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A sense of adventure drives Death Cab
The first single from the new Death Cab for Cutie album begins with a long wordless groove. It's practically prog, this swarm of shimmering keyboards, throbbing bass notes, and wandering guitars, and the sound builds, disarmingly, to a measured and chilling peak. At the 4 1/2-minute mark, when most rock tunes would have already come and gone, Ben Gibbard starts ...
Take 5
Joan Anderman's picks for live music this weekend Jazz Herb Pomeroy Tribute The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble and a host of special guests celebrate the life of the late trumpeter and music educator. Tickets are $5 at the door; proceeds will benefit the Herb Pomeroy Jazz Development Fund.
Cole opens Pops season with class and classics
The Boston Pops kicked off its 123d season Wednesday night with a truncated tribute to Massachusetts native son Leonard Bernstein, who would have turned 90 this year, and a guest appearance by singer Natalie Cole, whose lengthy set list required that two-thirds of the Bernstein celebration be canceled at the last minute.
Cole sizzles in Pops' home opener
The Boston Pops kicked off its 123d season last night with a truncated tribute to Massachusetts' native son Leonard Bernstein, who would have turned 90 this year, and a guest appearance by singer Natalie Cole, whose lengthy set list required that two-thirds of the Bernstein celebration be canceled at the last minute.
Parton is dolled up and down-home all at once
There isn't a package in popular music quite as confused as the shrewd country bumpkin, liberated dumb blonde, and gifted theme-park operator named Dolly Parton. Those signature contradictions have fueled the country star's image and music for four decades, and at 62 - unreal-looking and pristine-sounding - Parton shows no signs of loosening her grip.
Dolly delivers travelogue of a show
There isn't a package in popular music quite as confused as the shrewd country bumpkin, liberated dumb blonde, and gifted theme-park operator named Dolly Parton. Those signature contradictions have fueled the country star's image and music for four decades, and at 62 - unreal-looking and pristine-sounding - Parton shows no signs of loosening her grip.
Caillat's quick rise to fame shows on stage
A gentle California breeze blew into Boston over the weekend in the form of a long-limbed, bronze-skinned beach babe named Colbie Caillat. She wore a sweet white dress and a flower in her hair and sang sunny pop tunes about magic and the little things and letting her feelings show. The girls in the audience at the Orpheum screamed "I ...
Madonna's still in charge on her new CD, 'Hard Candy'
From the looks of it, "Hard Candy," Madonna's new album, is an unambiguous riff on the superstar's favorite theme. She appears on the cover in thigh-high boots, blinged-out wrestling belt, and a long black strap stretched from her wrist to her mouth. Her legs are spread. Her eyes are slits. Her lips are parted.
Critics' picks - live music
JAZZ Kenny Garrett
Kate Nash is finding her own space
At the tender age of 20, two years out from a job serving fast food and still holed up in her childhood bedroom, Kate Nash is starring in the latest installment of the MySpace overnight-sensation series. Nash's tale, like the others, is a variation on a theme: a young unknown records some songs, posts them on the Web, becomes an ...
New folks at Newport rock festival's traditions
In 1965, Bob Dylan turned the folk world on its ear when he plugged in an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival.
Man Man offers double dose of wild sounds
A Man Man stage looks a lot like a playground, strewn with a jumble of musicians' toys: horns and keyboards, duck whistles and guitars, vocoders and xylophones, and at least one drum for everyone. The noise the Philly-based band makes resembles a riotous recess, except instead of whooping children getting their ya-yas out on the jungle gym it's five exuberant ...
Critics' picks - live music
BLUES John Hammond
Making a name for themselves
For a long time, 25-year-old Jesse Blaze went without a last name. As the hard-rocking singer and guitarist for several New York bands, he used only his first and middle names. He avoided talking about his family during interviews. But his best efforts to remain an anonymous frontman were futile.
Her G-rated show isn't aimed at general public
SOMERVILLE - In Kimya Dawson's cosmos, babies attend concerts. If they start to cry, the singer sends them backstage to play with her baby. The accompanist sits cross-legged on the floor strumming ukulele and dreamy young things twirl in the back of the theater. Fans don't call out song titles. They yell, "I love your blue socks!"
Even with new solo CD, Davies gets the Kinks out
Early on in his show at the Orpheum, Ray Davies joked that he's fined $10 every time he mentions his old band onstage. To the delight of his fans, Davies is in serious debt.
Hip-hop's dynamic duo
A dream team by virtue of their legendary stature, Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige brought two very different sides of the hip-hop/soul coin to the Garden last night. She was transparent, emotional, and inward-looking - a victim-turned-survivor eager to empower her peers. He was cool and collected, the hustler-turned-mogul, personable but imperious.
Life of an Eel is played out
SOMERVILLE - You've heard of the concept album, but what about the concept concert? Mark Oliver Everett, also known as E, the sole longstanding member of the band Eels, is on the road in an alt-rock version of "This Is Your Life." Of course, all of Everett's intensely personal music revolves around a theme of "me," but this low-key, multimedia ...
His time may be past, but Dando's 'Ray' still holds up
As if to remind us of his great, wasted talent, Evan Dando and the umpteenth incarnation of the Lemonheads performed "It's a Shame About Ray" front to back at the Paradise Rock Club Tuesday night. The band's 1992 breakthrough album, a joyful rush of noisy pop, has just been rereleased by Rhino Records in a collector's edition, begging the question: ...
Stardom a long time in the making
In some ways it's a typical golden-years scene: two dozen senior citizens gathered at the Florence Community Center, just outside of Northampton, singing together.
Brother Ali turns his troubles into hip-hop triumphs
CAMBRIDGE - He's known as the albino Muslim rapper from Minnesota, which is a tidy way of pointing out that Brother Ali is the ultimate outsider. While kids from the hood had it rough, grew up tough, and switched on the swagger as rappers, Ali - cranium crooked, legally blind, and allergic to the sun - had it rougher. He ...
R.E.M. is firing on all cylinders with the new CD 'Accelerate'
AUSTIN, Texas - They say you can't get from A to Z without stumbling through the entire alphabet. R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe takes this metaphor for life, and most everything else having to do with life, to heart. He is stretched out in the backyard of Stubb's Bar-B-Q, pondering a quarter century of R.E.M. music.
Take 5
Joan Anderman's picks for live music this weekend. LATIN JAZZ
Where Folk History Lives
I say folk music. You think guitar-strumming troubadour with furrowed brow and earnest message. Or maybe you see a black-and-white snapshot of a quaint and faintly distant cultural moment. Quite possibly, your main reference point is A Mighty Wind . In our tech-savvy, commerce-crazed, who's-next pop playground, whither folk?
Peace at Last?
The view out of the living room window at Joan Baez's house is a Northern California dreamscape: nothing eye-popping or panoramic. Just a sliver of low green hills in the distance, a cluster of oak trees in the yard, and an elegant tangle of branches that have been woven into the walls of a high, sheltered deck. It's not so ...
Giant Memories
BETSY SIGGINS, WHO STARTED AT THE CLUB as a waitress and is now executive director of the Passim Center, says, "For me and many others in the late 1950s and 1960s, Club 47 was the only stage that on a daily basis presented the cultural and musical exchange of multi-generational and multi-cultural traditions and heritage that we had never experienced ...
Turning punk anarchy into playful tunes
AUSTIN, Texas - Jeffrey Lewis, an underground comic book artist and anti-folk singer-songwriter, recently released "12 Crass Songs" - pretty, playful versions of radical socio-political screeds originally spewed by '70s punk anarchists Crass. Lewis performed some of the songs at the South by Southwest festival last week and sat down to chat about super heroes, surprising covers, and angry fans. ...
The allure of the 'Odd'
Gnarls Barkley's first album, 2006's "St. Elsewhere," was a near-flawless collection of post-modern soul: haunting, adventurous, and infectiously demented. If the disc's ubiquitous flagship song, "Crazy," feels like one of the most overplayed tracks in recent memory, that's because it was one of the greatest genre-busting singles to come along in years.
Thao Nguyen was discovered via e-mail
CAMBRIDGE - Let's be honest: good fortune and lucky timing rank right up there with talent when it comes to carving out a music career. Sometimes the path is preternaturally serendipitous. Thao Nguyen, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter from Falls Church, Va., may be endowed with a bounty of raw musicality, but she traces her rising star back to one happy accident.