Category: The S/T Five

COCAINE BLUES: Old Crow Medicine Show Sing About Dranking and Drugging, Inspire People To Toss Beer From Beacon Theatre Balcony

August 7th, 2009 | File Under: Reviews, The S/T Five | 4 comments

Old Crow Medicine Show, caught in the wild.

Words by Andrew Parks

Remember when ‘alt-country’ was kinda cool? Must have been the month in between Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—not quite alt-country by definition, but we’ll take it—and Ryan Adams’ first public meltdown involving “Summer of ‘69″ and a heckler who thought it’d be brilliant to mistake “Ryan” for “Bryan.” In the years since, Wilco records have suffered from Jeff Tweedy’s sobriety (sorry, but we’ll take the creeping noise-pop paranoia of “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” and “Handshake Drugs” over a defanged/dull Wilco any day) and Adams’ blog-based rants have become more interesting than his music, as if he left Whiskeytown for crazy town.

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THE S/T FIVE: Right About Now, The Funk Soul Brother Needs To Play a Song That’s Actually Good

June 25th, 2009 | File Under: Reviews, The S/T Five | 2 comments

[Photos/Text by Andrew Parks]

Bless the girl in the above photo and her undying devotion to Fatboy Slim despite the unfortunate frat-party approach of his New York ‘performance’ last night. Playing to a not-quite-full Terminal 5, Norman Cook started off strong with swift “Praise You” snippets and speaker-rattling sheets of acid techno and big beat, but overall, his rare 105-minute (!) set suffered from severe peak/valley problems. In other words, nearly every time he led the laidback crowd down a path of potentially-losing-their-shit, Cook lost his momentum somehow, either by wearing out a song’s welcome (do we really need to hear DJ Kool drops for six minutes?) or not ratcheting up the tension of the few familiar Fatboy tracks that made the mix (“Right Here, Right Now,” “The Rockafeller Skank,” the aforementioned “Praise You”).

Posted in: Reviews, The S/T Five

THE S/T FIVE: “So ‘Relative Ways’ Still Kinda Rules,” And Four Other Reasons We’ve Seen …Trail of Dead Way Too Many Times

February 28th, 2009 | File Under: Reviews, The S/T Five | Leave A Comment

Conrad Keely leads Midnight Masses in a cuddly lil' chorus line.

Photos/Text by Andrew Parks

We’re not sure how it happened, but we’ve seen …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead more than any other band of the past five years. As in enough times—8? 11? 15?—to say we’ve witnessed the Texan transplants at their worst (the SxSW ‘06 gig where frontman Conrad Keely sat in front of keyboard racks for the entire set, clearly indulging his prog-rock fantasies instead of what we really came to see: genuine mayhem) and absolute best (a roots-revisiting, one-night-only collaboration between Keely and …Trail co-founder Jason Reece).

Last night’s Century of Self gig was caught somewhere in between, although it erred more on the side of …Trail’s better shows. One award it did win was the prestige of being the most oppressive-sounding gig we’ve experienced outside of a buzz-stirring Source Tags & Codes set at Bowery Ballroom in 2002. Maybe it was the fact that the night’s soundcheck lasted a good 45 minutes, but every element of …Trail’s mix (the gut-punching percussion of Reece and Aaron Ford, the clanging chords of Keely and Kevin Allen, the wobbly low-end of Jay Phillips, the smothered synth lines of keyboardist Clay Morris) rang out loud and ridiculously clear—enough to knock us back a few inches during such time-tested jams as “Totally Natural” and the hardcore-esque “Homage.”

And what does this all add up to? Why, another edition of “The S/T Five,” of course …

Posted in: Reviews, The S/T Five

THE S/T FIVE: Why So Serious, Antony Fans?

February 20th, 2009 | File Under: Features, The S/T Five | 3 comments

FROM BEYONCÉ TO THAT CREEP WITH THE CLOSED EYES:

The Top Five Reasons We Sat Frozen Upfront At Antony’s Town Hall Gig For 90 Minutes

Photos/Text By Andrew Parks

1. First and foremost, Antony is a funny motherfucker. No, really. As deadly serious as the guy’s torch songs are, he knows how to cut through a stiff, New Yorker-cribbing crowd like a knife. Aside from nailing a priceless cover of “Crazy In Love,” Antony filled Thursday’s awkward pauses with bizarre, often brilliant stage banter. That includes his semi-coherent ramblings on the State of Things (“I’m like the Huffington Post, telling you everything“) and quite a few wide-eyed tales of what New York was like, pre-Giuliani.

According to Antony, we’re about to go back there, as evidenced by the homeless people selling freshly-stolen luggage on Avenue C. Thanks for the tip, buddy!

2. He makes us all address gender issues whether we’re ready to or not. Take the lines “One day I’ll grow up/I’ll be a beautiful woman/One day I’ll grow up/I’ll be a beautiful girl” from “For Today I Am a Boy.” A couple sitting next to self-titled couldn’t help but giggle uncomfortably the first time said trans-curious verses were uttered, yet Antony had both of them in the palm of his bear-like hand—practically weeping—by the end.

Posted in: Features, The S/T Five

THE S/T FIVE: What They’re Really Talking About—Vaginas!

February 10th, 2009 | File Under: The S/T Five | Leave A Comment

Top Five Thinly-Veiled Vagina References in Music

By self-titled reader Claire

1. Soft as snow, but warm inside (My Bloody Valentine)

2. Heart-shaped box (Nirvana)

3. Little red Corvette (Prince)

4. Bell…as in “ring my” (Anita Ward)

5. Umbrella ella a a a (Rihanna)

We want to hear your best Top Five lists. Leave them in the comments, and we’ll publish our favorites. Get creative!

Posted in: The S/T Five

DEAR READERS: Calling All Top Fives

February 2nd, 2009 | File Under: The S/T Five | One comment

In honor of our new feature The S/T Five, we’re looking for your best music-related Top Five lists. Top Five outfits worn by Prince? Top Five things from a Guided by Voices song that you’d like to actually see in real life? Top Five lead singers who could beat other evenly matched lead singers in arm wrestling? Top Five foods enjoyed while listening to twee pop? Write your hilarious/awesome/mind-blowing/earth-shattering/coke-snorting Top Five lists in our comments section. We’ll select our favorites and publish them on the site. Get creative people!

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THE S/T FIVE: When Bruce Attacks

February 2nd, 2009 | File Under: The S/T Five | One comment

The Top Five Moments From Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

By Aaron Richter

1. Steven Van Zandt yelling “It’s Boss time!” Pure cheese. And we love it.

2. Bruce sliding on his knees and slamming into the cameraman. Pete Townsend, he is not, but a damn fine effort, nonetheless.

3. The choir that emerged during “Working on a Dream,” thus transforming a sub-mediocre single into palatable entertainment.

4. The Boss dropping to his knees and popping back up at the beginning of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.”

5. self-titled sitting on the couch and remembering how awesome Prince was when he performed two years ago at halftime. And subsequently watching that performance online rather than the first 15 minutes of the game’s second half.

Watch Springsteen’s performance in its entirety after the jump.

Posted in: The S/T Five

Category: The S/T Five

COCAINE BLUES: Old Crow Medicine Show Sing About Dranking and Drugging, Inspire People To Toss Beer From Beacon Theatre Balcony

THE S/T FIVE: Right About Now, The Funk Soul Brother Needs To Play a Song That’s Actually Good

THE S/T FIVE: “So ‘Relative Ways’ Still Kinda Rules,” And Four Other Reasons We’ve Seen …Trail of Dead Way Too Many Times

THE S/T FIVE: Why So Serious, Antony Fans?

FROM BEYONCÉ TO THAT CREEP WITH THE CLOSED EYES:

THE S/T FIVE: What They’re Really Talking About—Vaginas!

DEAR READERS: Calling All Top Fives

THE S/T FIVE: When Bruce Attacks

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