Once again the big news is that Big Takeover #72 Spring 2013 issue was completed in Brooklyn this month! Pre-order – Subscribe – Renew – Great gifts! Click through for a quick description of its contents.
Their last U.S. show was December 30, 1982 at NYC’s Ritz!
In this day of lightweight pop stars, Soft Machine achieved something that most musicians strive for but never achieve — a lasting, meaningful and appealing album that sounds as relevant today as it did over 40 years ago.
Now that my “Top 40 Albums of 2012” two-part countdown shows have aired on Breakthruradio.com, and my Top 10 has been officially posted on the Pazz and Jop Poll web site, it’s finally time to share with you all my Top Picks of 2012 List in full.
if you want to hear (not read!) my top 40 Album Picks list for 2012, I have made it available to you all in aural (not written!) form, by picking one song off each that I really like and doing two Countdown shows featuring them on my regular weekly “Big takeover on Breakthruradio.com” show.
Last Call! Just a reminder that there’s still time for the perfect X-mas gift (and Hanukkah): Big Takeover magazine! Our brand new Fall/Winter issue 71 with the Beach House cover is out on the stands, in case you want to treat yourself (you little devil!). Or indeed, if you want a holiday gift subscription for your friends or family whom you think would enjoy our pages (or one of our t-shirts including all womens’, childrens’ and infants’ sizes, or any of our back issues, or our CDs, or our “accessories,” our buttons, magnets, signed 30th anniversary festival posters or beer cozies), either way you can still order on our secure online store (or check or paypal). Order right away and we will be glad to send the package by priority mail to ensure it gets there fast and on time!
Good news! Big Takeover #71 Fall 2012 issue with Brooklyn’s Beach House on the cover is out on the stands! And there’s still time for the perfect holiday gift: Big Takeover magazine subscriptions and back issues! Plus six new children’s sizes for our T-Shirts (to go with several Mens’ and Womens’ sizes) in three colors, as well as our new Big Takeover Accessories (Beer Cozies, Buttons, and Magnets!) and (signed if you like) Color 30th Anniversary Festival Posters! What a way to say “Happy Holidays?!”
Just a reminder that there’s no need to camp out in tents in front of a big box retailer Thursday night! Big Takeover is happy to help you stay warm and cozy at home instead (and get a jump on Cyber Monday), with our secure online Yahoo Store—for that music-loving friend or relative you know who’d like something fun. Heck, we’ll even ship it directly to them (for free) if you like! (Or to you, for them, or for yourself, if you’re in the mind to buy yourself some holiday treats too!)
On Friday, June 15,Windbreakers co-founder Bobby Sutliff was involved in a bad single-vehicle accident near his home in Powell, Ohio. He has sustained several serious injuries. Various charitable efforts to aid the sticken singer/songwriter are now underway.
Good news! Big Takeover #70 Spring 2012 issue with Brooklyn’s Nada Surf on the cover is out on the stands! And since the issue is appearing in the best book, record, and magazine shops near you, now is an excellent time look for it there or contact us via our secure online Yahoo Store to order it if you would like to receive it in the mail, or subscribe if you’ve been meaning to, or renew your subscription if it has run out. And just a reminder that there’s still time for the perfect gift: Big Takeover magazine subscriptions and back issues!
He was a nice man, who was very patient with my endlessly peppering him with questions about his days (and recordings) in The Sleepers (1978-1981), one of the truly remarkable punk and post-punk era late ’70s/early ’80s bands of all time, as well as his association with the also incredible same-era bands Negative Trend and Toiling Midgets.
A nice guy, from a consistently great band for 34 years.
Do you like weird, loose, open-ended, acid-psych hippy folk?
Artwork and a sound not entirely un-reminiscent of a Tim Burton film
The (recently revived) D-Generation frontman (and former leader of New York hardcore greats Heart Attack, Hope, and Bellvue, all of whom I spin during this show) and prolific solo star stopped by Greenpoint’s Thump studios to record some live in session songs (I particularly like the first one offered, “Moscow”) and sit for a spirited and funny interview with yours truly. Check it out!
Tune in to today’s Rabid Sessions show straight from Thump Studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the Stiff Records’ heyday legend, still regularly at work, and his equally hallowed singer/songwriter solo star spouse!
A live radio interview that everyone can listen to; or check it out fully archived, later, at your convenience.
This is an excellent three-minute documentary about the store that began filming six months ago or so, appreciating its place in the music community, that now has taken a different story turn, sad to say.
2011, and power-pop is taking over.
All good things must come to an end, and Rabid In The Kennel is no exception. And so it is with sadness and pride that we present our final episode today, Wednesday, December 14, 2011. As a special treat to our loyal listeners, we present the very best, most memorable performances from our two-and-a-half years of monthly shows on BreakThruRadio.com!
Good news! Big Takeover #69 Fall 2011 issue with Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls on the cover is out on the stands! And there’s still time for the perfect holiday gift: Big Takeover magazine subscriptions and back issues! Plus six new children’s sizes for our T-Shirts in three colors, as well as our new Big Takeover Accessories (Beer Cozies, Buttons, and Magnets!) and (signed if you like) Color 30th Anniversary Festival Posters! What a way to say “Happy Holidays?!”
Check out the ’60s baroque pop living legends The Left Banke’s live in the studio session from Brooklyn’s fabulous Kennel Studio, as well as a pleasant, historic, and highly fascinating, 30-minute interview with me, Big Takeover editor Jack Rabid with original members, bassist/vocalist Tom Finn and drummer/vocalist George Cameron. You won’t regret it!
The Left Banke, “Pretty Ballerina” [Live At The Kennel] by Rabid In The Kennel
Check out the New Zealand living legend Don McGlashan’s live in the studio session from Brooklyn’s fabulous Kennel Studio, as well as a pleasant, humorous, good 30-minute interview with me, Big Takeover editor Jack Rabid. You won’t regret it!
When the world’s greatest young band vends a hot, merch table-only live EP, wallets come out, and trifles like a playing order out of synch with the track listing matter not.
This noisy jangle pop hits like some demented lo-fi garage band attempting to break into the paisley underground.
A great band from right here in Brooklyn, USA. Listen now!
For those New Yorkers who missed the first Left Banke shows in decades as Joe’s Pub in March, see them tonight, Wednesday, July 20, at Littlefield in Brooklyn.
It’s an invigorating, absolutely smashing live-in-studio session with our current issue 68 cover stars—yes, it’s the Brooklyn indie-rock band powerhouse The Pains of Being Pure at Heart! Hurrah! Can you tell we are excited? Click through to learn more and download a free MP3 from the session!
It is with immense pleasure that we present the first three of many planned releases of documentary video shot by David Urbano and the Review Stalker blog during the Big Takeover 30th anniversary concerts, which took place nearly a year ago at The Bell House in Brooklyn.
Good news! Big Takeover #68 Spring 2011 issue with Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart on the cover, Best Coast, and concluding part twos of our awesome Teenage Fanclub & Iggy Pop of Iggy & the Stooges (part 2), interviews, as well as fabulous history interviews with The Left Banke, Buffalo Tom, Motorhead’s Lemmy, Wanda Jackson, R.E.M., and the reunited Swans is out on the stands! Click through for a full description of its contents, including several juicy sample quotes!
“It felt like a natural progression for me to explore and experiment with dub based ideas in my O.G’ness, but I have always been a fan of rebel music, all music.”
This month on Rabid in the Kennel, we offer a particularly historic session with departing Brooklyn dreampop/shoegaze band The Depreciation Guild.
They play together like devils, and shake like “The American Ruse,” “The Human Being Lawnmower,” and “Sister Anne” are the bible, and they’re fire and brimstone preachers.
Introduction lays out in stark terms what we lost at knifepoint in an L.A. bathroom, October 21, 2003. The guy was so real he still hurts.
Phoenix five-some Lisa Savidge dig shoegaze/dreampop’s dense guitar majesty, offering intermittent, beautifully breathtaking, mountain-peak clusters of cascading cacophony—but those are mere passages.
Big Takeover editor Jack Rabid picks his 50 best new albums for 2010, along with 10 best singles and 20 best reissues!
This collection, much of which (or all of which, perhaps) appeared on previous Released Emotions tributes to these three bands, is a hit and mostly miss affair.
Sit down for the whole hour and 18 songs and take in the charming, lightly perfumed, but soulful air.
Blindfolded, I’d not be certain that Mr. Sloane was not Bono, so much does he sing and sound like him.
Anyone out there miss the Libertines U.K.? One could slip this album into the player at your next party and easily convince all in attendance that this is their new third LP.
Though it’s surprising to see this 1972 smash hit record reissued on an indie, that says more about the state of the music business nowadays than about the quality of this recording or the band.
Their succinct, unerring taste has slipped big-time this time ‘round.
As someone who has known and enjoyed Mr. Steele’s work for 31 years now, it’s nevertheless hard to say what the point of this short, eight-song covers album is.
Horribly over-praised in its time, 1965’s September is an alpha male prematurely facing a far-off mortality, expressing an overly sentimental melancholy over lost youth.
I’ve been hearing this sort of lushly lulling female vocalist for a long time. Tired of it I’m not!
The lyrics are outrageously nutty, often embarrassingly frankly funny, and the post-punk attack is as herky-jerky, unpredictable, and sometimes as outright insane as the words.
Despite being a key member of three of the most important New Zealand bands ever, The Clean, Magick Heads, and his prime singer/songwriting vehicle The Bats, it’s safe to say that Scott is still one of the more underrated singer/songwriters of the last 30 years.
This young L.A. multi-instrumentalist jazz cat has cut chops working with various jazz legends, among them Bennie Maupin , Arthur Blythe , and Henry Grimes.
Rose is a striking-looking, brunette-haired L.A. newcomer with Chicago roots that needs little more than her chords and harmoniously honey voice to make her lyrics dig in on her debut, even on initial encounter.
If you’re looking for more punk rock from SideoneDummy, would you accept the kind that goes back 80 years instead of 35?
When one finally deals with what’s here as opposed to what one would truly love, Live on the Sunset Strip is a genuinely sweaty, hard-working, exciting sounding, wonderfully recorded, must-have.
Although this two-girl, one boy trio are from Brighton in the south coast of England, they sound more like something on Nebraska’s Saddle Creek label—not a zillion miles removed from Azure Ray and Mynabirds, et al.
As the decades pass, it’s amazing how each generation mints a new round of artists who remind of the early ‘70s Neil Young.
If the theme of 2010 was an absolute plethora of inspired albums by people who’d been making them for decades, not a handful of years, you can go ahead and add this one to that pleasant development.
Typically described as an alt-country star, her latest barely betrays such nomenclature, bearing up instead as a folk pop and soft singer-songwriter rock foray, with only minor country inflections.
On the Seattle trio’s second LP, they are trying to answer the question no one was asking, namely, “Does the world need an American Belle & Sebastian?”
I confess, I find Ms. Marling’s prodigious, precocious talent and her back-story more consuming than her actual albums.
Most double LPs are “sprawling,” but this isn’t; it’s focused on tough, catchy, old fashioned roots-rock, with southern blues and R&B flavors.
But how pleasantly big a surprise to find that they’ve kept their challenging, moody guitar rock base, yet totally overhauled the formula, pumping up the volume into a five times heavier, louder, denser, more pulsating framework!
Hopes and expectations don’t always pan out.
You wonder who at the label had the temerity to sign and promote German composer Volker Bertelmann , a pianist by trade whose classical chamber music bears no hint of rock whatsoever, as if it had never been invented.
Berkeley CA’s John Ringhofer must have ADD. His fifth LP for Asthmatic Kitty is a study in “get in, get out, do your business… and run away before anyone gets a clue of what you’re up to!”
This Barcelona band’s fourth LP still sounds a lot more like they’re an American band out of Los Angeles clubs than anything that might bear their true Castilian markings.
Singer/songwriter Gouette is a staple of the busy New London, CT scene and its documenting Cosmo label, appearing on its various scene compilations, and issuing three singles and now two LPs for the imprint.
While one would want to avoid an electric jellyfish while swimming, not so the band of that name.
The seventh installment of Dondero’s solo career finds the old hand Austin, TX folkie as ever mining that bittersweet intersection—can we call it the crossroads?—where ancient Dixie folk, blues, and country pop meet and have a shot of White Lightning at the local saloon.
Having just reviewed this reformed band’s new EP, here’s the other one also released this year—although in this case, the recordings date from the late ‘70s Manchester band’s first revival, back in 1995, but they were unissued until now.
The trend of bands from the late ‘70s/’80s reforming and doing work that doesn’t embarrass their halcyon days continues!
Although this is the debut LP (following some 2009 EPs) by an L.A. street punk band, they sure want to be an early ‘80s English Oi! Band.
If you’re throwing a shindig any time soon, this pioneering 26-year New Orleans country-punk trio led by Bill Davis (the sole original member) wants to be invited.
Fifty-five years is a hell of a long career (albeit with several long breaks for serious illness and injury), but few have earned it more richly than Dale.
The hardest trick for a roots-rock/pop, americana, or alt.country band is to take something that’s that traditional—what’s a hundred years?—and try to make it sound contemporary instead of boringly old-timey, like a singing group playing on Disney’s fake-as-folksy Main Street.
Though the excuse for this release is the 80th anniversary of Charles birth, none is needed for an artist of whom the tag “genius” really wasn’t and still isn’t a stretch.
I lavished deserved praise on this Beverly, MA (greater Boston) instrumental group’s The Four Trees double album debut three years ago, this CD reissue of the group’s 2005 debut EP is more of the same only even more commanding!
When last we heard from this Aussie folkpop singer three years ago on When I Cross the River , our own Mark Suppanz was comparing his delicate grace and involved guitar playing to Tim Buckley and Nick Drake.
I remember seeing the stunning 1971 documentary Blue Water White Death sometime in the ‘80s, both fascinated and for many weeks haunted by incredible underwater photographer Peter Gimbel ’s death-defying images of the monster Great White Sharks off of Australia’s barrier reefs.
This debut LP chronicles the two-year gestation of Viva Voce ’s two songwriter/musicians, Kevin Robinson and Anita Robinson ’s attempt to form a side-band country-rock supergroup.
The well-meaning gent that suggested I try this band called them “prog-psych,” which, to these ears promised a paring of “Pictures of Matchstick Men” Status Quo with Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway . I.e., 1968 meets 1974.
Anderson is one of the two younger guitarists/backing singers that have kicked Paul McCartney in the ass since they joined his touring band in 2001 (the other being Brian Ray ).
With an album title (and title track) like this, and other tunes such as “Superman Can’t Move His Legs,” “Jesus Doesn’t Love Me,” and “Dead as Disco,” you might expect Where to be a funny album.
Now airing on Rabid In The Kennel: The Joy Formidable, the mighty, Welsh/English band led by kick-ass Ritzy Bryan (guitar/vocals), who will soon release their first full length LP The Big Roar , joins me for a laugh-filled interview and an enchanting performance with bandmates Rhydian Dafydd (bass, backing vocals) and Matt Thomas (drums), both of whom also take part in the interview.
“This is bourbon and fireside rock criticism, and yet it’s as up to date and ‘on it’ as any blog or website you’ll read tomorrow. If you ever wished that Pitchfork was more tied into the original regional-aesthetic based, beguiled but no-BS root of the heralded rock press (CREEM, Crawdaddy), then The Big Takeover is your last great read on slick, shiny paper. It is not just another music publication, it is possibly the only one left.”
Good news! Big Takeover #67 Fall 2010 issue with Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub on the cover and concluding part twos of our awesome interviews with The Ramones (a previously unpublished 1992 interview), For Against, ’70s Vancouver punks Subhumans Canada, and Graham Nash on The Hollies, is out on the stands! A full description of its contents, including several juicy sample quotes, is just below!
“Rabid In The Kennel” appeared for the first time in a month starting September 15 with our second installment of our special new wrinkle for our established format we first aired in August, by presenting all music and no chat with seven more up-and-coming, less established, but equally deserving new bands, which we have called “Best of the New Breed, Vol 2.” Check out Baltimore’s The Seldon Plan, and New York’s own Golden Bloom, Anthem In, Edward Rogers, Jeff Litman (pictured), and Tiny Animals!
“Rabid In The Kennel” appeared on Bastille Day with a very special guest: the one and only Visqueen, playing a special, drummer-less session for us in support of their awesome recent LP , A Message to Garcia, and then the members, including dashing, powerful-throated singer Rachel Flotard, sat for a long 35-minute chat, including lots of funny sexual innuendo.
More recently, we tried a special new wrinkle on our established format, by presenting all music and no chat with seven less established, but equally deserving new bands, called “Best of the New Breed, Vol 1.” This began airing just last week!
On behalf of all of us here at bigtakeover.com and Big Takeover Magazine, I bid you welcome to our newly redesigned site! Looks cool, doesn’t it? Our print magazine is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, going back to a good 15 years or so before there was any electronic media. So the timing is perfect. Our endeavor has come a long, long way from the days of typing, Xeroxing, reducing, stapling, folding, mailing, shipping, and selling at gigs, and we are celebrating this long three decades of service and commentary in three distinct ways this year.
We only come out twice a year, every Spring and Fall, so you don’t want to miss one of our jam-packed 192-page issues! Read on for a quick description of the new issue’s contents.
Come help us celebrate our milestone, the last weekend of this month! Sixteen bands, with S.F. punk legends The Avengers and Chameleons U.K. leader Mark Burgess headlining!
He’s singing songs solo acoustic live in the studio from his new third solo LP and he sits for a 35-minute chat.
Once again the big news is that Big Takeover SPECIAL 30TH ANNIVERSARY Spring 2010 issue #66 with Spoon on the cover was completed in San Francisco in April!
The 88’s Adam Merrin pounded his red piano with obvious glee during “David Watts,” and Keith Slettedahl took a verse alongside his hero Davies with transparent pride. It seemed that The 88 were engaged not only to serve arena standards like the grinding “Low Budget,” but also had an influence in selecting deeper cuts. “This is a song for the end times,” announced Davies when introducing “Dead End Street,” buoyed by the snap and swing of 88 drummer Anthony Zimmitti . Bassist Todd O’Keefe dug into Pete Quaife ’s jaunty bass line and gave a throaty howl for the chorus.
“Rabid In The Kennel” appears for the first time in a month with a very special guest: the one and only Leatherface, the greatest punk rock band of the last 20 years, all the way from Sunderland, England! Singing songs from their new LP The Stormy Petrel and their 1991 classic LP Mush!
Visit Breakthru Radio now to hear my exclusive interview with the band’s singer/guitarist Frankie N. W. Stubbs and recently returned original guitarist Dickie Hammond (who, it must be said, formed one of the most hilarious 1-2 punch comedy teams I have had the pleasure to referee in some time), and their live performance at The Kennel Studio in Brooklyn! And you can click on this link and listen to it any day, at any time, at your leisure!
Big news! Rabid In The Kennel debuts as its own show today with a very special guest: Paul Collins of The Nerves and The Beat!
Visit BreakThru Radio now to hear my exclusive interview with Paul and his live performance at The Kennel Studio in Brooklyn! Click on this story and the link is included, and you can listen to it any day, at any time, at your leisure!
Got this excellent interview with TSOL founder/frontman Jack Grisham from our contributor Jeff Alexander and wanted to share it with you!
Now that the X-mas rush is over, I wanted to post 17 bonus reviews that I had intended to include in the current issue 65, but ran out of time running up against that issue’s deadline. / Make sure you tune in this coming Monday, the 28th to the weekly Big Takeover radio show at Breakthruradio.com, as I will be hosting a 2009 wrap-up, a countdown show of my 20 favorite albums of 2009 in reverse order, one song each. / Just a reminder to check out the new issue 65 of Big Takeover with the smokin’ live shot of Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on the cover!
Just a reminder that there’s still time for the perfect X-mas gift: Big Takeover magazine! Our brand new Fall/Winter issue 65 with the Sonic Youth cover is out on the stands (the Thurston Moore live action cover shot is to your left, and a description of its contents is below!), in case you want to treat yourself (you little devil!). Or indeed, if you want a holiday gift subscription for your friends or family whom you think would enjoy our pages (or one of our t-shirts, or any of our back issues, or our CDs), either way you can still order on our secure online store with Visa or Master Card by clicking on “SUBSCRIBE NOW” to your left!!! Just let us know in the “comments” section of the order form that the order is for X-mas (why not write, in all caps, “RUSH! THIS IS FOR X-MAS!”), and we will be glad to send the package by priority mail to ensure it gets there fast and on time. And include in the “gift message” section anything you want to say, and we’ll take it from there.
Hey all, just a reminder than England’s (by way of Ireland and Seattle) That Petrol Emotion is playing their only U.S. show for the foreseeable future this Saturday, December 12 at Bell House in Brooklyn (on 7th St. just off 2nd Ave. in Gowanus, near the 4th Ave stop on the F and V or the 9th St. stop on the R), their first New York show of any kind since the early 1990s. / Once again the big news is that Big Takeover #65 Fall 2009 issue with Sonic Youth on the cover (and concluding part twos of our awesome Decemberists, Swervedriver, and Controllers interviews, and fabulous history interviews with Big Star—and John Fry on Chris Bell—and The Nerves of the original “Hanging on the Telephone” fame!) was completed in San Francisco in October! It began shipping last month! And remember, we only come our twice a year, every Spring and Fall, so you don’t want to miss one of our jam-packed 170-page issues! Below is a quick description of its contents.
NEWS1>> T.V. Smith (Adverts) in session, live in the studio and interviewed on “Rabid in the Kennel,” airs this Monday, hear it now!
NEWS2>> Big Takeover Magazine new address (Update your records!)
NEWS 3>> Big Takeover August-long blowout Moving Sale! Buy one, get one free, half-off sale all month long for back issues and CDs, including our complete sets of issues 1-64! What a sale!
Once again the big news is that Big Takeover #64 Spring 2009 issue with The Decemberists on the cover (and concluding part twos of our awesome Death Cab for Cutie, Sloan, and Devo interviews) is now on the stands. / “That [‘60s British folk] generation was really into discovering the centuries-old songs that had to deal with really dark and violent themes of romantic and sentimental love. Particularly Anne Briggs, Maddy Pryor, June Tabor—an essay could be written about feminism and the British folk revival, and how a lot of the women artists were arranging songs where rape figured pretty prominently—and I don’t know why that is. I think it was an interesting way of highlighting how different the relations between the sexes were in the 16th century, the 17th century, and how violent the culture that people were living in was.”—COLIN MELOY