Mancino is one of the most interesting and fun bands playing rock music in New York these days. Their songs tend to veer off in unexpected directions, but always rooted in a groove and built around strong melodies. They don’t take themselves too seriously, but also have a very unique sound. Plus, I have to at least give props to any rock band that uses some clarinet.

Last night’s show at The Delancey shows that the Mancino train is rolling along with some great new songs and a polished and musical live show.
I can’t add much about Gold Streets set since I was running late and the venue has actually starting bands on time. The Delancey upgraded the sound in the live room somewhat recently, which is a nice change.
Via Stereoactive NYC, here’s video of Mancino playing “Buy My Product” at an earlier show at The Delancey.

The video for “Dance With Me,” off of Blame it on Gravity– Rhett Miller and company’s first studio album in 4 years– features Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer (“Number 6”) and some cool nerd kung-fu fighting :

The Old 97’s play Webster Hall on August 1.

In the midst of my all-consuming cram session to catch up with 5 seasons of The Wire, I also picked up David Simon’s book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.
One of the Baltimore homicide detectives Simon wrote about in Homicide was Sgt. Jay Landsman.
Landsman was the inspiration for Detective John Munch in the Homicide: Life on the Streets TV series. Richard Belzer has gone on to play Detective Munch in Law and Order:SUV as well as in cameos in Arrested Development and other shows.
In The Wire, Delaney Williams plays Sergeant Jay Landsman
Developing as a recurring role in season 3 of The Wire, Jay Landsman plays Lieutenant Dennis Mello.
Fader interviewed Landsman (the original) at the end of season 4.

While I found a good amount of worthwhile music on day 1, day 2 was somewhat less useful.
The muical highlight of the day came early, at the CEA’s Digital Freedom Campaign DC day party, with These United States.

They were joined on stage for a couple of songs by Le Loup

Otherwise, just a couple of street scene photographs of note. No great finds yesterday as far as music.

Music seems to get significant support from the city of Austin:

The human parade milling about downtown Austin during SXSW may be more interesting in the aggregate than most– if not, any– of the bands performing.

BRR started out SXSW by going over to the Creekside Lounge to catch Goes Cube with their day show. Unfortunately, we got there too late to have New York’s loudest trio punish our eardrums, but we did catch up with them and their impressive tour beards. They’re off to play shows in Laredo and Corpus Christi before coming back to Austin for their official showcase on Saturday at Maggie Mae’s. (Goes Cube arrives back in NYC with a show at Union Pool on Mar. 28)
We did manage to catch The Midgetmen’s brand of fast, catchy punk rock, centered around an awesome clear bass guitar.


Then, I walked through downtown Austin a bit to get bearings and lunch. This is my first time here and I’m amazed at the extent to which SXSW takes over downtown.


Stopped by Mog’s day party to see the Raveonettes. Ended up seeing this band first. From Phoenix, they are dudes with beards making music for dudes with beards.

Then, Austin’s Black Angels came on and brought their reverb-drenched noisy rock to the stage. They were the BRR find of the day. Of course, I didn’t manage to take a photo, but they’re playing again today at the Red Eyed Fly at 5:30 with A Place to Bury Strangers.
The Raveonettes came on and were surprisingly loud with some heavy and nasty (in a good way) pre-recorded loops. This was when forgetting my earplugs in my bag became a poor choice.

BBQ anyone?

Later, stopped in on Walter Meego and their dancey synth-rock, highlighted by some nice unison dual-guitar work.

On to day 2….

I’m writing this stuffed into a middle seat on the flight down to Austin, TX. For the first time ever, BRR will be bringing you partial team coverage from the SXSW Music Festival.

We’ll be on the ground with the best coverage that you can find on this site.

101.9 FM in New York is no longer CD 101.9, the home of smooth jazz (music made by computers, for computers) but is instead now 101.9 RXP – The New York Rock Experience, which claims that it will focus on variety, intelligence and local acts.
Between the death of Jack FM (music programmed by computers) and now CD 101 (music written by computers) and the return and creation of rock-focused stations with DJ’s, this looks like a realization that radio is more than just playlists. Radio is about the connection between the music, the DJ and the listeners.

This is apparently going to be a series– if not the entire raison d’être of the blog.
At the Grammy Awards last night, Morris Day and the Time reunited to rock some awesome keytar action (and play with Rhianna):

Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby, Stevie Wonder perform a medley at the Grammy awards in 1985:

30 Rock, I’ll miss you most of all…
Getting a new episode of 30 Rock last night was a nice bonus in these strike depleted days.
I was going to embed the musical clip from Hulu, but it’s a shame that the online market is so nascent that NBC hasn’t figured out how to make money on online video, aside from runing pre-roll ads. If they give those away to Cisco as promotional material, how can they earn money on the content?