Live at the Astoria plays out as a greatest-hits collection, with a solid sampling from the group’s back catalogue. The recording is fairly crisp, with hardly any crowd interference (which you’ll either like or dislike depending on what you’re looking for in a live album). …
A year too late, this video compilation of live performances and artist interviews from the 2007 Warped Tour has finally hit shelves, and unfortunately does its best to underwhelm fans. …
The only way that Corgan was going to achieve what he wanted with these residencies was to keep in mind that for every two people who just wanted to hear the old hits, there were a few young (or old) fans who still cared, and play the hell out of the new songs for them and them only. …
The concert was put together to promote the group’s Heritage album, as we’re off to a way-dated start as images of the Berlin Wall-collapse and Nelson Mandela appear on the video screen. This is followed by two male dancers (complete with knockoffs of Bobby Brown’s Every Little Step double-breasted-suit-jacket-with-no-shirt look)…
Unwritten Law have staked their claim for most of their careers through touring. While a lot of bands fall into the Frampton Comes Alive trap and make a live record that is sprawling and ponderous, UL keeps the pace and energy sprightly on Live and Lawless. …
So today I got another package from Tucson and it included another one of my Case Logic CD binders. This one was “Jurassic 5 – Souls of Mischief”. It rests alongside “Ryan Adams – P.J. Harvey” and awaits the arrival of such brethren as “Akinyele – Jeru the Damaja” and “Imogen Heap – [...]
In their ’70s heyday, Jethro Tull took acid-damaged hippie-folk-rock and scored an arena-size stage show with it that was sheerly Dadaist in execution. I heard tell of band members in gorilla suits and scuba gear, and other assorted zaniness that read like Alice Cooper on an Andy Kaufman bender. …
If you’ve never heard of The Funk Brothers, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re not alone. For over decade, Eddie Willis, Bob Babbitt and Uriel Jones performed much of the production work that was masterminded by legendary producer Berry Gordy, forming the foundation of that ubiquitous Motown sound, back in its heyday. …
Story of the Year - Our Time is Now
Image Entertainment (05/13/08)
Unrated
100 minutes
There’s really only one group of people who would be interested in the new Story of the Year DVD, Our Time is Now: fans of the band.
The disc, subtitled Two years in the life of …, is basically a collection of home video [...]
First and foremost, the director is a maniac. There’s constant cutting from camera to camera, which makes sense during, say, the strobes during Overkill’s set. But it’s almost constant for the whole show, so you can never focus on anything (”Well, there’s the guitarist… no, the bassist… no, the drummer… no, the singer… the audience… the singer…” and so on). Then, they discover split-screen technology somewhere in the middle of Megadeth’s set, and we then get that feature being used ad nauseum. …