If a band’s story lied only within their songs – their music and lyrics – there would be little need for the job of a music journalist to flesh out the parts that would, in most cases, be left uncovered. Those bits and pieces that together make up the sum of a band’s whole. There would be little need for the likes of Charlie Cross, Lester Bangs, or his prodigy Cameron Crowe. And bands like Pearl Jam would be all the less for it. It is thanks, in part, to Crowe that the anniversary of Pearl Jam’s twentieth year of making music won’t be overlooked. Together with a retrospective album…
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Dry The River with Ambassadors
Don’t you just love it when you instantly fall in love with a song and the band that sings it? I randomly came across Dry The River on the net and gave them listen because I liked the sound of their name (sometimes it’s really just as simple as that!) A quick Twitter search showed that they had a gig in New York coming up too – how is that for a bit of musical serendipity.
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Lira, meet New York. New York, meet Lira
She’s already made legions of South African hearts happy with her soulful voice and striking stage performance so it’s only natural that Lira would want to extend a little of that love to the rest of the world. Her 4 albums (and DVD shot in 3D) have all sold platinum and above in SA. She’s making her American debut with shows this week, in celebration of the US release of the Lira EP today. A 14-song album will be released on 31 January 2012 (my birthday!) with Feel Good being her first radio single release. Lira is playing SOBs tonight, with support from Zim saxophonist extraordinaire Max Wild. If you’re not in NYC,…
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Surrendering to the Sound: U2 in New Jersey
You can know all the facts about the U2 360 Degree tour and its signature stage, the “claw”. That it’s a 90-foot tall steel structure, designed to support 180 tons. That it takes four days to build. That it’s allowed U2 to break all concert attendance records. You can know that the band has 3 custom-built claw stages for their tour, and that as one is being dismantled, another is being erected. But you cannot really know anything until you’ve actually seen the spectacular four-legged contraption for yourself, lighting up the night sky, illuminating hit song after hit song. You don’t know anything until you’ve see the “claw” send U2’s…
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Ooh La La – it’s Dev
She’s the voice behind the oh-so-catchy Like A G6 track, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 towards the end of last year. Since then, Dev has got us sharing a common love for “beats fast and bass down low”, made a mash-up of a Hellz-Bellz wardrobe in Booty Bounce, and has been working on her debut album, The Night the Sun Came Up, due out September. In the meantime, she’s worked with music video director Ethan Lader to create the video for her single, In the Dark. Lader has already made videos for the other tracks she’s performed with The Cataracs, and he also created ones for B.o.B’s Nothing on You and Bruno…
