Hat tip to the Tincanman from Tincanland for bringing The Cat Empire, and Hello to my attention. The Cat Empire are Australian and their music either spans genres (jazz, hip-hop, reggae, funk, and more) or fits neatly into the one marked “improv party music.”
In any case, it is super fun to listen to. I like to cue this one up first thing in the morning, so I start the day with a little spring in my step.
http://youtu.be/NrEvwO1F7Cw
Oh yeah, doubling down on Adam Ant today. Here is in one of his earliest incarnations, with Adam & the Ants and Stand and Deliver, or, one of the videos that started it all.
Before we get started, here is what you need to know about Adam Ant: he is, was, and ever shall be a rock star.
He was the original Dandy Highwayman, a cultural lightning rod and, first with a band as Adam & the Ants and then as a solo artist, (unwillingly) associated with New Romantic movement.
Captain Jack Sparrow looks like him, not the other way around.
In 1985, he left the music business to be an actor, and did not return to the musical stage for almost a decade. From 1993 onwards, he enjoyed some musical successes and weathered many non-musical trials and tribulations, until 2011, when he returned in earnest.
All of that is to say, when I saw his name float up in my concert listings a few months ago, I was surprised he was playing again – I missed it when he came through in 2012 – and more so that he was appearing at Irving Plaza. I love the place, but it is a shoebox.
Actually he did two nights at Irving Plaza. I went to see him on the second one, and it was amazing.
The openers were Prima Donna, from California. They were a lot of fun, and had a solid punkabilly vibe lightly spiced with surf guitar. Also they have a great crowd sing-along song where one of the lines in the chorus is I am a sociopath.
Here are some pictures of them:
And then: Adam Ant & The Good The Mad & The Lovely Posse. He sounds great and looks great and we jumped and sang along and danced as much as we could, jammed in as we were. Prince Charming, which came at the end of the main set, was transcendent, with the big drums rattle-roaring and the room singing.
As I wriggled my way out into fresher air for the encore, I got a good look at the rest of the crowd, and I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite that many 40ish people grinning helplessly at the stage before. Everyone there was just so happy to see him, and it was awesome to be part of that energy.
Plus he played Goody Two Shoes which was totally my jam when I was a twelve year old nerd who desperately wanted to have a dramatic, mysterious inner life.
Some pictures of him and the Posse members I could see:
The tour isn’t over yet! Check the dates and catch him if you can.
Time to raise a glass to NTSIB patron saint, Mr. Joe Strummer a.k.a. Woody Mellor a.k.a. John Mellor, who would have been 61 years old today.
Joe had a nervous energy that never let him settle in one place, one role, one style, one identity for too long, as outlined in a new article from The Atlantic website Joe Strummer and Punk Self-Reinvention. When Joe passed away in 2002, he was in the midst of yet another renaissance with his young group of lads, the Mescaleros. Below is an artifact from that time, a full Mescaleros show filmed at the Roseland Ballroom in New York in 1999.
Mary Bichner is a classical composer from Boston with the twin special powers of perfect pitch and synasthesia, which in practice means she can sing beautifully and she sees colors when music is playing. She is also a big fan of Sailor Moon. In the video below, she combines all three of those things to delightful effect.
Throw Stones is inspired by Galaxia’s challenge at the end of Season 5 – there is a full, spoilery explanation here – but you don’t have to know anything about Sailor Moon to appreciate this delicately lovely tune.
Also interesting: the colors used in the video reflect Bichner’s synasthetic visions of both Galaxia and August, the month of the song’s release.
I listen to Recover by CHVRCHES nearly every day. It never gets old. In fact it usually feels like I’ve been in steady communion with the tune for years, not just weeks or months; like it’s a place I have always boomeranged back to, when I wanted peace or solace or four minutes of uncomplicated happiness.
The video echoes this sense of mysterious peace, in the sense that there is something deeply comforting, to me, about watching a city (spaceship? ship-city?) be brought to life.
This video for Q.U.E.E.N., the first single from The Electric Lady, Janelle Monáe’s second record, emerged in late April, and somehow, I totally missed it until now.
And I am sorry about that, because it is awesome. This is a funky roar of defiance accompanied by fabulous dance moves.
The record, which continues Monáe’s general science fiction/android themes – this is the explanation for the cover art – includes appearances by Prince, Miguel and Esperanza Spalding, is set to come out September 10, and I’m excited to hear it.
![Janelle Monáe - Q.U.E.E.N. feat. Erykah Badu [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tEddixS-UoU/0.jpg)
And now, back to the 21st century, with That Fucking Tank, which is Andy Abbott playing a baritone guitar through both guitar and bass amplifiers and James Islip on a minimal drum kit. They are from Leeds, England, they have been a band for ten years, and one of the things they have done to celebrate their milestone is make a seriously bizarre video.
There are old men, some in plough horse collars, some not, making comically grotesque faces (England: is this a thing?); the occasional bit of live concert / rehearsal footage; and also a series of images of people with their eyes bugged out in alarming ways.
It’s very strange, and also great.
Potluck is the first solo EP for Stefan Weiner (Town Hall), self-released in a partnership with Mason Jar Music, an audio-visual production company and creative collective in Brooklyn. It is the product of extensive collaboration with other musicians and songwriters, and is quite aptly named.
Like a potluck dinner, the record is diverse. That said, while Weiner and his partners experiment with numerous different kinds of sounds, they don’t stray far from the confines of dreamy, sweet indie folk.
The following are two songs I especially liked:
First, Sardines, written with Mree, which is the first single from the record, and is about giving a children’s game a subtle adult twist.
And second, Frozen Ground, co-written with Hanna Stenson, of Sweden, because it’s a simple folk-pop gem about the joys of finding the person who pries you out of your own head, when you need someone to do that.
Also in the spirit of collaboration and creativity, Weiner is offering free songwriting session to anyone who submits a demo, lyrics, and joins his mailing list. The first 100 sessions will be free. Interested? There is more information here.
Okay. I promise I’m not going to get mired down in the ’80s, here, but I just had to post one more old one, because MTV is using this song to promote the VMAs and every time I have to sit through one of the ads – i.e. every week during Teen Wolf – I want to yell “I HOPE YOU PAID THROUGH THE NOSE FOR THE RIGHTS, YOU HYPOCRITICAL JACKALS” at the television.
So anyway, here is the video for No Sleep Till Brooklyn, from 1987. Watching it now, I have the following reactions:
1) This is it: this is where popular culture as we knew it underwent a radical, drastic sea change. They politely knock on the door; at about the same time, RUN-DMC was provoking Steven Tyler into punching a hole in the wall between rock and rap.
2) The massive, pure-metal-aggression-fueled riff Kerry King (Slayer) is playing is my favorite part of the song.
3) Oh my god, they are so young. Babies. If I didn’t know they were the Beastie Boys I’d think they were some high school punks clowning on the pretentions of the music industry.
4) . . . on second thought, punks clowning on the pretentions of music industry is exactly what they were. They didn’t know what they would become; they were just mouthy upstarts taking aim at The Man.
5) And the thing is, for all that they became elder statesmen, they never became The Man.
6) This song is never more true than when you are singing the chorus to yourself at 2 AM on the R train platform while waiting to get home to Bay Ridge.
