Tag: music
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Underkill
Back in the day (like 30 years ago!) I was a big Heavy Metal fan. This was during “the golden age”, around the time that the NWOBHM was starting to garner some attention. Iron Maiden were riding high, and we also had Saxon, Judas Priest, UFO, and the first Def Leppard album. But the band that really captured my obsession were Motorhead. They had it all – they were the loudest, the fastest, the ugliest… Although I never had the chance to see them live, I had every album, and spent many an hour listening to Overkill and No Sleep… Read more
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The Decemberists, Riviera Theater, Chicago
Given that I had to back out of the last two gigs in Houston that I had tickets for (Gomez, and Green Day) because I was sent to Chicago on gig-day, I was super-bummed to learn that my current loves, The Decemberists, were playing Houston when I was, yet again, in Chicago. But as I was scheduled to be up here for five weeks, I decided I may as well see if there was anyone interesting playing in Chi-Town (correctly pronounced shit-town, Colin Meloy was pleased to inform us) whilst I was here. And joy of joys, I discovered that The Decemberists’ tour… Read more
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Southern Discomfort
After seeing The Road to Psychedelia at the Black Angels gig, I felt compelled to dig into Janis Joplin a bit more. So I ripped my wife’s 3-CD boxed set Janis onto my iPod, and dusted off my copy of Myra Friedman’s book Buried Alive. I’d bought the book almost ten years ago during a spending spree at Tower Books (which also netted me Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, and U2: The Unforgettable Fire, both of which also remain unread) so it was probably a little overdue. Friedman worked for Janis’s record company (Columbia Records) as Janis’s publicity agent. She spent… Read more
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Beginning To See The Light
OK, maybe it’s time to admit that I’m finally too old for all of this. Last night I went to see another band – The Black Angels – and I’m starting to feel like I don’t belong. It’s not the music. The band were excellent, and I was shuffling along as enthusiastically as the next person (apart from the guy who was flailing his arms around wildly and making guttural grunts of appreciation at the end of every song, but I put that down to his superior drug intake and not the quality of the music – he would have… Read more
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The Black Angels – The Warehouse, Houston
Despite having heard only a four-track EP by The Black Angels, I thought they’d probably be worth seeing live, so jumped at the chance when they came through Houston. This was again at the Warehouse, but in a different/smaller room than the one I saw The Black Keys in – either that or they have remodeled and significantly downsized. This time the ‘stage’ (a wooden platform that stood at most a foot off the ground) was squashed in a corner of the room, and there were sofas in the ‘audience area’, which I didn’t take as a good sign. The evening… Read more