King Khan & BBQ Show Played Santos Party House w/ Bloodshot Bill

Last night I went over to Santos Party House to check out King Khan & BBQ Show with Bloodshot Bill. I showed up right before Bloodshot Bill was scheduled to go on and the place was packed. Bloodshot came out in his trademark pajamas and went straight into his Tazmanian devil act. The snortin', gruntin', spittin' one-man show wowed the crowd, as he always does.

I've seen Bloodshot Bill many times but it's always been to crowds that already knew and loved him. This time was different as it was very clear that most of the crowd had no idea who this madman was. After a couple of songs he clearly had won them over and a few people in the crowd started dancing. Then he hooked them in with his singalongs.

After Bill cleared the stage, and I grabbed a fresh beer, the room filled in even more. I don't think I've ever seen Santos Party House so packed before. While Bill was on stage there was a 9-foot high totem pole looking object covered in sheets. Prior to the headliners coming on King Khan came on stage and revealed what was under the cloth - a giant disco dick! You heard me right, not a disco ball, a disco dick. It was a glorious sight to behold.

A little bit later BBQ came on stage dressed in his crazed genie outfit. Then they started jamming - BBQ singing the sweet stuff and King Khan growling like rabid wolf. It was at this point that, despite seeing many King Khan shows and one or two Mark Sultan shows, that I realized I never saw the two together before.

As soon as they started all Hell broke loose. People were crowd surfing, there was a mini mosh pit going, girls were dancing on the side of the stage, beer was spraying all over the crowd - it was pure madness. If you hit mute and just looked at the crowd you would have thought it was a punk rock show. In reality it was dirty ass rock n' roll played by two masters of the genre. It was one of the best pure rock n' roll shows I've ever experienced. I'm a huge Bloodshot Bill fan and I always feel bad for whoever has to follow that dude but King Khan & BBQ did quite the job. Hot damn, what a night!

Spirit Family Reunion Played Bowery Ballroom

On Saturday night Spirit Family Reunion played Bowery Ballroom. I know most of the band so I was super excited for them. If any band deserves to play the big stage it's Spirit Family. Not only did they play but they managed to sell the place out, which is incredible!

The first act up that night was Blind Boy Paxton, who is a 24 year old kid from Watts, Los Angeles. Somehow in that urban jungle he discovered blues, Americana, ragtime and bluegrass and he dedicated his life to it. The man is fantastic! He plays several instruments - banjo, guitar, fiddle and more - and plays them all very well. Seeing him play is like getting into a time machine and transporting yourself to the Mississippi Delta in the 1920's. Not only is he an awesome musician but he has a great stage presence, getting laughs throughout the set.

The next act was out of place on the bill. Something just didn't click so I headed downstairs and sucked down some brews to kill the time.

As I headed back up I ran into to Stephen from SFR. He came over, said hello and we caught up a bit. I asked him what it felt like to sell out Bowery Ballroom and he very sincerely answered, "I'm freaked out, man".

A few minutes later they took the stage to a packed house and started up. The set was made up of quite a few tunes that I haven't heard them play before. They sound absolutely amazing and the enthusiasm they showed was contagious. They absolutely owned that stage and I can honestly say it was one of the best shows I've ever seen at Bowery Ballroom.

They closed with "When My Name Is Spoken" which is one of my favorites and also a favorite of the crowd. Everyone was singing along and dancing around. Then went off stage for a few minutes and came back for an encore. They asked the sound man to kill all the mics except the main one and then the whole band gathered around for a stunning rendition of "I'll Find A Way". The whole band took turns on vocal duty and then Nick stepped forward in front of the stage and shouted a sing-along with the crowd. Every single person there joined in. It was so loud that you could barely hear the band.

Before the song started Stephen came over to the mic and told the crowd how he was at a show at Bowery Ballroom a few weeks earlier and texted his manager saying, "I don't think we can do this, man" - well, they did it and they did it better than anyone I've seen do it there before.

VICE's New HBO Series Premieres Tonight

Last night I went to the screening party for VICE's new series which premieres tonight on HBO. It's very similar to the travel guides and the MTV series but it seems a little more journalistic and edgy. The episodes we were shown last night included interviews with the head of the Taliban in Afghanistan, child suicide bombers, North Korean escapees (still en-route to freedom) and more wild shit like that.

VICE goes where no other news outlet has the balls to go. Whether you can call them "news" is questionable, I suppose, but either way it's interesting. Say what you will about VICE the magazine but the TV programming they've been creating recently is fantastic.

Video: Soundgarden "By Crooked Steps" Directed By Dave Grohl

Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters (duh) directed the new Soundgarden video for "By Crooked Steps". In the video, Soundgarden are a grizzled old Segway gang who take over the local bar where some hipster is DJing on his computer. They take to the stage and rock n' roll mayhem transpires. It ends with them being arrested by deadmau5, who is a protector of DJs worldwide. Don't you think someone would have killed them off by now otherwise? It all makes sense.

By Crooked Steps from mgy1980 on Vimeo.

Buzzed Bands Podcast, Episode 2 (Cold Blood Club)

A few days ago I sat down with my friends in Cold Blood Club for the second installment of Buzzed Bands. We drank a bunch of cheap beer and cheaper whiskey (Evan Williams) and talked about white boys, Mary's little lamb, working at Tower Records, how to join the Cold Blood Club and other random bullshit. Take a listen and pay close attention to Tom's downward spiral into Incoherentville. Good times! Stay tuned for more episodes (I have 3 lined up already!). Oh, and please follow Buzzed Bands on Twitter.

Download:

Buzzed Bands on iTunes

Tonight: Wild Yaks, Unstoppable Death Machines, Violent Bullshit at 285 Kent

Great fucking show in Williamsburg tonight! Wild Yaks, Unstoppable Death Machines, Habibi, Violent Bullshit play live and Dirtyfinger is on the wheels of steel. This will be fucking madness. 

RSVP:

https://www.facebook.com/events/531231320221347/

Soundgarden Set List

I wasn't at last night's Soundgarden show at Hammerstein Ballroom but a couple of friends were there. The set included some of my favorite tracks ("Flower", "Beyond The Wheel", "4th of July", etc.), which were absent from last week's show. Hopefully, tonight's set list will be just as good. Now I just need someone to hook me up with tickets (they start at $80 on StubHub).

*Photo by Zach Timm.

Video: The Black Angels "Don't Play With Guns"

The Black Angels have a new album coming out and here's a little taste of what you can expect. Not surprisingly, it's awesome! This band never disappoints.

Video: Heems "Soup Boys"

Himanshu, formerly of Das Racist, released a video for his solo track "Soup Boys".

Buzzed Bands, Episode 1 with Raccoon Fighter (BSC Podcast)

I've been working on a video show where I interview bands. We did a test shoot with Gabe and Zac from Raccoon Fighter just to see how it would look and feel. The director wasn't there so I shot it myself which, of course, means the video sucks. But the audio was salvageable so I turned it into a podcast. This is my very first band interview ever so please give me your feedback.

As mentioned in the podcast, Raccoon Fighter is running a Kickstarter campaign raising money to release the album they're currently upstate recording. Please take a minute to donate a couple of bucks. 

Soundgarden Played Terminal 5

On on Wednesday I went to Terminal 5 for the American Express concert featuring Soundgarden. Some people are acting weird because AMEX sponsored the show but if that means $15 tickets for Soundgarden then I don't give two flying fucks who sponsors it. Soundgarden is one of my all-time favorite bands and I've only seen them once before a couple summers ago in Philly. That was one of the best shows I've seen in years so I had high hopes for this one.

The show started a little after 8pm with the band jumping into "Been Away For Too Long" which is a decent track from their new album. From there they went to "My Wave," which is a track I love so things were looking up but the band never really picked up steam. The Philly show was chock full of harder and heavier songs from the early years but this set was mostly the singles. It's still great music but that's not what I want to see at a show. I'm sure AMEX had something to do with the lackluster set list. Check it out after the jump, you'll notice songs like, "Slaves and Bulldozers" "Beyond The Wheel" "Mailman" "4th of July" "Superunknown" and so forth are absent, all of which they played in Philly.

Video: My Education "Mister 1986"

Despite being an instrumental track and rather repetitive I really dig this track. The drumming is very aggressive which is a nice counterpoint to the mellow violin part. The distortion on guitar is a bit to processed sounding to me but it's buried deep enough in the mix that I can get past it. I wasn't even going to post this originally but it grew on me quick so I figured I'd share.