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“I’ll be honest, I was a bit nervous before playing this show,” said Julian Casablancas from the stage Thursday at Terminal 5 before thanking the packed house again for the warm reception. Artists gain and lose popularity fast in music, so it may not have been too crazy for him to think people might not care about him or his old band The Strokes that much anymore. But an excited Terminal 5 audience dispelled any doubt. Perhaps music tastes can change, but New Yorker’s always welcome back one of their own.
Doors opened at 8 PM and by 9 PM opener Tanlines was keeping the growing crowd well entertained, mostly with their intense on-stage gyrations. Tweaking computers and keyboards they presented an aggressive dance sound. In contrast, Telepathe, who followed, emitted an intense racket that sounded like a wash of sound rather than finely crafted music. The duo’s similar sounding voices and monotonous songs barely excited the crowd, and a few of their offerrings ended with just a spattering of applause. The group looked a little dejected as they left the stage, but after 35 minutes of without much musical or visual excitement (they barely tried to engage the crowd), it was hard to feel guilty about the audience’s poor reaction.
The reaction was much different when the lights went down for the headliner. With his backing band hitting the stage first, Julian Casablancas strolled out in a slim black leather outfit to the jubilation of everyone in Terminal 5. Although it’s only been a few years since The Strokes played New York, the excitement of the moment was palpable, as was the moment when he began singing in his distinctive croon.
The band started off with “Ludlow Street,” one of the album’s slower tracks, and though it lacked some of the old world instrumentation of the recorded version, it came across well, as did the next song, the more up-tempo “River of Brakelights.” Casablancas took the chance to talk to the crowd a bit, spouting out a stream of expletive-laden thanks-yous to everyone for the warm reception. The casual banter would continue throughout the night, and flew off into such side roads as Casablanca’s admiration of Alicia Key’s contribution to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” (he would later sing a snippet of it as a ten-second final song of the night, backed only by drums).
Launching into single “11th Dimension,” the band was fully warmed up and the crowd was soon bopping up and down. Every once in a while throughout the night (in “River of Brakelights” and Left and Right in the Dark,” for example), the band hit a chugging groove and Casablancas voice hit that sweet spot towards the higher, more desperate part of his range. The effect recalled what was so great about the Strokes, and the crowd reacted as you would have expected (see the video below). But the other sounds Casablancas has explored proved popular as well. The crowd sang along with “Out of the Blue” and “Left and Right in the Dark.” Casablancas and company played a new, untitled song which felt energetic and a lot more raw than the album material.
Reports from L.A. told of an elaborate stage show, but there were no visuals or fancy costumes at this gig, just the band and Casablancas with minimal lighting effects. Still, the crowd ate it up, especially in the encore when Casablancas and his keyboard player came out to play a stripped-down “I’ll Do Anything Once,” a Strokes b-side (which he announced as a cover). A bigger surprise was the inclusion of the Kings of Leon song “Velvet Snow,” though admittedly it was one of the weaker songs of the night. Still, the singer seems happy to playing live in NY again, whether this solo tour is a diversion before a Strokes reunion or a long term gig.

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In the New York Times today, Bill Carter finds NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol clearly on Team Jay, saying,
“What this is really all about is an astounding failure by Conan.” Executive Leaps to Leno’s Defense.
But how much of Conan’s woes at the Tonight Show are caused by the creative failure of the Jay Leno Show at 10 PM?
Tucked away in this story from Joe Adalian at The Wrap is the one fact that I’ve been looking for, that Conan’s Tonight Show is actually outperforming Leno’s Tonight Show, when you account for the massive fall-off of lead-in: Ebersol: Conan ‘Chicken-Hearted, Gutless’ | The Wrap: “O’Brien’s down from the Leno era in the adults 18-49, losing Leno’s 15 percent advantage over Letterman. But local news numbers have dropped between 20 and 30 percent since Leno shifted to 10, which means O’Brien is actually not dropping as much as his lead-in.”
Even though Leno hosted the Tonight Show on a low-rated network last year, NBC’s slightly more creatively interesting 2008-09 schedule provided a much stronger lead-in to the late local news and The Tonight Show than the 5 night per week black hole of suck that is the Jay Leno Show.
But why do we care so much about The Tonight Show?
Firstly, it is the most established late night show and during the Carson era, it was the only late night talk show that mattered. Viewers have a relationship as much with the tradition and establishment of a show. Millions of Americans find something comforting about routine and being able to watch The Tonight Show while settling in to sleep. And given Leno’s popularity, we can only assume that for many people funny isn’t a necessary component of a comedy show.
Secondly, even though NBC is by far the least popular network of the four, it may still be the one with which television viewers have the most personal connection. NBC has a much more specific nexus with its location at 30 Rockefeller Center. Because The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Channel 4 News, Saturday Night Live, Late Night and (fictionally) 30 Rock are all based there, there’s a feeling that NBC is an actual location with physical place and staff that all works together rather than a bunch of shows that happen to occupy the same frequency allocation on a transmitter. Secondly, more of its shows are long-running brands that have maintained the same core identity for so long that they have become institutions. Meet The Press is the longest running television show in worldwide broadcasting history, having been on the air continually since 1947. The Today Show has been on since 1952. The Tonight Show has aired continually since 1954. Saturday Night Live has aired since 1975 and Late Night since 1982. Only in two areas (evening news on CBS) and newsmagazine (60 Minutes)) do any of its competitors have longer running institutions than NBC.
Conan put his talk show up for sale on Craigslist.
What happened the last time NBC threatened to replace a Tonight Show host with another host from its network? In 1992, Bill Carter reported for the New York Times, Jay Leno Criticizes NBC On ‘Tonight’ Cliffhanger. We all know how that turned out.
It seems that Jimmy Kimmel is not a Leno fan. He did his Tuesday night show as Leno and then went direct as a guest on Leno’s show:

Myles McNutt, Cultural Learnings, Betrayal at NBC, Colon, What REALLY happened with my Late Night Show, Question Mark, by Conan O’Brien
Anne Helen Petersen, celebrity gossip, academic style, Team Conan: Nice Guys Finish First. Okay, well, kinda.
Lawrence Ebert, IP Biz, “The Tonight Show” controversy: do trademarks have a temporal dimension?. I’d say that since it has always aired after the late local news, The Tonight Show has come to mean NBC’s leadoff flagship and least-late of its late night shows.
James Poniewozik, Time Tuned In, Jay Leno: Seabiscuit or War Admiral

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So this little venue in NYC, Madison Square Garden, hosted a small concert last night in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The bill featured Bruce Sprinsteen & The E-Street Band, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash and friends. Perhaps you may have heard of some of these artists?
So yeah. That was some bill. And the show lasted until 1:30 AM, as all of the performers brought out special guests, which included Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Dion DiMucci, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Smokey Robinson, BB King, Sting, John Legend, Jeff Beck, Sam Moore, Darlene Love, John Fogerty, Tom Morello and Billy Joel.
Some of the collaborations seemed superfluous, such as Sting playing bass on “Higher Ground” with Stevie, with an awkward segue into a tepid cover of “Roxanne.” Others didn’t have any flow– the two acts who played with Simon and Garfunkel (Dion and Little Anthony)– were obvious influences on Simon and Garfunkel, but didn’t really bring any new shadings to the set, which probably would have been more musically memorable if Art Garfunkel and his awesome hair sang with Simon on one of Simon’s solo hits. Or just if they dug deeper into their catalog. But Crosby and Nash offered backup vocals to Simon’s cover of “Here Comes the Sun.” And “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was just tremendous as Garfunkel’s voice was more than up to the task of filling the Garden. (Of note, according to the image projected behind the stage, the East River is apparently troubled water.)
Some of the collaborations made up for the extraneous or boring ones. Half of Stevie’s guests were teh awesome. Jeff Beck came on stage to wail on the guitar for “Superstition.” And it was tremendous. John Legend sang a competent version of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” with Stevie. (That’s a case where a competent version is a tremendous complement. Not an easy song to pull off, and while it didn’t reach any higher ground, the song worked.) Legend also sat in on piano with Stevie to cover Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” for an emotional performance.
Aside from an opening trip to “Woodstock,” the Crosby, Stills and Nash set felt lightweight and superfluous to the rest of the night. All three were in fine form vocally, but I could have used another hour of Stevie and Jeff Beck jamming.
Springsteen’s choices of guests revealed much about his influences. Sam Moore showed how much of an influence he had on Springsteen as a performer and frontman. It also demonstrated that (with some extra horns) the E Street Band make for a solid soul revue show band. John Fogerty and Tom Morello showed a bit of the continuity of politically oriented rock music. By far, the highlights of Springsteen’s set were the songs that Morello sat in for. I’m not a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine, so I had no expectations for Morello’s playing (unlike, say, Jeff Beck.) His blistering solo on “The Ghost of Tom Joad” brought the song to a new level and helped elevate a cover of “London Calling” from acceptable to great.
Less musically interesting and successful was the summit meeting between NJ’s Springsteen and Lon Gisland’s Billy Joel. Unlike the other guests, Joel’s appearance wasn’t announced on the event’s website beforehand, so it was a surprise for me until Bruce started talking about the similarities between NJ and LI and the stagehands brought a second piano on stage. The contrast between Springsteen and Joel is interesting. Both came up in the 70’s in the New York suburbs writing and performing music mainly about disaffected teens in the suburbs. While Springsteen’s is somewhat more influenced by the soul and folk traditions, Joel’s is more directly descended from Tin Pan Alley. Although Sprinsteen himself is a guitar player, his best album, “Born to Run” is as much of a piano-driven album as anything by Joel. But even as someone who is unashamed to own Billy Joel albums, the juxtaposition of the two on the same stage showed me how much more
The interesting contrast between the two is where they took their music after their initial success. Springsteen became an outspoken advocate for the working class through song as stagflation gave way to Reaganomics. He delved deeper into the folk tradition with Nebraska and The Seeger Sessions. He released one of the most relevant and timely albums of this decade with “The Rising” and has continued to write new music. In contrast, Joel evolved from singing about disaffected teens to singing about disaffected middle age adults. His music remained personal, while Springsteen’s evolved to add activism and politics to the personal. Joel may have said everything he has Perhaps that’s why Joel last released an album of new rock music in 1993, Springsteen has released 6 new albums (3 with the E Street Band and 3 folk albums).
And Springsteen still leads the biggest and baddest rock and roll carnival to roll through town. As a 60 year old, the Boss has more energy than most 25 year old indie rockers.
Via The Star Ledger, Setlists for the show.
Rolling Stone: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Turns 25 With All-Star Sets From Springsteen, Wonder and More, Epic Moments at the Rock Hall 25th Anniversary Concert, Morello, Raitt, Crosby Pay Tribute to Fellow Legends Backstage at First Rock Hall Concert

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This is now an annual tradition! For the second year in a row, we’re going to look through the big list of bands coming into town this week for the CMJ Music Marathon and see if we can divine any trends in band naming.

Numbers

Two is by far the most popular number referenced in band naming. 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 28, 69, 70 and 1,000,000 are also represented among this crop of names:

  • Jupiter One
  • Once
  • 2am Club
  • Mystery of Two
  • Twin Atlantic
  • Twin Berlin
  • Two Fresh
  • Two Tears
  • Mother Of Three
  • Mighty Five
  • School of Seven Bells
  • The Middle Eight
  • 12th Planet
  • 28 North
  • 69 Eyes
  • Expo 70
  • A Million Years

Other Quantities

Some quantities aren’t expressible in discrete numbers

  • So Many Dynamos
  • So Many Wizards
  • Super Extra Bonus Party

Speed

Surprisingly, fast and slow are equally represented

  • The Fast Romantics
  • Slow Country
  • Tempo No Tempo

Directions

Go west, young man! All four of the compass directions are represented, but west is the most prevalent.

  • 28 North
  • Far East Movement
  • Mark Knight and Dirty South Live
  • Smith Westerns
  • Western Civ
  • The Western States Motel

Geography

Planets and Satellites
  • 12th Planet
  • Hooray For Earth
  • Man on Earth
  • Jupiter One
  • Moonbabies
  • Moondoggies
  • Under The Sherry Moon
  • We Landed On The Moon!
  • We Are The World
Continents
  • Antarctic
Oceans
  • Pacific Theater
  • Twin Atlantic
Countries
  • The Brazil Show
  • Casino versus Japan
  • Electro Morocco & Dreams in Static
  • Japandroids
  • Japanther
  • Look Mexico
  • The Maldives
  • Portugal. The Man
  • French Miami
  • Spanish Prisoners
  • These United States
  • Volcanoless In Canada
States
  • Arizona
  • The Gulf Of Michigan
Cities
  • Appomattox
  • Brighton MA
  • Capital City
  • David Dallas
  • French Miami
  • Invade Rome
  • My Jerusalem
  • NYCSmoke
  • River Phoenix
  • Twin Berlin
Neighborhoods
  • Bel Air
  • Diamond District
  • Harlem
  • Robbers on High Street
  • The Bowery Riots
Geographical Features
  • Beach Fossils
  • Best Coast
  • Black Bay
  • The Frontier Brothers
  • The Frontier Ruckus
  • The Gulf Of Michigan
  • River Phoenix
  • Spiral Beach
  • Valley of the Shadow of Death
  • Vertical Horizon
Buildings
  • The Emergency Room
  • Home and Garden
  • The Library
  • Uninhabitable Mansions

Time

  • 2am Club
  • A Million Years
  • All The Day Holiday
  • Black & White Years
  • Love In October
  • The Minutes
  • Overnight
  • The Past Times

Seasons

  • Eternal Summers
  • Winterpills

Deoartment of Redundancy Department

Bands so nice they named them twice:

  • Bang Bang Eche
  • Beep Beep
  • Blip Blip Bleep
  • Champagne Champagne
  • Die! Die! Die!
  • Dum Dum Girls
  • Fra Fra Sound
  • Future Future
  • Kill Kill Kill
  • Motel Motel
  • Runner Runner
  • Santino Santino
  • The Seedy Seeds
  • Shout Out Out Out Out
  • Still Life Still
  • Takka Takka
  • Tall Tall Trees
  • Tempo No Tempo
  • Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
  • Veil Veil Vanish
  • Voices Voices
  • You Scream I Scream
  • You, You’re Awesome

Transportation

    Air
  • Aeroplane
  • Aeroplane Pageant
  • Denney and the Jets
  • Flying Machines
  • Hospital Bombers
  • In-Flight Safety
  • Jets Overhead
  • Paper Airplane
  • Still Flyin
    • Land
  • Army Navy
  • Bridges and Powerlines
  • Brit and the Cavalry
  • Broadfield Marchers
  • Delorean
  • The Motorcycle Industry
  • BLACK TAXI
  • Unicycle Loves You
    • Sea
  • Army Navy
  • Floating Action
  • Sugar Plum Ferry
    • Space
  • Spaceships are Cool
  • We Landed On The Moon!

High vs. Low

  • The High Dials
  • The High Strung
  • Higher Giant
  • Highlife
  • The Hi-Risers
  • Robbers on High Street
  • Skyzoo
  • Jets Overhead
  • Low Frequency In Stereo

Stereo/Mono

Stereo is exactly twice as popular as mono!

  • Stereo Skyline
  • Low Frequency In Stereo
  • Monogold

Color

Black is again the most popular color represented, followed by gold.

  • Black & White Years
  • Black Anvil
  • Black Cherry
  • Black Diamond Bay
  • Black Holes
  • The Black Hollies
  • Black Swan Green
  • BLACK TAXI
  • Black Tie Party
  • the black watch
  • Black Whales
  • Cruel Black Dove
  • Dan Black
  • Red Wire Black Wire
  • Small Black
  • Soft Black
  • Gold Streets
  • The Golden Filter
  • Golden Silvers
  • Golden Triangle
  • Goldhawk
  • Solid Gold
  • Sugar & Gold
  • Monogold
  • Hi Red Center
  • Red Collar
  • Red/X
  • Red Wire Black Wire
  • Bobby Brown
  • Bosque Brown
  • White Tie Affair
  • Black & White Years
  • Blondes
  • Blood Orange
  • Blue Scholars
  • The Bronzed Chorus
  • Greycoats
  • Pink Noise
  • The YellowDogs

Light vs. Dark

Light is slightly more popular than dark and shadow.

  • Headlights
  • Lightning Love
  • The Lights Out
  • Lights Resolve
  • Dark Meat
  • Dark Room Notes
  • Valley of the Shadow of Death

Animals

Bears, birds, whales and dinosaurs, oh my!

    Bears
  • Angry Vs. The Bear
  • Bear Hands
  • Bear In Heaven
  • Care Bears on Fire
  • Mama Bear
    • Birds
  • Common Loon
  • Cruel Black Dove
  • Black Swan Green
  • An Albatross
  • Fearsome Sparrow
  • Hawk and Dove
  • Heavy Birds
  • Rainbird
  • Slang Chickens
  • Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt
    • Whales
  • Black Whales
  • Freelance Whales
  • Vulture Whale
    • Cats
  • The Jaguar Club
  • Japanther
  • Kittens Ablaze
  • Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
  • Spring Tigers
  • Tigercity
    • Wolves
  • Julia Wolfe
  • We Are Wolves
  • Whistling Wolves
    • Other Dogs
  • Coyote Eyes
  • Pitbull
  • Moondoggies
  • The YellowDogs
    • Dinosaurs
  • Claymation Velociraptor
  • Dinosaur Feathers
    • Insects
  • Beehive
  • Annie And the Beekeepers
  • Deer Tick
    • Chimeras
  • Dinowalrus
  • Dragon Turtle
    • All Others
  • The Antlers
  • Batrider
  • Cobra Skulls
  • Crystal Antlers
  • Fox Jaws
  • Goat Whore
  • Kate Bradley & Goodbye Horses
  • Mussels
  • Pig Destroyer
  • Skibunny
  • The Telepathic Butterflies
  • We Are Country Mice
  • Wild Yaks

Food & Drink

  • Bamboo Shoots
  • The Beautiful Taste
  • Black Cherry
  • Blood
  • Coconuts
  • Cookie Martini
  • Dark Meat
  • Drink Up Buttercup
  • Hank & Cupcakes
  • Heavy Cream
  • Hungry Hands
  • Hungry Hungry Ghost
  • Lemonade
  • Mussels
  • Pomegranates
  • Sugar & Gold
  • Sugar Plum Ferry

Weight

  • Fat Tony
  • Fatkid Dodgeball
  • Heavy Birds
  • Heavy Cream
  • Heavy Trash

New vs. Old

New and modern are much more popular than old, vintage, classic or historic.

  • Awesome New Republic
  • Future Future
  • Miracles of Modern Science
  • Modern Science
  • Modern Skirts
  • The New Collisions
  • The New Loud
  • New Villager
  • The Past Times
  • Old Canes
  • Linc with Old Soul

Government and International Relations

Republic is by far the most favored form of government and the Senate is the preferred representative body by this year’s crop of bands. Surprisingly, no fans of direct democracy in the bunch.

  • Awesome New Republic
  • Great Republic of Rough and Ready
  • Senator
  • The Senate
  • French Horn Rebellion
  • International Espionage!
  • Invade Rome
  • The Surrender
  • Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt

Blood

A surprising number of bands are either vampires or decided to use blood in their band names for some other reason.

  • Blood Orange
  • Blood Warrior
  • Bloodgroup
  • The Bloodsugars
  • Surfer Blood
  • Type O Negative

Gender

    Male
  • Best Man
  • The Boy Bathing
  • The Brothers Frank
  • Brother Joscephus & the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra
  • Dead Men Dreaming
  • Frat Dad
  • The Frontier Brothers
  • Gentleman Auction House
  • Holy Sons
  • The Lives of Famous Men
  • Madison Ave Boys
  • Male Bonding
  • Man Like Me
  • Man on Earth
  • Natureboy
  • octoberman
  • Papa
  • The Protomen
  • The Queen Killing Kings
    • Female
  • Bodega Girls
  • Kleenex Girl Wonder
  • Little Girls
  • Mama Bear
  • Metermaids
  • Mother Of Three
  • Priestess
  • Screaming Females
  • Sister Hazel
  • Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds

Young vs. Old

  • Chris Young The Rapper
  • Choir of Young Believers
  • Grandchildren
  • Bodega Girls
  • Holy Sons
  • Kleenex Girl Wonder
  • Little Girls
  • Moonbabies
  • My Teenage Stride
  • Natural Child
  • Teenage Bottlerocket
  • The Teenage Prayers
  • Young Boys
  • Young Prisms
  • Youth Group
  • Baby Monster
  • Kid Color
  • Kid Theodore
  • Kidz In Space
  • Kidz In The Hall
  • Jim McTurnan and The Kids that Killed The Band
  • Mother Of Three
  • Dead Men Dreaming
  • Frat Dad
  • The Neanderthals
  • Old Canes

Instruments

Does French Horn Rebellion have a french horn player in the band?

  • The Bongos
  • Cymbals Eat Guitars
  • Erin and Her Cello
  • French Horn Rebellion

Sports

  • Boogie Boarder
  • Fatkid Dodgeball
  • Hockey
  • Let’s Wrestle
  • Surf City
  • Surfer Blood
  • Swimclub
  • The Swimmers
  • Tennis Pro
  • Unicycle Loves You

Teams vs. Bands

Surprisingly, this roster features slightly more bands that are teams than there are bands that are bands.

  • Team Facelift
  • Team Genius
  • Team Robespierre
  • Team William
  • Math the Band
  • Menahan Street Band
  • Mia Riddle & Her Band

Body Parts

  • The Idle Hands
  • Hungry Hands
  • Hammer No More The Fingers
  • The Naked Hearts
  • No Eye Contact
  • Shaky Hands
  • The Unsacred Hearts

Temperature

    Hot is more popular than cold.

  • Cold Cave
  • Cold Flamez
  • Hot Lava
  • Hot Panda
  • HotChaCha
  • Spit Hot Fire

Life and Death

  • Dead Heart Bloom
  • Dead Leaf Echo
  • Dead Men Dreaming
  • Dead Sexy Inc.
  • Dead Stars
  • Deadbeat Darling
  • Die! Die! Die!
  • Diehard
  • Kill Kill Kill
  • Kill Krinkle Club
  • Ringo Deathstarr
  • Valley of the Shadow of Death
  • We Should Be Dead
  • Highlife
  • Still Life Still
  • Mammoth Life
  • Jonny Lives!
  • The Lives of Famous Men

Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll

  • Drug Rug
  • drugdealer
  • Drunken Barn Dance
  • Dirty Sexy Soca
  • Dead Sexy Inc.

Love

  • Enemy Lovers
  • The Fast Romantics
  • Unicycle Loves You
  • Love Heist
  • Love In October
  • The Love Language
  • LoveLikeFire
  • The Lovely Feathers
  • Lovemakers

Volume

Not surprisingly, loud is more popular.

  • The New Loud
  • Quiet Loudly

Shapes

  • The Elusive Parallelograms
  • Goes Cube
  • Golden Triangle
  • The Octagon

Rank/Title

  • Filthy Dukes
  • General Fiasco
  • I Was A King
  • Jess King
  • King Chango
  • The King Left
  • Sgt Dunbar and the Hobo Banned

The Four Elements

  • Man on Earth
  • Air Waves
  • The Fire & Reason
  • Fire Ex
  • Care Bears on Fire
  • Kittens Ablaze
  • Last Tide
  • LoveLikeFire
  • Quest For Fire
  • Spit Hot Fire
  • Sure Fire
  • Rain Machine
  • Rainbird
  • The Sea

Size

Big and small are tied at 5 apiece.

  • Giant Cloud
  • Gigantic Hand
  • Nomadic Massive
  • Big Sean
  • The Big Takeover
  • Little Fish
  • Little Girls
  • Little Teeth
  • Small Black
  • Beautiful Small Machines

Complete sentences

  • We Are Country Mice
  • We Are Enfant Terrible
  • We Are The World
  • We Are Wolves
  • We Have Band
  • We Landed On The Moon!
  • We Should Be Dead
  • Jonny Lives!
  • We’re Pregnant
  • The Whore Moans

Exclamation points!

  • Die! Die! Die!
  • Gunfight!
  • International Espionage!
  • Jonny Lives!
  • We Landed On The Moon!
  • pow wow!
  • Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
  • Zo! & The Els

Other Snazzy Names

These are some names that I couldn’t build a cateogry around, but are entertaining nonetheless:

  • Meeting of Important People
  • Phil & The Osophers
  • Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers

Names in bold are bands we can definitely recommend seeing. Band names in italics are bands we would consider seeing just because their names are awesomely clever or ridiculous.
See also Ear Farm’s CMJ preview, which provides recommendations and information about silly little details like time and location.

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1. The better the venue is for the performer, the worse it is for the audience.
2. Hearing songs for the first time is a very different experience than hearing them a second, third, sixteenth or 64th time.
Last night, I caught Them Crooked Vultures’ debut NYC performance at Roseland Ballroom. Prior to the show, I had not heard more than a 30 second clip of any of their music. But a few factors convinced me to buy tickets for the show. The rhythm section comes from two of the greatest rock bands of all time (Led Zeppelin and Nirvana) and the guitarist/lead singer from a band that I appreciate and enjoy (Queens of the Stone Age). Aside from hearing a single, I went to The Raconteurs first appearance in New York with no more information than knowing the prior work of Jack White and Brendan Benson, and caught a great show. But I was only appropriately whelmed by Them Crooked Vultures. I suspect that the venue and familiarity kept this show from reaching the next level.
Venue & Comfort
Roseland is a pretty terrible place to see a concert. The sound is muddy and booming in the cavernous room. Any precise and dynamic bass playing just gets lost in the mud of Roseland’s acoustics. Fortunately, John Paul Jones plays with a fairly distinctive sound that helps emphasize the attack at the beginning of each note. The sightlines from the floor are atrocious. There’s not enough traffic flow for the capacity this room can handle to make entering and exiting easy or quick.
New York’s other venues of similar capacity, including Hammerstein Ballroom, Webster Hall, Terminal 5, also present similar compromises to concertgoers, with boomy sound, crowded feeling at capacity, poor sight lines and insufficent bar staff to handle peak rush without queues. Which leads me to propose the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between a venue’s quality of experience for performers as for audience. At a large hall like Roseland or Hammerstein, the artist has a proper dressing room, large stage, a dedicated sound engineer for the monitor mix, and space for a big lighting rig. But the audience has to deal with the hassles. At a small club with capacity of up to a couple of hundred, bands may lack a dressing room, someone to run lights, inadequate monitors and have to deal with the hassles of loading gear on and off stage through the crowd rather than directly back to a dedicated back-stage location, but the audience benefits from good sight lines and decent sound. The larger the artist is of a draw, the more the artist needs to be pampered and the audience will be willing to put up with more hassles. The smaller the artist, the more the audience needs to be made comfortable.
Here’s an approximate graph of the relationship between venue size and comfort level for artists and their audiences:
venuesize-comfortlevel.jpeg
At the intersection of the audience comfort and artist comfort curve is Bowery Ballroom along with other clubs of similar size. Big enough to have enough resources to put on a top-level show, but small and intimate enough to offer a good experience for the audience.
Familiarity
There’s a certain level of familiarity with a piece of music that makes it more enjoyable for a listener. The brain needs to do some amount of work to process music at first that listening to a song that one’s heard before is a very different experience from listening to a new song. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was so different and difficult, that the audience rioted at the piece’s debut. Seriously, they rioted.
And I can think of a couple of concerts I’ve seen the familiarity phenomenon in full effect. At the Raconteurs first show at Irving Plaza, The audience became significantly more engaged once the Raconteurs played the one single they had released to date, “Steady as She Goes.” When U2 played a free concert in Empire-Fulton Ferry Park in 2004, the first 7 songs of the set were all songs from their new, yet-to-be-released album. It was very obvious to see who downloaded the album in advance from the internet and who hadn’t. But the energy level of the crowded raised dramatically when the band broke into older singles, “Beautiful Day” and “I Will Follow.” The audience was much more engaged and energized by hearing familiar material that U2 played the new single, Vertigo, again to feed off that energy to get a better performance for the film crew.
By not releasing more than snippets of music, Them Crooked Vultures gave the audience something new, but not anything especially engaging. And because it takes mental energy to process new music, the crowd was sapped of a lot of its energy. The last time I went to a concert at Roseland was to see Radiohead nine (!) years ago. And all of the drawbacks of the venue were there, but the crowd had more energy, in part because Radiohead played a couple of days after their album dropped and also had old fan favorites to mix in with their new material.
The first few songs of Them Crooked Vultures’ set were all huge, riff-heavy energetic tracks that, as expected, combined the bombast of Nirvana with Zeppelin’s grounding and Queens of the Stone Age sludgy grit. The last song featured an epic and heavy jam. But neither the songs themselves nor Homme’s singing helped make the performance more than the sum if its parts. The biggest influence on the group’s sound was Queens of the Stone Age. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing– unlike some other groups assembled from members of other well-known groups, the parts here add up to something good and coherent. But it also lacked Nirvana’s skill for songwriting and Zeppelin’s heft and showmanship.
As expected, Grohl is a formidable drummer. But you also see just how Jones’ style works with Grohl’s to give the rhythm section a taste of Zeppelin, but not attempting to mimic or ape the Jones/Bonham sound.
NPR’s Bob Boilen was very enthused with the band’s show at the 9:30 Club, “It’s been a while since I’ve been to a show that I’d call ‘balls to the wall,’ but Them Crooked Vultures aren’t holding back. From their first song, ‘Elephant,’ to the song playing right now, called ‘Highway 1,’ nuance has left the building. Granted, I’m only four songs into the show, but good lord, this rocks.” I suspect that at a club the size of the 9:30 Club as opposed to Roseland, the room didn’t swallow up much of the show’s appeal, which helped the audience enjoy the show that much more.
Don’t get me wrong: this was a very good show. Unfortunately, with a couple of tweaks, it could have been an epic show.
See also, Rolling Stone: Them Crooked Vultures Blast Through Jams at New York Debut

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As a jazz fan, I always love going to the Village Vanguard. Sitting in the club, you can feel the room’s connection with Miles, Coltrane, Sonny, Evans, Dolphy and all of the jazz past, present and future. The club’s pedigree elevates the level of performances on its stage. And so when I got invited to see Barbra Streisand there, how could I refuse?
Playing to a jam-packed house filled with contest winners, Streisand’s family and friends (including President Clinton and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton), and film crew (and their lighting equipment), the show was as much an intimate gathering of friends as it was a film session as it was a concert. Streisand performed a mix of standards, tracks from her new album and her signature hits.
Eschewing an opening act for introductions by Vanguard owner Ruth Gordon and some of the other people who helped Streisand first break into success as a performer at various clubs (of a now-bygone era) in the Village kicked the evening off with the special feel. The audience was part of a small intimate party and performance.
Once the show started, however, from one perspective, we were taken out of the immediacy and intimacy of the show. Sitting on the side of the room towards the front, the view of pianist Tamir Hendelman was blocked, but the view of Streisand’s teleprompter was clear. So we could read the script that Streisand followed. To one extent, this took away from any sense that the set was a loose, improvised and breezy little set in front of a group of friends, but was a reminder of the major film production part of the hybrid nature of the evening.
On the other hand, having a sense of that a good deal of the banter was scripted gives one a tremendous appreciation of why Streisand is in such high regard as a performer, because you could see how much meaning she puts into every phrase. And though the teleprompter cues were used more as reminders of the points she wanted to discuss rather than a script, Streisand’s voice is so expressive that she could (as the trope goes) read the phone book and make it engaging, dynamic and interesting. Whether Streisand’s performance is impeccably rehearsed or spontaneously improvised, I doubt you could tell the difference, because her dynamics are so precise and expressive.
Unlike most broadway-style performers, nothing about Streisand’s performance felt artificial or calculated. It all felt natural, heartfelt and authentic. And it’s not to say that the show was perfected to within an inch of its life. There was enough of a rough edge to the set that Streisand walked off stage to close the set one song earlier than she intended. As a result, the audience got an encore twice as long as intended.
The backing quartet, led by pianist Hendelman, was impeccable, but also unobtrusive and rarely featured. Hendelman played one well constructed and melodic solo and tasteful segues and vamps between songs. But for a album intended to be more of a jazz album at the country’s premier jazz club, there was no swing to the set until the final encore, “The Way We Were,” where the drummer switched to sticks from brushes for the first time in the set and the guitarist added interesting and tasteful soaring lines.
But since Streisand’s voice was the top-billed star of the show, in impeccable form, that’s what carried the show. Anthony Tommasini interviewed Streisand for the New York Times and discussed her vocal technique. Streisand’s Fine Instrument and Classic Instinct

“[Streisand] revealed herself as a vocal artist with powerful, if innate, insights into phrasing, legato, vibrato, interpretive nuances and, most important, the art of singing as an expression of words.… Opera singers might learn from Ms. Streisand’s way of treating singing as an extension of acting. In working so hard to cultivate the beauty and carrying power of their voices, too many opera singers compromise with indistinct diction and generic expression. Ms. Streisand sings as if she is speaking to you.”

That’s what carried the show. Not the songs, not the dynamic interplay between the singer and her band, but her voice. Which is not to say that there weren’t moments where the arrangements came together to propel, as in “My Funny Valentine,” which was one of the high points of the night. But on other songs, such as “Make Someone Happy,” where Streisand’s voice conveyed deep emotions and forged a connection with the audience, and she embodied all the pathos of the song and earned a standing ovation. And despite a lack of songs at anything faster than a ballad, the set did have an arc and momentum that carried it to the end, culminating with classic standards (“Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”) and her own signature hits (“Evergreen” and “The Way We Were.”)
All in all, a tremendous performance, and an encouragement for all major musical artists to play rooms a few sizes smaller than they ordinarily would, to try material in more intimate arrangement and less stage-managed settings.
The Village Vanguard Set List
The New York Times, Lucky Streisand Fans Were A-Listers for a Night
NPR, Barbra Streisand, Live At The Village Vanguard?
The Barbra Streisand Forum, An Evening with Barbra Streisand at VV (The Show)

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There aren’t many bands who I will buy tickets to see by only knowing the band’s lineup. But if the rhythm section is Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones? I’m there. Add in Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and you get Them Crooked Vultures, who sounds something like this:

Jim DeRogatis was at their US debut: Them Crooked Vultures at Metro, “The best show by far of Lollapalooza 2009 really was part of Lollapalooza in name only: the after-show at Metro in the wee hours of Monday morning that marked the world premier of Them Crooked Vultures, the new supergroup featuring Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl and the legendary John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.… During an amazing 12-song, 80-minute set, Them Crooked Vultures went on to prove it is one the rarest things in rock: a supergroup that not only deserves that appellation, but which actually is greater than the sum of its storied parts.”
Them Crooked Vultures play Roseland on October 15.

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With tonight’s debut of Community, NBC may now have their first Thursday comedy block where all four shows are actually worth watching. Perhaps without a huge dominant hit like Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers or Cosby, they can’t rely on sandwiching a piece of crap show between two big hits.
Or, at least, they will when 30 Rock comes back in place of the pointless, but not completely meritless SNL Weekend Update Thursday. The cold open, which imagined Michelle Bachman, Joe Wilson and assorted Republican crazies planning a group protest of the President’s speech to the joint session of Congress, but deciding to back out while Wilson took a bathroom break, was a relatively clever take on the meme, even though it may already be played out.
But with The Daily Show and the Colbert Report doing more incisive and edgier topical comedy every night, Weekend Update Thursday looks like the second rate fake newscast that it is. Even Amy Poehler can’t save this from being nothing more than an obviously cheap space filler until 30 Rock returns.
Amy Poehler’s other half-hour in Parks and Recreation, however, was funnier and had more of a sharp comedic point. Tonight’s episode, which dealt with backlash from a conservative activist when Poehler’s Leslie Knope married two penguins at the Pawnee Zoo without realizing they were both male penguins, kept Leslie from being too unsympathetic and oblivious.
Community may be the best comedy pilot I’ve seen in a while. I’m somewhat disappointed to understand that John Oliver won’t be a regular, as his character was consistently hilarious against McHale’s.

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NPR’s A Blog Supreme is asking contributors and readers to name five albums you would recommend to somebody looking to get into modern jazz.
Here are my picks:
The Bad Plus – These Are the Vistas. Already the one album I’ve seen mentioned the most on these lists and for good reason. It may capture the best of modern millennial jazz music. Equal parts lyrical and dischordant in the best ways, The Bad Plus swagger through this record with driving force and relentless energy. It’s as punk as any acoustic jazz album. For the cross-over crowd, covers of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” are accessible but full of enough restless energy to subvert expectations. Is “These Are the Vistas” the most timely jazz album of the decade?
David Binney – Welcome to Life. This is probably my single favorite jazz album of the decade. Binney assembled a group of musicians who all lead their own groups and bring their distinctive individual styles to elevate Binney’s sinewy and intricate compositions. Brian Blade’s drumming constantly propels the music forward while accenting unexpected places and always building tension. The interplay between Binney’s alto sax and Chris Potter’s tenor shifts subtly from unison melodies to interesting harmonies that diverge and intersect with the piano of Craig Taborn and guitar of Adam Rogers. Each of the sax players contributes solos that have particularly strong narrative arcs.
Brad Mehldau – Largo. Mehldau’s sparse arrangements, deliberately delicate playing and first rate production (courtesy of Jon Brion) make it a good entry point from listeners who enjoy music in the precious NPR indie darling category. And the covers of songs by Radiohead and The Beatles
Chris Potter Underground – Follow the Red Line. Chris Potter may be the most impressive sax and woodwind player in jazz today, because he approaches his playing with unrestrained musicality. In personnel, Potter’s quartet is almost like an abridged version of David Binney’s group, with Potter working again with Craig Taborn (Rhodes) and Adam Rogers (Guitar.) But where Welcome to Life is more subtle and intricate, Follow the Red Line is raw and visceral. Both are products of the same New York scene but lets each leader make his own artistic statement.