One huge thing that I have to remember when I cover these shows is to ALWAYS CHARGE THE BATTERY FOR MY CAMERA THE NIGHT BEFORE!!
Anyhow tonight one of the best bands around Dr. Dog played Prospect Park as part of the 2009 Celebrate Brooklyn concert series. The two bands that played prior to Dr. Dog's set were These United States who have members from Washington DC and Lexington Kentucky and Phosphorescent is from right here in Brooklyn. Despite ten minutes of rain the weather cleared up and it became a perfect night to hear such awesome music!
These United States was the first band up. And the sound of These United States is good old fashion country mixed in with a really cool and quirky physcadelic sound. Their lyrics are poetic and each song tells a story and they name check Samuel Clemons (aka Mark Twain) in a song! These United States played a really amazing and rocking set.
www.myspace.com/theseunited
Phosphorescent was the next band up. Phosphorescent has a really dreamy and haunting alt country/folk sound and is lead by a young man named Matthew Houck. Their sound reminded me a little bit of Iron and Wine. Phosphorescent has a new album out called "To Willie" which is an album of Willie Nelson covers. The band's set tonight mostly consisted of songs from that album and some original songs. I was very impressed with Phosphorescent this evening and both myself and the friend that I attended the show with tonight both said we wanted to download "To Willie".
www.myspace.com/phosphorescent
And then Dr. Dog came on!! The band is made up of Scott McMicken, Toby Leaman, Zach Miller, Juston Stens and Frank McElroy. Dr. Dog played several songs off of their first album "We All Belong" and their latest album "Fate", the band played with a horn section and a string section on certain songs this evening. At one point during the band's set they brought out their dog who very sweetly chilled out at the edge of the stage till the end of Dr. Dog's set! Dr. Dog brought forth a fun, tight and energetic set this evening and this evening's show was just proof that Dr. Dog is one of the greatest bands if not the greatest band out there right now! I highly recommend downloading "Fate" and "We All Belong" and checking Dr. Dog out when they play your town.
www.drdogmusic.com
Since my camera died I took pictures of the show tonight with my cell phone camera, I'm trying to locate the cord that attaches from my phone to my computer. Once I find that I will upload pics of tonight's incredible show!!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
RIP Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett
For those of you who aren't living under a rock you know by now that both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett passed away today. Farrah Fawcett died after a long bout with cancer, she was 62 and it's still unclear how Michael Jackson died he was 50.
If you were to ask me to name my favorite all time top ten albums, Michael Jackson's album "Thriller" would be 8 or 9 on my list. To me their is no better pop album then "Thriller", it really steps into lots of different genres of music (i.e rock, world and r&b) and it does it so well! "Off the Wall" the album before "Thriller" is another really great well produced pop/r&b album. And prior to that, Michael Jackson's work in the Jackson 5 produced some of the best all time pop and r&b singles..."I Want You Back", "ABC", "Ben", "I'll Be There" etc the list goes on! He kinda lost his touch with me musically in the late 80's early 90's with "Bad" and "Dangerous".
Then it really kinda of became strange when all aspects of his personal life were made public in the 90's and early 2000's. There was the whole child molestation issue, then he married Lisa Marie Presley, then he was having so much plastic surgery he was starting to look like a cross between a space alien and Joan Crawford, he was then supposedly putting voodoo curses on David Geffen, then he divorced Lisa Marie and married his nurse with whom he had two kids, then when you saw him out with his kids the family was dressed in strange masks, then he divorced the nurse and had another baby with a surrogate mother and was dangling that baby over a hotel balcony, he was the best man at Liza's wedding to that freak that had all the plastic surgery to look like him and then there was the child molestation issue yet again. It was just sad what he had become. And a big part of the reason why he became this sad and bizarre figure who was trying to relive his childhood, was due to severe childhood abuse on the part of his father Joe Jackson.
The Michael Jackson I choose to remember is the Thriller era Michael, it was just so good! In tribute here is the video for the song "Beat It" from "Thriller", FYI Eddie Van Halen plays the guitar on this track.
And here is the clip of Michael Jackson performing "Billie Jean" which is also off of "Thriller" at the "Motown 25th Anniversary Celebration". If I remember the Motown 25th anniversary show was the first time he ever moonwalked in public!
On to Farrah Fawcett. For all of you who don't know Farrah Fawcett sky rocketed to fame in the 70's on a show called "Charlie's Angels". "Charlie's Angels" was a show about three beautiful women who are private investigators. Farrah played Jill who was the beautiful blond one, Jaclyn Smith played, Kelly who was the beautiful brunette one and Kate Jackson played Sabrina who was the smart one. During this time Farrah Fawcett set a trend with by wearing her blond hair feathered in the front (admit it you rocked the Farrah feathered 'do back in the day!) and she also posed for one of the best selling posters of all time the one were she is wearing the infamous red one piece and flashing that Farrah Fawcett smile. After "Charlie's Angels" she did a series of TV movies including "The Burning Bed" and "Small Sacrifices" for which she received praise from the critics. She appeared in "Dr. T and the Women" in 2000 and made an infamous appearance on David Letterman in 1997.
Farrah Fawcett's first film was a film called "Myra Breckenridge", which was based on a Gore Vidal novel about a male to female transexual. Besides Farrah Fawcett, Raquel Welch, Mae West, John Houston, Rex Reed and a very young Tom Selleck all started in "Myra Breckenridge". In honor of Farrah below is a clip from "Myra Breckridge" of Mae West signing, a very young Farrah appears in the clip as well...it's really trippy!
RIP Farrah and Michael!! I honestly feel like a big part of my childhood died today!
If you were to ask me to name my favorite all time top ten albums, Michael Jackson's album "Thriller" would be 8 or 9 on my list. To me their is no better pop album then "Thriller", it really steps into lots of different genres of music (i.e rock, world and r&b) and it does it so well! "Off the Wall" the album before "Thriller" is another really great well produced pop/r&b album. And prior to that, Michael Jackson's work in the Jackson 5 produced some of the best all time pop and r&b singles..."I Want You Back", "ABC", "Ben", "I'll Be There" etc the list goes on! He kinda lost his touch with me musically in the late 80's early 90's with "Bad" and "Dangerous".
Then it really kinda of became strange when all aspects of his personal life were made public in the 90's and early 2000's. There was the whole child molestation issue, then he married Lisa Marie Presley, then he was having so much plastic surgery he was starting to look like a cross between a space alien and Joan Crawford, he was then supposedly putting voodoo curses on David Geffen, then he divorced Lisa Marie and married his nurse with whom he had two kids, then when you saw him out with his kids the family was dressed in strange masks, then he divorced the nurse and had another baby with a surrogate mother and was dangling that baby over a hotel balcony, he was the best man at Liza's wedding to that freak that had all the plastic surgery to look like him and then there was the child molestation issue yet again. It was just sad what he had become. And a big part of the reason why he became this sad and bizarre figure who was trying to relive his childhood, was due to severe childhood abuse on the part of his father Joe Jackson.
The Michael Jackson I choose to remember is the Thriller era Michael, it was just so good! In tribute here is the video for the song "Beat It" from "Thriller", FYI Eddie Van Halen plays the guitar on this track.
And here is the clip of Michael Jackson performing "Billie Jean" which is also off of "Thriller" at the "Motown 25th Anniversary Celebration". If I remember the Motown 25th anniversary show was the first time he ever moonwalked in public!
On to Farrah Fawcett. For all of you who don't know Farrah Fawcett sky rocketed to fame in the 70's on a show called "Charlie's Angels". "Charlie's Angels" was a show about three beautiful women who are private investigators. Farrah played Jill who was the beautiful blond one, Jaclyn Smith played, Kelly who was the beautiful brunette one and Kate Jackson played Sabrina who was the smart one. During this time Farrah Fawcett set a trend with by wearing her blond hair feathered in the front (admit it you rocked the Farrah feathered 'do back in the day!) and she also posed for one of the best selling posters of all time the one were she is wearing the infamous red one piece and flashing that Farrah Fawcett smile. After "Charlie's Angels" she did a series of TV movies including "The Burning Bed" and "Small Sacrifices" for which she received praise from the critics. She appeared in "Dr. T and the Women" in 2000 and made an infamous appearance on David Letterman in 1997.
Farrah Fawcett's first film was a film called "Myra Breckenridge", which was based on a Gore Vidal novel about a male to female transexual. Besides Farrah Fawcett, Raquel Welch, Mae West, John Houston, Rex Reed and a very young Tom Selleck all started in "Myra Breckenridge". In honor of Farrah below is a clip from "Myra Breckridge" of Mae West signing, a very young Farrah appears in the clip as well...it's really trippy!
RIP Farrah and Michael!! I honestly feel like a big part of my childhood died today!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Questions on the sly with Justin Rice from Bishop Allen
As mentioned last weekend was the first annual Northside Festival in Williamsburg Brooklyn. I was lucky enough to catch Bishop Allen's Northside set last Saturday night at Studio B. And I was even luckier enough to catch up with Bishop Allen's front man Justin Rice after the band's set to ask him some quick questions and here is what he had to say.
AG: Bishop Allen is a Brooklyn based band, how did it feel to play the first ever Brooklyn based Northside Music Festival?
JR: It was great! It's really close to home, I actually walked here from my house! And there is something amazing about there being a festival that takes place in my neighborhood, because obviously this part of Brooklyn is full of great bands and music.
AG: Bishop Allen has a really unique sound, one moment it's rockus punk..the next moment it's beautiful ballads that almost sound like lullabies and then it's 60's Brit Pop. How in your own words would you describe Bishop Allen's sound?
JR: Well that's a hard question to answer. But I think that we always try to write songs that we like and the kinds of songs that we like tend to be catchy and have some kind of hook into them and tend not to be stupid. So we are always trying to write songs that do something that is interesting to us or clever to us. The way that we sound has something to do with us trying to interest ourselves. Basically we're a pop band that steps between all sorts of different sounds.
AG: What are the biggest influences on Bishop Allen?
JR: There are tons! A lot of it is 60's rock such as The Kinks, The Beatles and The Velvet Underground. And bands from the 70's like Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, Talking Heads and things like that. We used to be radio station DJ's on college radio, at Harvard and during that time we really got into obscure 60's rock records and cool early 70's records and so that is another influence.
AG: Now is the Northside Festival the first festival Bishop Allen has played?
JR: No we've played some festivals before in Europe. We've played festivals in Spain and we played Sasquach which was a couple of weeks ago in Washington State.
AG: Are you guys anxious to see any of the other bands playing the Northside festival this weekend?
JR: There is so much going on and it's so all over the place. I can't even remember who is played and who hasn't. But there are a lot of bands that I'm very excited about who are playing Northside, Sunset Rubdown and the Dodos being two of them. And there are a lot of new bands to me, from New York that I'm interested in checking out who are playing this weekend.
AG: What is next for Bishop Allen?
JR: We go to Europe in July to play festivals. And in the mean time we're trying to write a bunch of new songs.
www.bishopallen.com
www.myspace.com/bishopallen
AG: Bishop Allen is a Brooklyn based band, how did it feel to play the first ever Brooklyn based Northside Music Festival?
JR: It was great! It's really close to home, I actually walked here from my house! And there is something amazing about there being a festival that takes place in my neighborhood, because obviously this part of Brooklyn is full of great bands and music.
AG: Bishop Allen has a really unique sound, one moment it's rockus punk..the next moment it's beautiful ballads that almost sound like lullabies and then it's 60's Brit Pop. How in your own words would you describe Bishop Allen's sound?
JR: Well that's a hard question to answer. But I think that we always try to write songs that we like and the kinds of songs that we like tend to be catchy and have some kind of hook into them and tend not to be stupid. So we are always trying to write songs that do something that is interesting to us or clever to us. The way that we sound has something to do with us trying to interest ourselves. Basically we're a pop band that steps between all sorts of different sounds.
AG: What are the biggest influences on Bishop Allen?
JR: There are tons! A lot of it is 60's rock such as The Kinks, The Beatles and The Velvet Underground. And bands from the 70's like Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, Talking Heads and things like that. We used to be radio station DJ's on college radio, at Harvard and during that time we really got into obscure 60's rock records and cool early 70's records and so that is another influence.
AG: Now is the Northside Festival the first festival Bishop Allen has played?
JR: No we've played some festivals before in Europe. We've played festivals in Spain and we played Sasquach which was a couple of weeks ago in Washington State.
AG: Are you guys anxious to see any of the other bands playing the Northside festival this weekend?
JR: There is so much going on and it's so all over the place. I can't even remember who is played and who hasn't. But there are a lot of bands that I'm very excited about who are playing Northside, Sunset Rubdown and the Dodos being two of them. And there are a lot of new bands to me, from New York that I'm interested in checking out who are playing this weekend.
AG: What is next for Bishop Allen?
JR: We go to Europe in July to play festivals. And in the mean time we're trying to write a bunch of new songs.
www.bishopallen.com
www.myspace.com/bishopallen
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