all over the place

to play catch up, here’s some news/upcoming concerts/new music…

news
it was announced that the virgin mega store in times square will be closing its doors. this store, while being the flag ship for the doomed virgin franchise, was the top selling record store not only in nyc, but the entire country…doing around $55mil in volume/year. the store will be boarding up come april, so hurry up and take advantage and buy albums. oh right. who buys albums anymore??

as a very big fan of music for films and yes, soundtracks too, the playlist blog (which i just found and will soon be addicted to) has a list of 2008’s best. i still haven’t seen nick & norah’s infinite movie title, but i’m assuming the soundtrack is like garden state part deux.  the list also includes everyone’s newly favorite drug-synth gods mgmt’s ‘time to pretend‘ which was featured in 21 which wasn’t that bad of a movie. not great, but not bad either…

boston concerts
the highly anticipated opening of the new boston house of blues is just around the corner and more & more great shows are being lined up. some shows of note going on sale this saturday (jan. 17) are:
- thievery corporation: tues. feb. 24 ($30 adv, $32 dos)
- george clinton & p-funk: wed. feb. 25 ($25)
- bloc party: thur. mar. 19 ($25)
- les claypool and others…: thur. mar 26 ($25)
- katy perry: wed. apr. 1 ($18)
- derek trucks band: thur. apr. 2 ($25)
- mates of state/black kids: tues. apr. 7 ($20)
- umphrey’s mcgee: thur. apr. 9 ($25)
- family force 5/the maine: fri. may 1 ($15)

there are already many other great shows on sale. check out livenation.com for tickets and note that you don’t have to go through ticketmaster anymore now that ln has their own ticketing!!!! fu ticketmaster!

new music to listen to

white lies – white lies ep
tipped off by zildjian’s uk artist relations mgr, these guys are apparently getting pretty big across the pond. rightfully so. take interpol, but mix in more than 2 note verses, take the cure, but remove the excessive pop and enter even more tormented heart and you’ll get an idea of what white lies offer. his voice is a bit like glen hansard of once/the frames fame. they’re growing on me song by song. listen to ‘unfinished business‘ and ‘numb.’

animal collective – merriweather post pavillion
this album doesn’t technically come out til next tues, but rhap had an exclusive premier on it. this band is definitely a love/hate group of trippy-acid-landscaping-melodic-music makers. their brand is their own and they own it. they have the uncanny ability to take a bunch of blips & beeps added to the sounds of flowing water & synth sounds and fuse it to form a catchy pop tune. and they usually pull it off. this album doesn’t stray far at all from their previous takes and if you know the band at all, you know exactly what to expect. ‘my girls‘ is the track to listen to from what i’ve heard so far…

the duke spirit – neptune
thanks to ms. amanda caswell for this recommendation. these brits bring the whole neo-soul/60’s rock movement that seems to be constantly secreting from the uk to a new level. mixing the lo-fi sound of the ravonettes, the brute-brit-rock of the subways and add in a good shout out to the yeah yeah yeahs. i haven’t listened to their first disc yet, but i hear neptune is a total redirection for them. looks like its been a good move so far. listen to ‘the step and the walk,’ ‘send a little love token‘ and ‘into the fold‘ to get a good taste of what they’re all about.

fiction family – fiction family
turns out blue grass and indie rock do have something in common. fiction family is a new collaboration between switchfoot singer jon foreman and nickel creek guitarist sean watkins. these are the types of collabs that you just scratch your head and are like, ‘how the fuck did this come about?’ but they pull it off pretty well. maybe jon heard nickel creek’s cover of pavement’s ‘spit on a stranger‘ and thought, ‘hmmmm i’m tired of rocking, lets smoke a j and write love songs.’ regardless, this album comes out jan. 20, but again, rhap’s got it up already. it’s a smooth, finger-picking, melody laden album choc-full of heart-filled tunes that are sure to appear in tv shows, movies and commercials in ‘09. i’m liking ‘war in my blood‘ and ‘out of order‘ the best so far and it seems the single is ‘when shes near.’

…until next time…

~ by craaaig on January 14, 2009.