Sarahindie

Oh my God. I am overwhelmed. I turned on the live stream in the middle of the pre-tape awards. They go fast as hell, probably an award every three minutes. Every one minute if the person is still on the carpet. This is true of both of the awards Kings of Leon wins, both the Best Rock Song and Best Rock Group Performance for “Use Somebody.” I kind of can’t believe that they beat Pearl Jam, U2, Green Day and Bruce Springsteen. I would have loved to see their acceptance speech. But alas. Also, Imogen Heap won Best Engineered Album Non-Classical, and she engineered it herself!

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Once a year, I get into something totally weird and outside of my comfort zone. Sometimes it’s shoegaze, sometimes electronica, but most of them have ended up in this list.

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My very favorite thing about Coachella is that it requires camping in the desert in California. I do not like deserts or camping. And in SoCal in April, bound to be on the warm side. That means the lineup can never be good enough to tempt me to blow a grand on going! However, it is still my duty to share the lineup with you. (Via our friends at Current Music.)Now, it’s not bad, per se. It’s just … odd. Instead of breaking it down by day, let’s look at it by category.

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The Studio at Webster Hall should more accurately be called “The basement of Webster Hall.” But vodka is $5 and the bathrooms are convenient. So it’s ok by me.

This is This Is Ivy League’s first all ages show and as such, I should have expected to fill up fast with Cobra Starship fans. It did fill up fast. Doors were at 7 (though the tickets said 8 ) and when I arrived at 8:15, the place was nearly full. Continue reading

Drom is the weirdest venue I have ever attended. There is a huge VIP area, and then the first ten feet of the 25 foot space is filled with 12 very nice dining chairs that have Reserved signs taped to them and will remain 60% empty throughout the show.

In general, I find that I know the makeup of a show before I go. This is helpful when I am trying to find a strange place. “Oh, look, emos. Here is the Fall Out Boy concert.” Etcetera. This is the most ridiculous crowd I have ever been in. I think it’s primarily industry types (or at least I surmise, from the excess of VIP seats). The median age is north of 50. There are a couple of mousy girls (by which I mean that they are clearly fans from his Mouseketeer days), a lot of older men with ponytails and/or yarmulkes, and a clutch of older Long Island women that look like possibly they are there to see their grandsons play, but I am told are probably magazine writers. There is a man next to me at the bar ordering an Irish cream on the rocks. Continue reading

The Bamboozle is a bi-coastal festival catering to scene kids. Ours is in May in the swamp in New Jersey, so it is either raining on my face or so hot I want to die. Everyone has spent an hour on their hair and is wearing a combination of band merch and stuff sold at Hot Topic or American Apparel. The median age is about 17. Every year I say I am not going, and then a band is playing so good that I have to go. But I think not this year! Yay! Continue reading

You know, I don't even think they're joking.

Let me begin by answering a question you might have. I care about these lists because it reveals so much. Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle’s movie critic, once said that critics only give their own opinion. You simply have to find a critic with the same tastes as you. People largely forget that with music magazines. Instead, they take what is in here as gospel truth. The year end list exposes the true taste of a critic or group of critics. These are the people who entrust the rest of your year to

Alternative Press, if you don’t know it, covers “the scene.” I think that’s a term they made up. It involves alternative bands aimed at teenagers. It’s a serious rock magazine with a section on how to get the hairstyles of your favorite musicians. (They always use more product than I do, and I am a black lady.) I like it because it covers bands that don’t get covered anywhere else, but it also covers bands that probably shouldn’t be covered anywhere. Continue reading