The News Review:
- Critics’ picks – pop music
- Music Weekly: Franz Ferdinand and Jah Wobble
- Ex-X members plus Dave Alvin equals reunion
- Music Review Chords of Fame? These Bands Never Heard of Them
- Winter X: music in town vs. the games
- Music Review: Antony And The Johnsons – The Crying Light
Critics’ picks – pop music
Boston Globe United States
MISSIN F BURMABoston’s post-punk titans headline the first-ever benefit for Somerville’s Center for the Arts at the Armory. The stellar local bill is rounded out with performances from garage-rock survivors the Neighborhoods and rising young indie-rockers Faces on Film. Pictured: Mission of Burma’s Clint Conley.
Music Weekly: Franz Ferdinand and Jah Wobble
guardian.co.uk UK
First up on the eve of the release of their third album Tonight: Franz Ferdinand Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson took the weight off in a swanky east London deli to chat with Paul MacInnes about jamming like the JBs living in a junkie squat and their return to the dancefloor. Elsewhere Rosie Swash takes time out with Jah Wobble the man who brought the dub to John Lydon’s seminal post-punk outfit Public Image Ltd. Wobble or John Wardle as he’s better known talks about his memories (fond and otherwise) of Sid Vicious how he established Chinese Dub rchestra and why he once gave up music to work on the London Underground. Sandwiched in between is bserver Music Monthly editor Caspar Llewellyn Smith on loan for the day to offer his thoughts in Singles Club. This week’s bag of goodies includes the latest offering from San Diego noise-maker Wavves a collaboration between Brazilian-American combo NASA Tom Waits and Kool Keith while Q-Tip joins forces with J Period to honour this momentous week with a track called Q-Tip for President.
Ex-X members plus Dave Alvin equals reunion
Santa Cruz Sentinel CA
We decided to call our new one The Modern Sounds of the Knitters’ to show that our sound is always up-to-date no matter how far back it reaches” says Exene in press materials creating a false history. In reality the Knitters is a play on folk group The Weavers and formed as a side project to X in 1982 before taking over as the main identity. Their album “Poor Little Critter on the Road” featured folk-style versions of punk music as well as new songs. Exene Doe and Bonebrake continue to perform with X; Alvin followed his work in the Blasters with a solo career; and Bartel played bass with the blues-rock band the Red Devils. The Modern Sound of the Knitters’ includes acoustic versions of X’s “In This House That I Advertisement yld_mgr. place_ad_here(“adPosBox”); Call Home” “Skin Deep Town” “Burning House of Love” and “I’ll Go Down Swinging” Alvin’s “Dry River” and Doe’s “Why Don’t We Even Try Anymore. ” “We figured some people might know those songs from our electric period’” Doe says maintaining the fiction of an old-time band but we wanted to go back and re-cut them so that you could hear what they sounded like when we originally wrote them — just simple songs that tell a story.
Music Review Chords of Fame? These Bands Never Heard of Them
New York Times United States
Collectively these five men and one woman don’t seem particularly goal-oriented. You wouldn’t want to call them musically progressive. They’re just putting pressure on punk rock seeing whether they can create transformative energy. Whatever the music is it’s intense and mystical and optimistic and has gotten very very good. ne of the band’s newer songs played on Tuesday is “Black Albino Bones. ” It might be about sex but look closer: it’s also about love of vinyl records as artifacts. (Pink Eyes has said he’s a devoted collector.
Related from Metalmareny: Did Metallica’s notoriety or music get them inducted into the Rock …
Winter X: music in town vs. the games
Aspen Times C
The final year of the shows in 2007 featured such acts as rapper Common and Perry Farrell’s Satellite Party. This year’s concert series opener Flobots released its debut album “nomatopeia” in 2001 and found mainstream success with the major-label debut “Fight with Tools” in 2007 featuring the hit single “Handlebars. “Pennywise has distinguished itself in the punk world by delivering a message that includes hope self-empowerment and a sense of community. The quartet’s self-titled 1991 debut led off with “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and their latest album is “Reason to Believe” and neither of those titles were used with ironic intent. That message has made Pennywise notably durable for a punk act; they have been around two decades have released an album every two years and have continued to grow in popularity. The soundtrack of Winter X meanwhile is now official. ESPN and Bullet Proof Entertainment released the “X Games After Party” CD compilation earlier this month featuring a selection of rock hip-hop and reggae that blares from the speakers at the X Games and Winter X Games.
Music Review: Antony And The Johnsons – The Crying Light
Blogcritics.org H
You need a lot of space around that music to really appreciate it. n the other hand there is some music that seems to cry out for the intimacy offered by headphones. It's not that they may or may not be able to fill a concert hall with their sound when performing live; rather you just don't want to miss a single moment of what is being performed and headphones seem the best recourse. Such was the case with the new.