Merge Records founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Balance have been putting out great music for over twenty years. Their label is responsible for bringing you classic albums from Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr, Arcade Fire, M. Ward and tons more.
Filed under: Concerts and Tours Davide Combusti, a.k.a. the Niro , is a singer-songwriter born in Rome. In 2005 he opened for the Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche in Rome and subsequently received scores of invitations to share the stage with international artists. Since then, Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr , has nothing but words of praise for him. His first release was a five track EP called...
I Was A King This is just like guitar heaven, with strong wafts of ‘Freak Scene’-era Dinosaur Jr and classic Teenage Fanclub, plus a blast of My Bloody Valentine noisepop on ‘Golden Years’. If you close your eyes for a moment during ‘Norman Bleik’, you might think you’re hearing an outtake – though this is way too good for an outtake – from Grand...
Pavement - Sidewalking The touring return of Pavement has occasioned a “Best of” and an excuse to do a bit of historical research into why the were a band I never really clicked with back when they were all over the music press in the early 90s. On a couple of listens to the meaty 23 tracks selected here it’s not especially a surprise. Not because they’re no good - on the contrary....
The STA Official Label Blog Of Thoughts And Stuff® (Free subscription) | 03/05/2010
Saturday 6th March GUM TAKES TOOTH + ETAI KESHIKI + the human RACE Upstairs @ Catch, 22 Kingsland Road, E2 8DA 8pm-2am | FREE ENTRY Gum Takes Tooth sound like an absolutely mental version of Health which decided to take all of Brainiac's synths which explains why so many people are rating this band very highly. Support comes from Leeds band Etai Keshiki who are making quite a name for themselves for...
I Was A King Frode Strømstads of guitar-poppers I Was A King has us Londoners blinking in bemusement from the off. While other bands thank the crowd for coming out on such a vile winter’s night, the Norwegians thank us for the weather and complain that after six months of snow, it feels like spring to them. That positivity in weather-appreciation is replicated in their music, a generous...
Interesting little item at the end of business today. Under 'Presentation of Public Petitions' the Tory MP Christopher Chope will be presenting a petition on 'Bellamy's Bar Closure'. And no, it's not a matter of vital importance for his constituents of Christchurch. It's about plans to turn Bellamy's, one of the many bars on the parliamentary estate, into a creche. Mr Chope objects. Will be interesting...
One of the most influential bands of the 1990's alternative rock movement, Dinosaur Jr, have announced eight UK dates as part of their forthcoming world tour.
Built To Spill and Dinosaur Jr have announced a UK tour together. May 8, 2010 O2 Academy, Oxford May 9, 2010 O2 Academy, Liverpool May 10, 2010 Black Box, Galway May 13, 2010 O2 ABC, Glasgow May 14, 2010 02 Academy, Newcastle May 15, 2010 O2 Academy, Leeds May 16, 2010 O2 Academy, Birmingham May 17, Cambridge Junction, Cambridge May 18, 2010 Shepherds Bush Empire London
Let there be noise And lo, on the 23rd day of February, a mere 54 days into the new year, my agonising 2010 gigging drought ended courtesy of The Drums. And now for the tsunami: Hot Club De Paris tomorrow, Errors on Tuesday and The Antlers on Thursday, with The Besnard Lakes and Efterklang also on the horizon. Sadly not the newly announced Dinosaur Jr/Built To Spill double bill - though hopefully...
Another week of shows down….another one begins!!!! Busy week ahead for shows in the southland. Dinosaur Jr. will be playing a FREE show at The Troubadour on Tuesday. Better camp out early less ye not get in. Also Dirty Projectors will be returning to Los Angeles to perform a special event with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra [...]
We love Cobra Verde. We love Dinosaur Jr and pretty much everything J. Mascis' guitar touches. So when we heard about Sweet Apple -- combining singer / guitarist John Petkovic and guitarist Tim Parnin from Cobra Verde with Mascis and Dave Sweetapple, his bassist from Witch -- we had huge expectations. So what's the result? basically Sweet Apple take Cobra Verde's glam-rawk assault and spices it up...
Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. On to T now. BUFFALO TOM – Tail Lights Fade / Birdbrain (Situation 2 1992) This was the song that rid the band of the Dinosaur Jr junior tag and marked them out as a band to [...]
Inspired by the Cannibal Corpse classic "They Deserve To Die" I decided to ignore the obvious candidates such as Hitler and David Cameron (mainly because they are both already dead, even if its just behind the eyes) and focus on music related criminals as this is after all a music related blog and not just for me to sound off on.... In no particular order: Who deserves to die? Players of...
Photo by Kirstie Shanley Soft Speaker can veer into folksy territory bordering on alt-country and that's pleasant enough. But when they turn up the volume until it creeps on the edges of distortion and urges the rhythms towards a gallop the band blossoms. Their earlier track "Mercury Park" was not only one of our favorite local songs f the last year, it made it onto our best songs of 2009...