http://www.nypress.com/blogs-1-1-1-3.html When Irish playwright Samuel Beckett turned 80, his peers observed that gone was the moody depressive youth that they had known; in his place was an old man who had come to grips with the rancor of life. --- The songwriter Bill Callahan, much younger than Beckett at 45, seems to have learned that lesson early. At last night’s intimate set at Lincoln Center, he relied heavily on songs from last year’s stunning Apocalypse, reple]]> I first heard Theophilus London on Peruvian MTV. I was in a dingy little hotel room, packing to hike Machu Pichu, with the TV on for background sound, when I heard a steady beat drop. The rhythm was grounded and smooth, with a chiming ring at the end of each count. I stopped what I was doing and looked up to see a tall, stylish kid, walking the shores of a retro music video, rapping about “Flying Overseas.” I watched the video through]]> Another Super bowl has come and gone with the Giants taking Lombardi home. Going off of last year’s record breaking notch of 111 million viewers, and America’s “just keep gettin’ better” mentality, it's likely that an astronomical number of people sat down and tuned in last night. At least they better have. Advertisers were charged a cool $3.5 million for a 30-second spot of ad space. Compare that to the $]]> The invite was black and red. It had been delivered by hand that day. “I apologize,” the RSVP said. “No guests allowed.” Meaning no plus ones. Meaning that the next part, instructing me to be at the WESC store in Soho at 10 p.m. sharp, where “you will be blindfolded and taken to the party location,” made me feel a bit uneasy. I’m all for a little kink every now and then, but blindfolding and secret locat]]> It was about this time last year that the Goth phase began its renaissance. The once colorful city of Manhattan took on a dark suiting of black. It was drapey. It was moody. It led to a ton of unfortunate “synth-wave.” Siouxsie and the Banshees' “Dazzle,” headlining a number of fashion industry friendly shows, definitely had something to do with it. God bless Siouxsie’s soul, she’s a phenomenal musician, bu]]> Young Heel is a young band, with a lot of promise. Having started a couple of years ago as a one man set, by Clay Bassford, the band expanded from one to four, first adding JT Norton on vocals, then Matt Arbeiter on drums and finally Pete Smith on guitar. Their mellow electro songs are comparable to New Zealand’s The Naked & The Famous and Sweden’s Miike Snow. They’ll be self-releasing their EP Falls next week, and celeb]]> “Monday, Monday,” by The Mamas & The Papas: Ahhh…. It’s Monday morning. The sky is blue. It’s the beginning of the week. Your emotional state is analogous to fresh laundry. You feel Downy soft and lovely. Work is work, how could you possibly feel anything but mellow love on this Indian summer day? --- “Baby I Love Your Way,” by Peter Frampton: On your way to the train stati]]> Cloud Nothings came to fruition in Dylan Baldi’s basement in 2009. Dylan sang. Dylan played the guitar. He played the drums, did the backing, pretty much everything. With the success of his first compilation Turning On, it became clear to Baldi that a band would be necessary on the road. Two years later, with three new band members and a sophomore album under their belt (the eponymous Cloud Nothings) the band is back with Attack on Memo]]> So last week we took a look at the worst cover songs ever. What’d we learn? Well, if you’re in a pop-punk band it’s likely you should not be allowed to record music. Of any kind. Cover or not. Seriously, you guys need to drink some more vodka and go up to that pink girly mosh pit in the sky. Stop whining. We also learned that even if you’ve been on a SyFy television smash hit that does not entitle you to put on a flared co]]> Call Larry GagosianYou belong in museums—Jay-Z, “That’s My B**ch” Jay-Z dreams of collapsing the class and race divisions reflected in high art and pop art hierarchies. Reverse the title of Kanye West & Jay-Z’s love song from their Watch the Throne album (“That’s My B**ch”) with that of the Gagosian’s Picasso retrospective (L’amour fou), which ran from April 14 to July 15; the swit]]> “It’s like going to church,” the music critic said. “It’s sold out. I want to die,” the hostess said. “Can you get me a ticket? I’ll do anything,” the brown-haired girl said. All three were talking about Girls, the all-boy rock band that played to a sold-out crowd at Terminal 5, with their back-up singers and flower petal microphones. They’re currently being tou]]> Metalheads like their music trapped in amber. Once you have a sound, you’re stuck. All you can do is hone the edges and make it shiny. “Resolution”— the seventh album from Lamb of God—is the sound of a band that can be honed no further. It’s a tightly performed, carefully written combination of Southern sounding heavy thrash, pinch-harmonic riffs and lock-step Pantera pop with a smattering of other closely ]]> Amalie Bruun has been on the NYC music scene long enough to know the ins, the outs and the in-betweens. She’s transitioned through the “it hip bands” of the moment, only to find band members who weren’t thinking long term or didn’t take it seriously. She’s been in between the tenements, worked the in-between jobs, ditched the in-between friends, and now she’s getting ready to release her newest solo E]]> They live together. They tour together. They write music together. Cults' Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion have the makings of soul mates, and the following of cult leaders. The band began with the onset of adult life approaching. With unemployment at a staggering rate, and no interest in a bar tending/barista job, Oblivion and Follin started writing music and posting it online. Dreamy songs with dark titles. The Ronettes meet the Manson Family]]> Congratulations! You’ve done it. You’ve started a band. You probably really dig scrappin’ that pencil on those old legal pads. Writing angsty songs about Sarah Jenkins, that bitch who said you had beer breath and didn’t want to make out with you. She sucked anyway, right? You’ll show her with your awesome rock ‘n' roll band, aptly called Beer Breath. The man can’t bring you down, and neither can Sarah Jen]]> Rich Aucoin is not your average musician. He’s not really your average human, for that matter, since it seems he isn’t very average in any way at all. He pumped out a self-produced acoustic EP, Personal Publication, on which he played all the instruments. The EP caught the attention of music lovers in his homeland Canada. He toured the country… on a bike. You know… a bike. Two wheels. One frame. Spin, spin. You get the p]]> Since their 2009 conception, Real Estate has been the band to follow. Their eponymous first album stirred the Internet waves, getting phenomenal write-ups from blogs, websites and magazines alike. Pitchfork hailed it as the nostalgia album of twenty-somethings lost in the world, citing that the songs “soundtracked a time when it feels like every kid in or just out of college seems to be handcrafting/clamoring for music that shuttles us ]]> New bands sprout up in New York, likes weeds through the cracked cement. They grow out, gnashing their lo-fi fangs, strangling their nemeses: bands who genuinely think about their lyrics. Musicians who know how to play the guitar beyond a screeching fuzz of feedback and thick fingers. Bands that want to perform for you, the audience, and not for the rail thin chick in black, hoping she might sleep with them at the after-party. ---- Figh]]> Let’s be realistic, if you live in New York City, you've stalked someone at least once. It might’ve been a mild stalking, no biggy. Maybe you saw someone cute on the street and figured, hey, if I follow them from a short distance, they’ll notice me and fall asleep in my arms. Or, maybe you carry chloroform in your back pocket and have made a doll out of your loved one’s arm hair. That’s okay, because it&rsq]]> Shea Stadium is a shitty DIY venue in Bushwick. It’s full of shitty lights, shitty drinks, shitty people and, for the most part, shitty bands. You might wonder why I decided to make my way to this “shit” storm. In fact, it was to check out Japanese Screamo band, Trippple Nippples. --- Before the main event, the New York-based girl rock band Hard Nips plays. The lead singer radiates energy. Alas, the music they pla]]>