I’ve never been particularly impressed with Kiss, both as a studio band (I find a lot of their recordings pretty clunky) and as a live band (since it seemed that they relied heavily on the makeup, pyro and other tricks). But this clip from early 75 at the Winterland Ballroom is pretty badass.
It’s clear that Paul Stanley is the key to their onstage energy, since Gene Simmons seems to have two moves and Ace comes from the “stroll around” school of rock guitar. Paul, meanwhile, jumps around, headbangs and windmills like crazy – good stuff!

I should say I like it in black and white too – gives it a little creepy mistique.

Referring to the greatest computer game ever– not the history– including an interview with Sid Meier: The History of Civilization.

It’s likely there was some fixing done in the studio on this (Keith’s backing vocals coming in when he’s ten feet from the mic), but damn if this version of “Happy” doesn’t kick ass. The ’72 tour is supposedly their best ever, and I can believe it.

Perform Big Bottom at Live Earth:

Morning Edition had a nice piece about Michael Brecker this morning: Brecker’s ‘Pilgrimage’ a Welcome, Not a Farewell: “Musicians list the components of Brecker’s signature sound: His rich tone. His fluid and lyrical flow. His recent growth as a composer. On Michael Brecker’s musical farewell, one can hear all these things. What you can’t hear is a sense of goodbye — Pilgrimage stands as one of the most energetic and welcoming albums of his career.”

Feeling old yet? OK Computer is 10 years old.

Why pop music is “louder” today:

Filmed by Gothamist:

The front cover of AM New York today questions whether the NYC rock music scene is dying out because clubs in Manhattan keep closing: City’s clubs falling silent: “Buyers, lured by the mystique of the Lower East Side’s arts and music scene, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to live at the center of it. A few years later that same edgy nightclub goes out of business, having received many noise complaints from the new condo owners, and pinched by skyrocking rents driven up by those same well-heeled neighbors.”
Can venues afford to pay the same rents that national chains and expensive co-ops can? No. Indie rock and experimental music are not a big money industries. Is the LES scene dead? No. Or at least, not yet.
While Tonic and Sin-é closed, The Mercury Lounge, Pianos, Cake Shop, The Living Room, The Delancey, Rockwood Music Hall, Fontanas, and The Annex are the venues in the LES hosting live music that I could think of off the top of my head. Sin-é, for one, offered little that’s not matched or exceeded by the surviving venues in the area. Tonic, on the other hand, was a good sized and great sounding room that programmed a solid mix of avant-garde and emerging mainstream music.
But the opening and closing of venues is part and parcel of the vibrancy of New York’s music scene. Take CBGB’s, for example, which ceased to be relevant long before it finally closed its doors.
Besides the venues in the LES, Brooklyn has a hopping scene. Union Hall, Magnetic Field, Southpaw, Trash, Union Pool, Galapagos and the new Luna Lounge are among the conveniently located venues offering interesting shows that I can think of off the top of my head. That’s not even adding in venues further out in Brooklyn, such as the places that Todd P books.

The Washington Post sends world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell to busk in the metro, with his Stradivarius: Pearls Before Breakfast – washingtonpost.com: “It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by.”