Kurt Vile and the Violators – The Bowery Ballroom – May 16, 2013 Kurt Vile cares a lot about his sound. This could be said of most musicians, of course, but anyone familiar with Vile’s work knows that it’s all those little details that make his music so remarkable. All those guitar ditties that weasel [...]
Photos courtesy of Brian C. Reilly | www.briancreilly.com
Growing up in Idaho, Josh Ritter heard the Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash version of “Girl from the North Country” on his parents’ copy of Nashville Skyline and knew he wanted to become a songwriter. Some dreams do come true, because years later, Ritter was named one of the 100 Greatest Living Songwriters by Paste magazine. The [...]
Bassist Bobby Lee Jefferson and lead singer and guitarist Jacob Hemphill met back in elementary school, bonding over shared tastes in music. And beginning in middle school they started to meet the others, drummer Ryan Berty, percussionist Kenneth Brownell and keyboardist Patrick O’Shea. The band is based in Northern Virginia, where the five of them [...]
MS MR – The Bowery Ballroom – May 15, 2013 MS MR set the bar high for their first headlining tour by playing a sold-out show at The Bowery Ballroom last night one day after the release of Secondhand Rapture, the New York City–based electro-pop outfit’s highly anticipated first full-length album. Following a splendid set [...]
Foxygen – Mercury Lounge – May 15, 2013 Bicoastal buds Sam France (Olympia, Wash.) and Jonathan Rado (New York City) comprise the duo known as Foxygen. And after hearing their song “San Francisco,” this City by the Bay native couldn’t help but get hooked on the sounds reminiscent of late-’60s Haight Ashbury. After a close [...]
Photos courtesy of Joe Papeo | www.irocktheshot.com
Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane | seanokanephoto.com
Photos courtesy of JC McIlwaine | jcmcilwaine.com (Iron & Wine play the Capitol Theatre on Sunday, 5/19.)
Matthew E. White – The Bowery Ballroom – May 13, 2013 What is it that Teddy Roosevelt said? “Speak softly and carry a big stick”? Well, Matthew E. White sings softly and carries a big stick, namely his backing band. It’s hard to call a six-piece outfit a small band, but for Virginia Beach, Va., [...]
Guitarist and vocalist Nate Grace, bassist Jesse Jenkins and drummer Austin Youngblood, who’d originally met in college, began jamming together in Austin, Texas, just a few years ago. They took the name Pure Ecstasy, but when they found out another band had already claimed it, they switched to Pure X. As Grace says, “I like [...]
Tom Jones is a goddamned phenomenon. The Welsh crooner recently put out his 40th studio album, Spirit in the Room, and he still continues to perform live regularly, most notably in Vegas. He doesn’t, however, tend to play small rooms, like he is on Saturday at The Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for that show went quickly, [...]
She burst onto the scene—alongside Wyclef and Pras—in 1996 as one-third of the Fugees, thanks to the trio’s highly acclaimed second album, The Score. With their winning mix of hip-hop, reggae and soul, the Fugees were absolutely huge. But when Ms. Lauryn Hill went solo with the release of the groundbreaking, Grammy-winning The Miseducation of [...]
