Music Report

Yo, yo, yo, yo Music Report in the hizzouse.

This Sunday night, start celebrating MLK Day early by attending the Rakim and Chuck D show at Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Studio B. Also appearing will be Luv Bug Starski who is, in addition to a name mentioned in “Juicy,” also an actual person. Stop by Angela’s father’s restaurant while you’re there.
http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=238259

Also Sunday, Tay Zonday will be playing a joint called Club Europa which is unfortunately only accessible via the G train. Who is ‘Tay Zonday?’ you may ask. His song ‘Chocolate Rain’ was all the range some months ago. Watch the video to find out why but your guess is as good as mine as to the underlying meaning if one does indeed exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
http://ticketweb.com/user/?region=xxx&query=search&interface=ticketweb&newhps=1&search=tay+zonday

An event that Jimmy and I attended last year is the Plug Awards which honor independent music. They have a bunch of nominated bands perform, there’s a comedian host (Patton Oswalt, funniest person Galen Bernard has ever, this year), and they show some hilarious videos that are germane to the nominees and ‘the scene’ as well. Tickets do not yet appear to be on sale but voting has begun. You can probably pick up a few recommendations for artists and albums even I might have missed as you vote.
http://www.plugawards.com/event.php?PHPSESSID=043421870603e816fd42a9f1a9080f8e

In forward-looking European-style festival concert news, the NYT reports that west coast festival Coachella is lending its name to a show in the Garden States’s Liberty State Park August 8th through August 10th that may be headlined by Radiohead and much less headlined by Jack Johnson. Interestingly there is already a concert festival scheduled for that weekend in Vineland, NJ with a reunited Rage Against the Machine rumored as a/the headliner.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/nyregion/16mbrfs-festival.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

In new album news, we’ve got a bit of Southern flavor with the Drive By Truckers. This group tries to picks up where Lynard Skynard, Allman Brothers and their ilk left off when members of those bands began to meet their maker. The DBT’s new album Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, has been called a Southern gothic rock n' roll masterpiece. Their past stuff is rock solid as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Brighter-Than-Creations-Drive-Truckers/dp/B000ZKRFDA