
In the new GQ you'll the first real interview in years given by Michael Eugene Archer, the last true master of soul to appear in our lifetimes (I think Brown Sugar and Voodoo do all the talking). Never tawdry or mundane, like some so-called R&B singer rapping weakly about club life, no, D is the real thing, a soul man, haunted by addiction and the devil.
His connection to Marvin (thank god for this story—I've long been looking for an old interview where D first revealed his last dream about Gaye) is something that resonates mightily with me; Marvin's death (and my mother's subsequent visions of him) will always stand out in my memory, even if I didn't yet realize who that man was. I pray that D'Angelo beats the odds that so often seem to come with black genius, that he be long in life and prolific. Chuch.
Her her voice be the one shining spot of beauty on this otherwise very damp and dumb day. Here are a few favorites to get the party started:
....here is a 38-minute concert performed by the Smiths at Manchester's the Hacienda in 1983.
The internet is a wonderful thing.

Life is so weird. But it's the weird that makes it awesome.
Last night I spent Mother's Day with my mom at the Paramount, watching Death Cab for Cutie perform with the Magik*Magik Orchestra. It was the third concert I've ever been to with my mom. First was New Kids on the Block at the Tacoma Dome. Then, Barry Manilow at the KeyArena (no shame).
This one is obvs. Share your songs about/for mothers in the comments. Hi mom!
My favorite palindrome, So Many Dynamos, have announced that not only are they releasing a new EP next month, but they plan on releasing a full-length, Safe With Sound, later this fall. Finally! They haven't released an album since 2009's Loud Wars.
To satiate us until the new music comes June 26th, the band also released this video for the song "Matter of Fact":
About two month's ago Hounds of the Wild Hunt posted this video for the song "Courage," a peek at their upcoming album El Mago. It rekindled my love for the band (which dates back to the the Whore Moans days), especially since they've been MIA since last summer. Turns out they parted ways with their drummer, then got a new drummer, then they hid out and wrote music and recorded music and now they're back! (Technically, they came back in March for a show at the Sunset, but I missed it so this is a second chance for all us slackers.)
I've been blasting their 2011 self-tited EP for the last few days, giving several repeat listens to the song "Monster in Montauk." If you close your eyes, you can pretend that it's what Against Me! would've been if they never got rid of Warren and started writing songs about sorority girls' ponytails.
They play Barboza tomorrow night with the Quiet Ones and Roaming Herds of Buffalo (tickets are $8 advance). I wonder if the Hounds of the Wild Hunt will hunt the Roaming Herds of Buffalo? Har! See what I did there? Sorry. I'll be a Quiet One now. (I can't stop!)
As fans continue to remember Adam "MCA" Yauch, Beastie Boys gems keep popping up on the internet. I had totally forgotten about this: In 2004, the Beastie Boys played Letterman, but they started the song by coming up from the NY subway and rapped their way down the street to Letterman's studio:
(Also, Coldplay recently played "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" in honor of MCA. Nice thought. But it's really terrible.)
Thank you.
I celebrated a landmark birthday last Friday at the Comet. I only bring up this self-indulgent matter because ultimately it benefits the greater public. By that I mean Stenskogen played their third set ever, and if this Comet show was any indication, they will be one of the crown jewels in Seattle’s psychedelic-music movement—provided they can find the time to keep the thing going, as all are busy with multiple endeavors.
Consisting of Garek Druss (A Story of Rats, Dull Knife, Tecumseh), David Golightly (Midday Veil, Hair and Space Museum), and Aubrey Nehring (Portable Shrines, ex-Backward Masks), Stenskogen tap into the great cosmic cauldron of stellar drones, throbs, and shimmers. I experienced this performance while in an altered state, and it blew my fucking mind, but even hearing it now on a laptop via YouTube, I can still detect the players’ telepathic brilliance, the music’s ascending helices of OM power. This was no herbal illusion; Stenskogen are evangelists for benevolent sonic mysticism.
What’s clear from this set is that Stenskogen need to 1) play out more often, and 2) edit their hours of rehearsal recordings into something digestible and slap them onto a format (preferably vinyl) so heads can expand properly whenever the whim strikes. This video is a step in the right direction, but it’s merely a tease. We need more Stenskogen in our lives, I humbly submit. (Now, don’t even get me started on the ad-hoc supergroup Particle Beam Ensemble, who also played my bash (dig the cover of Can's "Halleluwah"). Christ on a pogo stick…)
After some complaints from other commenters that they don't have time to look up all the bands playing this year's CHBP, commenter Wait, seriously? went ahead and did it for them:

Dig into it here, and you can thank Wait, seriously? in the comments if you're a nice person.
According to my iTunes, I have listened to "Modern Love" by David Bowie 980 times. That doesn't include the number of times I listened to it on iPod, my phone, or cassette, via my friend Patty's boombox (hi Patty!). I love that song.
I also love Lucero! So, seeing Lucero cover "Modern Love" makes my head explode with confetti and fireworks. They're a little sloppy. They're a little off at times. But it still makes me incredible happy and dancey.
The Smiths announced themselves with a blast of material that was almost uniformly brilliant, but so imperfectly produced and packaged it all remains a jumbled mess. The band's proper debut offered a flat mix and duller versions of songs that had been explosive live and in demo form. The release of Hatful of Hollow revealed some bracing alternate mixes alongside discarded b-sides that would've taken Rough Trade/Sire's The Smiths to a whole other level ("These Things Take Time," "Handsome Devil," "Jeane"). Truly, assembling the perfect-world version of the Smiths' debut is the closest I will ever get to playing fantasy football, and recently I found a fascinating new piece for this puzzle: The Troy Tate version of "The Hand the Rocks the Cradle."
First of all, this version slays the gray haze version that landed on record. Also, I love this song, because, along with a few others in the Smiths early repetoire, it casts Morrissey in a much different role than the Oscar Wilde-ing ham of "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" and beyond. It's a darker, creepier character—one that seems to have both survived child sexual abuse and now finds himself drawn to repeat it. "I once had a child and it saved my life, and I never even gave a name," intones Morrissey in the version above. "I just looked into his wondrous eyes and said never never never again." This is some serious early-Velvet Underground-y eroticizing-the-outsider shit, and it's all the more valuable because Morrissey soon left it behind for (highly rewarding) campiness.
The end, please go back to enjoying your lives.
dream hampton's debut as a maker of music videos, "QueenS" captures Stasia and Cat in fly lounge mode, parlaying as they often do, with a bevy of beautiful women of hue, having a grand ole time by theydamnselves.
It's own bountiful visual merits aside, the video is much-needed balance. The reign of coke rap has meant that listeners have been treated to a million songs (and literal-minded videos) espousing the superiority of that white girl. Nothing wrong with white girls either (some of my best friends, etc), except that rap's currently intense level of antipathy towards black women is even more noxious than usual. ASAP Rocky, argubly the hottest young rapper out now, will even tell you that he's "fucking with these bitches cuz (he's) sick of all these sistas." Well, young thuggin', they haven't given up on you yet; but whatever the fuck it is you do, don't funk with their groove.

An intimate show. An overwhelming burst of warmth.
As we responded to David Schmader's early-singles-or-nothing suggestion: instead of simplifying or normalizing over the years, Manchester's James, who began in the early '80s, expanded and experimented with each release until they became an unpredictable, complex, and beautiful force to wash over indefinably unique types of audiences around the world, drowning out fashions, the cool, and any such creationist cries of get-off-my-band's-lawn.
It all started with veteran fan-favorites like "Medieval" (1988) and, out of nowhere, "Play Dead" (1997).
Upstairs, during "Honest Joe" (1993), a man literally punched the ceiling.
Downstairs, during "Hello" (1999), a woman danced like a ballerina.
Others tried to out-obscure each other, with one person yelling for "Billy Shirts" (1986).
Throughout the two hours, James — jet-lagged, all smiles — gradually built the quiet and paranoia up to an extraordinary, blossoming climax that included a delicately escalating take on "Born Of Frustration", the most mad-house version of "Stutter" (1982) the band has ever done, and a glowing "Sometimes" (1993), which brought the building to tears.
Lead singer Tim Booth: 'I feel sorry for anyone who came to hear "Laid"'.
Remarkable.
By any angle.
Set-List:
Medieval
We're Going To Miss You
Play Dead
She's A Star
Five-O
Come Home
Waltzing Along
Space
Honest Joe
Hello
Dream Thrum
Riders
Waterfall
Born Of Frustration
Ring The Bells
Stutter
Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
Sometimes
Tomorrow

Sicko - "Believe"
Sicko - "Where I Live"
Sicko - "Window of Opportunity"
I'm in NYC, sitting in my hotel room (BK, right by Fulton Mall), before SP's play SOB's. The last few days I've been too busy doing stuff to blog about doing stuff. The Shabazz line I most often think of in my day-to-day decision making (and I very often do invoke the Palaceer's wisdom) is the oft-quoted hook "when you talk about it, it's a show/but if you move about it, it's a go." Kind of a challenge when one of your jobs is to routinely talk about it, for sure, but as long as my talk is kind of a move in itself, then it's still thankfully a go. Know what I mean?
Something like Dude York. Specifically, their song "And Andrew Too."