Roy Loney/Cyril Jordan — Flamin’ Groovies Burn Up Hoboken, Brooklyn
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Cyril Jordan (left) and Roy Loney (right) throwing off some heat at Maxwell’s. A-Bones pounder Miriam Linna flails away in the background. I was so bummed that I couldn’t make the Ponderosa Stomp back in April in New Orleans for a number of reasons but most of all for missing the reunion of Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney, who hadn’t shared a stage since 1971 when Loney left the Flamin’ Groovies and Jordan carried on. (For quite a number...
Read MoreThe Mummies! Live!
Singing while balancing a Farfisa on your head helps dull those sharp notes. I’ll fess up right off the bat. When the three New York-area shows for The Mummies were announced I was one of those jerks who bought tickets for all three and cleared those days for vacation at work. The boys were playing an early and a late show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken on a Tuesday night and then one show at Southpaw in Brooklyn the next night. I was going to need the rest. I mean, hell, even...
Read MoreI’m 40 and I Saw Grant Hart Play
Grant Hart, a one-man band who knows how to wage psychic warfare. Well a whole bunch of things have happened lately that I haven’t been blogging about. I’ve seen The Vaselines twice again when they came through Manhattan and Brooklyn in mid-May. I didn’t bother write about the shows because they have been so extensively covered I didn’t know what else I could add to it and also I wrote about their two shows in the New York City area a year ago. I’ve also got...
Read MoreAsobi Seksu, Bowery Ballroom, New York City, April 2
Crocodiles, not bad, but definitely an off-night! This was Asobi Seksu‘s big homecoming gig, the last in a long international tour. Somehow, though, something was missing. I dunno, it just felt kinda joyless, if I may say so, though the music sounded great and Asobi Seksu (a duo of singer and keyboard player Yuki Chikudate and guitarist and vocalist James Hanna), rounded out with a touring bassist and drummer, were tight. Or maybe it was just me who felt empty at the end of the...
Read MorePrimal Scream, Webster Hall, New York City, March 28
Kuroma, I wasn’t really into you, to be honest. I don’t know about you, but I was psyched as hell to see that Scotland’s Primal Scream was coming to play. I got on the bandwagon late, having been turned off by 1991’s Screamadelica, which I considered trippy hippy crap back in the day. But I checked back on them for 2000’s XTRMNTR for two huge reasons: awesome bass player Mani (late of the Stone Roses) was now a full-fledged member; and I found a copy on double...
Read MoreFuck You, Camera Obscura!
Yeah, you guys! Okay, so you’ve left your tiny American label Merge and gone on to 4ad, so I guess this stunt was to generate publicity for that storied label. Yeah, I called it a stunt! You book two shows at tiny places in New York City and they sell out immediately (and creating buzz as people scramble to get tickets). One at Mercury Lounge (an old trick for that venue — Echo & the Bunnymen played a semi-secret show there in 1996 when they first reunited and Swervedriver...
Read More
Ed Lin is a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent. He is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. By some miracle, he was able to find this widget and edit this text all by himself!