there is always THAT voice for each genre–that voice which, when you hear it for the first time, convinces you that there are few things more welcome to your ears.
Singers today come in a variety of singing abilities; I’ll admit that I enjoy the nasal whining/screaming of singers just as much as I do the beautiful crooning of a well-weathered singer/songwriter (more often than not, I like the former). But the trick for pulling off the “beautiful voice”-kind-of-music is to find the right combination of a beautiful voice and…well, kinda obviously, beautiful song-writing. I don’t think many would argue that the majority of American Idol contestants have great voices (my one requisite pop-culture reference for the year), but when it comes to their collective ability to write a beautiful album, I think that it’s safe to assume that it leaves something to be desired.
Fleet Foxes’s self-titled LP has that golden ratio of beautiful voices and song-writing. The perfect combination that kinda (embarrassingly) leaves your mouth hanging open for the first few minutes of the album while sitting by yourself in your local coffee shop. And it’s delicious…
Music for Headphones
Author: Leigh Silbernagel
Music for Headphones
1 July 2008—By chance, I stumbled upon ‘Music For headphones” a psychedelic/ shoegaze/ experimental band out of Philadelphia, PA. This is a very creative and unique sounding band for people who want innovative and modern music.
Another Empowered Female – Santogold
Author: Andy Sosnowski
Last time I reviewed MIA’s live concert. This time I review Santogold from Brooklyn, as a preview to a free concert that Santogold will be giving on Sunday July 20 in N.Y.C. as part of Central Park Summerstage (see www.summerstage.org). There are similarities in that both make powerful but not (usually) pretty electronica. Santogold has a strong song called Starstruck, M.I.A. has a strong song called Sunshowers. If anything Santogold’s music is more melodic and diverse. Read the rest of this entry »