The News Review:
- Pop Listings
- POP MUSIC
- Editor’s local music picks this week
Pop Listings
New York Times – Jul 20, 2007
SIREN MUSIC FESTIVAL For the last six years the Siren festival at Coney Island has consistently been one of the indie-rock highlights of the summer if not the year. Produced by The Village Voice it crams a good dozen or so of the best and most fashionable bands of the moment into an afternoon of sun and noise in the shadow of the Astroland Amusement Park. It’s a location that offers plenty of auxiliary entertainments (beer the Cyclone Shoot the Freak) if you need a break from the din of guitars and cellphone chatterers. But as Siren turns seven tomorrow with a lineup as strong as it has ever had including the rapper M… Free with museum admission which tonight from 6 to 9 is pay what you wish. (Sisario)JOHN DOE (Thursday) In the seminal Los Angeles punk band X and on his own John Doe has linked a rugged sentimentality to twangy rockabilly-tinged songs that even as they mellow with time retain a momentum rooted in his punk past. With Dead Rock West. Mercury Lounge 217 East Houston Street at Ludlow Street Lower East Side (212) 260-4700 mercuryloungenyc.
POP MUSIC
Washington Post – Jul 20, 2007
The Ukrainian-born New Yorker took a cinematic star turn in 2005′s "Everything Is Illuminated" recently shared the stage with Madonna at Live Earth and is the star of the Material Girl’s just-wrapped directorial debut. Plus he has the best handlebar moustache since baseball’s Rollie Fingers. But Gogol Bordello with its joyous Balkan-flavored concoction of punk klezmer dub and folk remains his primary meal ticket and with good reason. Whether he was bashing away at his acoustic guitar or cavorting around the stage among up to eight other performers he was the perfect ringleader for this truly one-of-a-kind circus. It was hard to understand much of what he said as much because of his thick accent as the righteous roar created by the band but the sold-out crowd treated every word as gospel. The audience matched Hutz’s enthusiasm and then some. You wouldn’t think that a band with songs built largely around fiddle and accordion would lead a mosh-pit renaissance but that is indeed the case.
Editor’s local music picks this week
St. Petersburg Times – Jul 20, 2007
Candye Kane started out in life with a messed-up childhood. As a teen she hung out with So-Cal gangs and became associated with the L. punk scene of the early '80s. She shared lineups with famous L. A figures of the time such as Fear X Black Flag Social Distortion and Circle Jerks… That life didn't pan out for her. Things came together later in the early '90s when she discovered her female blues muses: Maybelle Ruth Brown Big Mama Thornton Etta James and Bessie Smith. Since then she's led a successful under-the-radar music career built mostly by her engaging live act that's a hodgepodge of vintage styles. According to her bio Big Mommy Kane appeals to "a mixture of the disenfranchised. " They include bikers blues fans plus-size gals gays porn enthusiasts feminists rockabilly kids and some who don't let their freak flag fly so high. She's a true diva who says she is here to help us celebrate our sexuality shatter stereotypes live our dreams and have a damn good time.