Two years ago, The Gaslight Anthem were an up and coming New Jersey band combining the hero of their home state (Springsteen) with the late-nineties beard-punk (really!) of Hot Water Music and Against Me. My band played with them about a year-and-a-half ago to a 3/4 full Knitting Factory in Hollywood and they tore the roof off the place; it was clear they'd go far, and quickly.
One year later, they're at Glastonbury playing "The '59 Sound" with Springsteen as a guest. If anyone deserves to be passed the NJ rock and roll torch, it's these guys. Enjoy.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: New Mexico.
God bless Portsmouth, NH's The Queers. Influenced by The Beach Boys and The Ramones, and pretty much nothing else, Joe Queer and his mates have ignored every fleeting "cool" trend in punk rock since their formation in 1984 and focused squarely on light-hearted and fun pop-punk for the rest of us. Don't ever change, boys.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: New Jersey.
Last week, a friend and I were recapping rock and roll in the 00s as the decade winds its final weeks down, and she argued that the Killers, proudly from Las Vegas, are the best and most relevant band to debut in this decade. I wouldn't go as far as saying they're the finest we've seen, but as far as relevance is concerned I'd place my chips on the Killers over Coldplay or Linkin Park, who strike me as the other serious contenders.
Up and coming they ain't, but the Killers put Vegas on the map as a source for music, not just a destination. "The World We Live In" is their latest single from Day and Age.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: New Hampshire.
Mama I'm Swollen, Cursive's new album, wins my award for worst album title of the year, but "From The Hips" is a nice tune. While the humdrum over the Omaha scene centered mostly around Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), Cursive and the other acts on Saddle Creek Records has died down a bit since 2003, Tim Kasher and co. continue to make quality introspective indie dirge. Also worth checking out: "The Night I Lost The Will To Fight" from 2000's Domestica.
Every Monday night (Tuesday this week), C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Nevada.
Steve Albini and David Lynch both drew a hefty bucket or two of their signature jarring creepiness from Missoula, Montana's well. So do the Volumen, who have been keeping a thumbtack of America's musical map firmly in Missoula for over 13 years. Unlike Albini and Lynch, who both spent their formative years in the remote college town, the Volumen stayed. Any musician who's ever toured in the Northwest and stopped for a show in Missoula to break up the nearly endless drive from Seattle to Minneapolis knows about them, and unfortunately that's what much of their fanbase is limited to. Their unique brand of angular, rural new wave deserves much more.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Nebraska.
The Riddle of Steel from Conan the Barbarian is (more or less) that despite all appearances, flesh is stronger than steel. Counterintuitive, yes -- but not as much as the Riddle of Riddle of Steel, which goes like this: how can a band this electrifying and unique and pound the pavement between their home in St. Louis and both coasts and not become the toast of the millions of rock fans who buy every Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters album? It's one for the ages, folks.
Riddle of Steel more or less hung it up last year (they're playing one more show in October in "The Lou") but if you're a fan of the heavy, melodic and subversive go out and get their albums "1985", "Got This Feelin'" and "Python" stat, and shake your head at the injustice at the ears of the inattentive and fickle plebs.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Montana.
Mississippi brought us Robert Johnson and Elvis, but its contributions to the music world have dwindled a bit since the technicolor age. There are still gems to be found, like Oxford's indie/folk/psych mishmash Colour Revolt.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Missouri.
Minnesota is best known, musically and otherwise, for producing Prince and Bob Dylan. Less attention is paid to the way American pop-punk went from boy to man in its cold winters in the 80's, as The Replacements and Husker Du perfected the form with their respective albums Let It Be and Zen Arcade.
Motion City Soundtrack are a few shades more radio friendly then their gruffer, drunker predecessors, but stand apart from the heap of post-Blink 182 pop-punk drivel thanks to gracious helpings of sincerity and cleverness.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Mississippi.
Sure, we usually reserve the 50 State Strategy for up-and-comers, but even umpteen albums into a twenty year career, Boston's Juliana Hatfield always sounds like she's got a score to settle and a lot to prove. I can think of few artists who hit such creative strides after their peaks in popularity, and none at all who have managed to make that a compelling thing to sing about. There are only a handful of great albums that came out this decade by 90's alternative rock denizens, and she's made at least four of them.
2008's Crushing Love (from which this track was taken) is a kiss-and-make-up after 2005's angry, introspective and spontaneous blast of frustration Made in China, a pattern Hatfield usually exhibits in some way or another album to album. I'm looking forward to the next outburst and calm to follow.
Also, Richard Butler from the Psychedelic Furs chimes in with instantly recognizable backgrounds on this one.
This recommendation for Maryland comes from my friend and co-worker Pete, who claims that Dan Deacon puts on the single finest live show he's ever seen.
Deacon founded Wham City, an artist/musician collective based out of a gigantic warehouse in Baltimore called the Copycat building, and I'm certain they have more fun there than most people I know.
Electronic music is a bit of a rarity here at the LNMC. Any recommendations?
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Massachusetts.
This week's installment of the 50 State Strategy brings us acoustic singer/songwriter Ray LaMontange of Lewiston, Maine. There is a lot of heart coming from under the massive beard of this Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young disciple. Check out more at his MySpace.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Maryland.
Doug Martsch and Built to Spill, the darlings of Boise. Choosing a song was arduous because there are so many great ones; Big Dipper and Twin Falls come to mind first.
After disbanding the short-lived-yet-loved Treepeople in 1995, Martsch started Built to Spill along with Brett Netson and Ralf Youtz. Despite a number of lineup changes, the band ended up both the most popular and lasting of the 90s slacker-pop groups (though I don't think I'd be saying that if Pavement had stayed together.)
Pour some of your forty-ounce out for Andy Capps, the drummer heard here on 'Car', who passed away three years ago last week.
Every Monday, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Illinois.
Though the year is not yet halfway over, Mastodon's Crack the Skye will probably cap my end-of-year top 10 list. The Atlanta metal quartet are probably the most compelling metal act to come out since Metallica, hands-down the best American one, and currently the only one to have undeniable relevance outside of the extreme rock community. See their write-up (and drawing) in this week's New Yorker, doubters.
Though I'm still a bit partial to Leviathan, their concept album about Moby Dick from 2004, the new album (from which 'Divinations' is taken) is grander in scope and more deeply layered than anything they've done before. That an album as dark and ambitious as Crack the Skye can crack the Billboard Top 200 (it debuted at #11) is reason for metalheads and easy-listeners alike to celebrate.
Side-note: Many of you may know Mastodon from their guest appearance in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.
Every Monday, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an up-and-coming act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh Part One: The Argentine written by Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. Van Der Veen Part Two: Guerrilla written by Peter Buchman
Silence is argument carried out by other means.
Che Guevara
There is a silent fragment of a scene in Guerrilla, the second part of Steven Soderbergh’s epic cinematic experience, Che that is very telling. Che Guevara, portrayed brilliantly by Benicio Del Toro, is trying to motivate a group of reluctant Bolivian peasants to join him in overthrowing their own government, but most of them are not buying it. Mario Monje, portrayed by Lou Diamond Phillips, one of only a handful of recognizable actors in this film, has also heard enough politics and leaves. Someone suggests that maybe democracy could work. Silence. In this group is a dead ringer for a young Evo Morales, the indigenous President of Bolivia, who recently won a recall election with 67.4% of the vote.
This is one of the few political messages that Soderbergh leaves even a trace of his own fingerprints on.
Last October, Che’s death was marked, in the Bolivian village where he was killed, by President Morales proclaiming his own political movement to be “100% Guevarist and socialist.”
The CIA may have killed the man, but his ideas have lived on, especially in South America today.
I attended Che-stock (4 ½ hours in length) at its Los Angeles premiere Saturday night at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Red carpet, bright lights, flashing cameras, movie stars – the works. After a short speech by the president of the AFI, Steven Soderbergh spoke to the audience humorously about his non-Che-like ride to the theatre in an Audi (one of the sponsors for the festival). Benicio Del Toro (Best Actor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) then spoke briefly and thanked many others, including producer Laura Bickford.
The first part of Che, entitled "The Argentine," is sharp, energetic, visceral and historic. It covers the meeting of the Argentinean doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevara with Fidel Castro as well as, many of the battle scenes and training that provided the framework for the Cuban revolution from 1956-1959 ending with the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
These detailed military actions have very rarely been depicted in dramatic cinema. Here for the first time we see through Soderbergh’s cinéma vérité style what it would have been like for the Fidelistas to liberate village after village while gathering the support they needed to take their revolution into Havana. In December of 1958, we see Che leading his “suicide squad” in the attack on Santa Clara.
