Tag: The Grahams

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2014: A Year In Pictures

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A year of rock n’ roll, in pictures, including two shows from late December 2013, which I shot after I posted last years’ Year in Pictures.

Tonight I’m headed out to dance the New Year in with Erasure (!); have fun and be safe, y’all, and I’ll see you on the other side.



The Districts, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, Dec. 30, 2013


The Felice Brothers, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, Dec. 30, 2013


Team Spirit, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, Dec. 31, 2013

Andrew W.K., Irving Plaza, New York, NY, Dec. 31, 2013


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 001, NGHBRS, Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, Jan. 10, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 001, States and Kingdoms, Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, Jan. 10, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 001, Frank Iero, Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, Jan. 10, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 001, The Gay Blades, Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, Jan. 10, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 002, Fred Mascharino, St. Vitus, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 18, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 002, States and Kingdoms, St. Vitus, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 18, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 002, Geoff Rickley, St. Vitus, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 18, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 002, Frank Iero, St. Vitus, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 18, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 002, I Hate Our Freedom, St. Vitus, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 18, 2014


Fadeaway Friends Benefit 002, The Gay Blades, St. Vitus, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 18, 2014


Deep Pockets, Santos Party House, New York, NY, Jan. 19, 2014


Patrick Kindlon with Loss Leader, Santos Party House, New York, NY, Jan. 19, 2014



Ovlov, Santos Party House, New York, NY, Jan. 19, 2014



Pity Sex, Santos Party House, New York, NY, Jan. 19, 2014



Patrick Kindlon with Self Defense Family, Santos Party House, New York, NY, Jan. 19, 2014


X Ambassadors, Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY, Feb. 4, 2014


The Colourist, Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY, Feb. 4, 2014




Panic! at the Disco, Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY, Feb. 4, 2014


Rob DiPietro, Subculture, New York, NY Feb. 7, 2014


The Grahams, Subculture, New York, NY, Feb. 7. 2014


Z Berg, The Deep End Club, New York, NY, Feb. 9, 2014


The Grahams, Chez Andre, Feb. 17, 2014


Phone Home, Shea Stadium BK, Feb. 20, 2014


Weird Womb, Shea Stadium BK, Brooklyn, NY, Feb. 20, 2014


The Dirty Nil, Shea Stadium BK, Brooklyn, NY, Feb. 20, 2014


Samantha Crain, Mercury Lounge, New York, NY, Feb. 27, 2014

Murder By Death, Mercury Lounge, New York, NY, Feb. 27, 2014



Sleepwave, Best Buy Theater, New York, NY, April 15, 2014


tonightalive., Best Buy Theater, New York, NY, April 15, 2014


Taking Back Sunday, Best Buy Theater, New York, NY, April 15, 2014


The Used, Best Buy Theater, New York, NY, April 15, 2014


Andrew W.K., Subculture, New York, NY, April 25, 2014


Kate Myers, Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY, May 3, 2014


Sean Van Vleet, empires, Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY, May 3, 2014


Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s, Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY, May 3, 2014


Rhymin’ and Stealin’, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, May 6, 2014


LaToya Kennedy with Rhymin’ and Stealin’, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, May 6, 2014


Leroy Justice, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, May 6, 2014


Bottom Dollars, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, May 6, 2014


AF THE NAYSAYER, Trash Bar, Brooklyn, NY, May 26, 2014


Durazzo, Trash Bar, Brooklyn NY, May 26, 2014


Brendon Urie, Panic! at the Disco, The Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, August 5, 2014


Alice Cooper, Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY, August 29, 2014


Mötley Crüe, Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY, August 29, 2014


Slomile Swift, Spike Hill, Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 11, 2014


SKYES, Spike Hill, Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 11, 2014


AF THE NAYSAYER and friends, Spike Hill, Brooklyn, Sept. 11, 2014


Rosie Flores, Hill Country BBQ, New York, NY, Sept. 13, 2014


The Dirty Nil, Brooklyn Night Bazaar, Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 20, 2014


Cory Branan, The Mercury Lounge, New York, NY, Oct. 1, 2014


Mumblr, Shea Stadium BK, Brooklyn, NY, Oct. 4, 2014


The Eeries, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, Oct. 20, 2014


Gerard Way, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, Oct. 20, 2014


The Eeries, Webster Hall, New York, NY, Oct. 23, 2014


Gerard Way, Webster Hall, New York, NY, Oct. 23, 2014


NGHBRS, Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 14, 2014


Cold Fronts, Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 14, 2014


Sean Van Vleet, empires, Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 14, 2014


Tom Conrad, empires, Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 14, 2014

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Songs That Stick To Your Ribs: Vol. 1

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Some songs come and go – sweet pleasures, but fleeting ones.

Others, they linger, wearing a groove in heart and brain that runs down the intersection of comforting and challenging.

These are some of those songs.

Off My Mind, Ryan Ross: It’s the plucked string at the beginning, I think. The insistent whang whang whang that reaches out to hook your attention just before the other guitars muscle in, rumbling and grumbling and trying to start a fight. And then about half-way through they settle down and start hammering out a quasi-hypnotic rhythm. I both do and do not want to know what the words are supposed to be; I’m curious, but also suspect context might ruin it.
 

 
If You’re in New York, The Grahams: I have more to say about Riverman’s Daughter, their most recent (and most amazing) record, but this is one of the songs I have been listening to obsessively. I have danced to this on subway platforms from Harlem to Brooklyn, and hummed along everywhere from the center of a swirl of autumn leaves on Central Park West to a rapidly thickening blanket of snow on 1st Avenue. It’s a country song, but it’s a got a city heart, and the city heart is full of joy.
 

 
Have a Cuppa Tea, The Kinks: From Muswell Hillbillies, but driven by the spirit of Village Green Preservation Society this is indeed an entire song about the role of tea in British society. I like to listen to it on my way to work while, yes, drinking a cup of tea.
 

The Kinks - Have a Cuppa Tea, 1972

 
Boys on The Radio, Hole: When Courtney Love is down, she’s down; but when she’s up, she’s radiant and ascendent and nothing can stop her. I am not going to lie, I wasn’t really a Hole fan back in the ’90s. But I’ve come to have an abiding love for Courtney Love in general, and this song in particular, and how it encapsulates how some of us are doomed to always love the boys on the radio, even if they are rotten to the core, and don’t love us any more. I also like to contemplate it as a counterweight to the Felice Brothers’ Radio Song; the other side of the coin, the darkness their romantic light chases away.
 
Hole--Boys On The Radio--Live @ Ottawa Bluesfest 2010-07-09

 
All My Things, SWiiiM: I like the build-up to the drops, the way the synths sparkle and shimmer, and then, whub whub whub, here it comes, trouble in paradise. I would have given all my things to you / I would have bought diamond rings for you. It was good, maybe, but now it’s gone bad. Maybe it was always a losing proposition, a missed connection that should have continued to be missed. It was better that way. Maybe.
 
SWIIIM - ALL MY THINGS - (DIRECTED BY CHRIS ACOSTA)

 
I Don’t Recall, Lavender Diamond: I just wrote about them last week, but I am bringing it back because the crystalline purity of Becky Stark’s voice is just that beautiful, and because this is another song I like to use to start the day. It is both wrenching and lovely, and – I am realizing just now – a song about heartbreak that is meant for grown-ups. If you’ve ever rolled over and realized half of you – your life, your plans, your feelings about important things like breakfast foods and appropriate places to sit at the movies – was abruptly missing, but you still had to fumble through your day and weren’t quite sure how to do it, here is a song to listen to while you figure it out.
 

 
Storm and Stress, Field Report: Go to a car. Put this on. Crank it up. Sit in the parking lot, watch the sun rise or set or the rain fall or the snow slowly pile up, and let it roll over you like a majestic steamroller.
 

We All Come to the Same Place, Rhubarb Whiskey: Because my people are the traveling kind; the ones who wander; who may or may not be lost, and if they are lost they probably like it that way; the ones who send me snippets of streetcorner moments, flashes of foreign trees, sunrises around the world, and more; the ones whose feet will never be wholly still; the ones for whom the roving dies hard.