Desmond Dekker, Dandy Livingston, The Clash, The Specials. These artists aren’t typically associated with Christmas. Long Island‘s Bête Noire is out to change that perception with the release of its new Christmas single, “A Message to Rudolph.”
The song is heavily influenced by The Specials’ 2 tone remake of Dandy Livingstone’s reggae classic “Rudy, A Message to You,” recalling the infamous rude boy reindeer’s tale of one foggy Christmas Eve in a campy video.
Bête Noire is a music collective based in Long Island. Members of the collective appearing in the video play with the bands Oogee Wawa, Aqua Cherry, Radio 4 and Hot and Ugly.
Now that December has arrived, add a new carol to your playlist. You can download the single at Bête Noire’s Bandcamp page or through iTunes. Check the video below.
Post-punk sensations The Jesus and Mary Chain have been getting back up to speed of late. In 2014 and 2015 they played several tour dates in the run up to last year’s release of Live from Barrowlands, and now longtime Jesus and Mary Chain handler Alan McGee, of Creation Records, has announced that the band is set to release a new studio album in March 2017 on Warner Brothers Records. In an interview with CBC Music, McGee exclaimed, “they’ve made another album. It’s a big deal! It’s unbelievable.”
While the Jesus and Mary Chain, led by brothers Jim and William Reid, released a compilation record, 21 Singles, in 2002, the upcoming release will give fans their first dose of new material since 1998’s Munky. Eighteen years is a long time to wait, but this announcement comes as a taste of candy for all the devoted fans who feared this day would never arrive.
No tour dates have been announced in support of the new release as of yet, however, there remain three chances to catch The Jesus and Mary Chain live in the act before the year ends. The brothers Reid, who are now joined by Scott Van Ryper on guitar, Mark Crozer on bass, and Brian Young on drums, will take the stage at the Georgia Theatre in Athens on December 13, 2016, followed by a performance at The Masquerade in Atlanta, GA on December 14, and then a trip to New Orleans for a show at The Joy Theater on December 16.
Click here for further details, including tickets, and check out the official video for “You Trip Me Up,” from 1985’s landmark release Psychocandy.
A park in Brooklyn Heights dedicated to the memory of Beastie Boy Adam “MCA” Yauch in 2013, was vandalized during the night Thursday.
Adam Yauch was raised Jewish and played at the former Palmetto Park as a child. He became a practicing Buddhist later in life, apologizing for early Beastie Boys lyrics deemed offensive to women and denouncing Islamaphobia. Yauch died in 2012 at the age of 47 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
City councilor Brad Lander took to Twitter Friday speaking out on the issue.
Yet more hatred & anti-Semitism from Trump supporters. Swastikas on the playground equipment in Adam Yauch Park in BK Heights. #NeverIsNowpic.twitter.com/Xbcwo4enfF
Billboard reports that vandals took to playground equipment with crudely spray-painted swastikas and the words “Go Trump,” in another of a growing number of hate crimes reported since last week’s presidential election.
Local leaders have announced a gathering in the park for Sunday morning to denounce the hate speech.
Hate has no place in Brooklyn, NYC, or our country. Join me & colleagues Sunday to stand against hate messages. 11:30, Adam Yauch Park, BK pic.twitter.com/BZ95sx9HwF
Leon Russell, the long-haired, top-hatted, mystical Oklahoman who rose to fame as the bandleader for Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen touring band, died quietly in his sleep Sunday. He was 74. His wife, Jan Bridges released the following statement:
We thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers during this very, very difficult time. My husband passed in his sleep in our Nashville home. He was recovering from heart surgery in July and looked forward to getting back on the road in January. We appreciate everyone’s love and support.
Russell, born Claude Russell Bridges, was known as a “musician’s musician,” having performed among rock royalty for decades, often anonymously as an in-demand studio pianist. Elton John, whose 2010 collaboration with Russell, The Union, kicked off a comeback for Russell, mourned his mentor on Instagram.
Russell had been suffering from a variety of ailments over the past few years. In 2010, he was hospitalized for a brain fluid leak and heart failure. He suffered a heart attack in July of this year, causing the cancellation of several tour dates. Russell’s last performance was in Nashville July 10.
In an era of flamboyant musicianship, Leon Russell was king. For a period in the early ’70s, he was a dynamo. He put together a band for Joe Cocker, performed as part of the Delaney and Bonnie and Friends touring band and played a major role in George Harrison’s 1971 benefit Concert for Bangladesh in 1971.
Russell took an interest in music at a early age. Born in Lawton, OK April 2, 1942, he began playing the piano by the age of four. He began playing nightclubs around Tulsa by the age of 14, able to do so because of Oklahoma’s status as a dry state, forming the band the Starlighters, which also included J.J. Cale.
He moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17, where he became a member of Phil Spector’s infamous “Wrecking Crew,” a loose-knit group of studio musicians responsible for the backing music for Jan and Dean, Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, Frank Sinatra, the Monkees and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
Ever modest, Russell once described himself as a “jobber,” likening himself to an air conditioner installer in a Rolling Stone interview, “You need air conditioning? You call this guy. People called me to do what I did.” And what he did was legendary. Russell played many instruments with aplomb. Russell meandered among genres like a master.
In 1975 Bob Dylan had requested Russell to play bass, an instrument he wasn’t particularly deft at playing, on the recording of “Hurricane,” or as Russell described it, “that song about the boxer.” Russell recalls of that session:
“We did a take — just running it down, I thought. I said, ‘Are you going to do the real thing now?’ Bob said, ‘Why? We’re just going to make the same mistakes.’”
Just another ho-hum story in the life of a storied musician.
Russell’s signature song, “A Song for You” has been recorded by more than 40 artists over the years, including the Carpenters, Willie Nelson, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse and Ray Charles, whose performance earned him a Grammy in 1993 for Best Male R&B Performance.
Russell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by his friend, Elton John in 2011.
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song for you
– Leon Russell, “A Song for You”
“If someone could guarantee me that the preliminaries will not be too disagreeable, I look forward to…” This was Leonard Cohen’s response to a question asked of him in a 2009 interview with the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi. What he was looking forward to is what ultimately happened Thursday. Poet, novelist, songwriter, Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82. His death was confirmed on his Facebook page.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Adam Cohen, his son and producer issued the following:
My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records. He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor.
The record his son is referring to is the recently released You Want it Darker, an album hailed by the magazine as a “late career triumph.” The album was recorded as Cohen was suffering from back issues that kept him confined to the house. His son created a recording studio in the house the elder Cohen had been sharing with his daughter Lorca. The resulting album is nothing short of a beautiful goodbye.
Cohen’s most famous composition, “Hallelujah,” has been performed by everyone from Bob Dylan to high school choirs. The most renowned version was done by Jeff Buckley nearly a decade after it was first recorded. The song was recorded for his 1984 album Various Positions, an album seen as not commercial enough by his label. The spiritual ballad has been so ubiquitous since Buckley brought it to the forefront that Cohen himself indicated that maybe there should be a moratorium on performing it. In the coming days, however, it is sure to appear many times over in tribute to its creator.
Cohen began his career as a musician later in life than most of his contemporaries. He was a highly regarded poet and novelist, but was unable to parlay that into a career. So he turned to music in an attempt to make a living through his writing. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen was released in 1967, when he was 33 years old. His song “Suzanne” from his debut, was recorded by Judy Collins as well as many other artists, launching his musical career.
Known among his fans as “The Godfather of Gloom,” Cohen still possessed a sardonic wit, once suggesting that perhaps his label should give away razor blades with his albums. Despite the grim and somber tone of his work, he influenced not only his contemporaries but a generation of pop musicians to follow. According to the New York Times, his work has been recorded over 2,000 times by everyone from the aforementioned Dylan, Collins and Buckley to Elton John, U2 and R.E.M.
Cohen was born in Montreal on Sept. 21, 1934 to Nathan and Masha Klonitzky, his father a Polish emigre, his mother the daughter of a Lithuanian Rabbi. His father, a clothier, died when Cohen was nine years old, leaving a trust fund that allowed Cohen to pursue his writing interests.
He enrolled at McGill University, studying English. Upon graduation, he spent time pursuing a graduate degree with little satisfaction, likening it to “passion without flesh, love without climax.”
Cohen’s eventual move to the U.S. fostered the musical career he sought. He became a member of Andy Warhol’s inner circle and began to achieve success as a touring musician throughout the ’70s and early ’80s. Always a spiritual, if not necessarily religious man, Cohen chose to retreat to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in the Los Angeles area in 1994, becoming an ordained Zen Buddhist monk in 1996.
Following his five year retreat, Cohen again returned to the studio in 1999. The result was the 2001 album Ten New Songs. He continued writing, recording and touring through the early years of the 21st century. A bitter legal dispute with his former manager Kelley Lynch, however, left him financially strapped.
In 2008, he embarked on an extensive tour, mainly out of financial necessity. Between 2008 and 2010, Cohen performed all over the world without rest. Stops on his tour included New Zealand, Canada, Europe and performances at the Glastonbury and Coachella Festivals.
Cohen often referred to his career as a three-act play. Thursday night, the curtain was drawn on the final act of this legendary career. His final album was released in October and is a fitting cap on the life of a true Renaissance man.
“He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them”
Canton’s Waydown Wailers appear on the ballot for three Grammy award nominations, all stemming from their latest album Empty Promises.
The Waydown Wailers sophomore album Empty Promises, released earlier this year, is on the Grammy nomination ballot for Best Americana Album. Their song “Jealousy” off the album is on the ballot for Best Americana Roots Song, and their cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic “Susie Q,” which appears as a bonus track on the album, is on the ballot for Best Americana Roots Performance. Only five finalists will receive nominations in each category, selected by the voting members of the Recording Academy.
The band consists of brother Dave and Christian “Moe” Parker, both on guitar with Dave on lead vocals, along with Michael “Scruffy” Scriminger on drums and percussion and Connor Pelkey on bass and vocals. They released their debut album, State of the Union, in 2013. They plan to begin recording their third album later this month.
The Waydown Wailers have a couple performances coming up in New York. They’ll play the Westcott Theatre in Syracuse on Friday, Nov. 18 with Donna the Buffalo and Annie in the Water. The show starts at 8:00 p.m. They also make a hometown appearance on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at the Stadium Sports Bar in Canton with special guests the Gathering. This show starts at 7:00 p.m.
Harbron is a New York City and Hudson Valley resident who spent his career photographing the early careers of rock icons such as Blondie, Elvis Costello and The Police as well as the later careers of The Who, Genesis, The Grateful Dead and KISS.
Attendees will get a rare opportunity to explore more than 70 of Habron’s concert and portrait photographs of influential musicians from the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition also includes some of his concert posters, memorabilia, and souvenirs, as well as guitars from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Guests are encouraged to wear concert attire.
Tickets for Rock the Museum are available at the Albany Institute of History and Art’s website.
This Fall, Nietzche’s debuts their first ever “Folkfest,” a 5-day festival featuring 48 musical acts from Wednesday, Nov. 9 through Sunday, Nov. 13.
Folkfest is a follow up to a successful Jazz-Fest this past spring, and a new direction for Allentown and Nietzche’s that aims to bring together a wide range of musicians, including local faces and nationally touring acts.
Music will kick off on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. with Tyler Westcott and his trio performing gypsy jazz and old-time swing. The headliner on Wednesday, Folkfaces, will take the stage at 11:00 p.m. Folkfaces, a local Buffalo band, is known for their energetic, whiskey-drinking Americana music, fused with beautiful ballads. Music will go until 1:00 a.m., alternating sets between the main stage in the back, and the front barroom. Other acts on Wednesday include Sam Marabella & band, The Brothers Blue and Nickel City String Band.
Thursday is a Singer-Songwriter Showcase, with 15 performances over the course of the night! Each set will be 20 minutes long, with music kicking off at 8:00 p.m. and going until 1:00 a.m. The showcase will feature new artists and well-known local faces to the Buffalo music scene, including Bobby Angel, Joe Bellanti, Jungle Steve, Jack Topht, and Jeff Goldstein.
Friday will feature both local artist and touring acts, and will begin with a happy hour led by The Neville Francis Band. The Shelf Life String Band will kick the night off at 10:00 p.m. in the front barroom. Rear View Ramblers, the first headliner of the night, will then take the main stage at 10:30 p.m.
Rear View Ramblers draw inspiration for their sound directly from Buffalo, playing music that reflects “struggling days being young and broke, to playing music in Allentown and the Elmwood Village, to finding true love in a dive bar on the most random occasions.”
The Observers takes the stage at 11:30 p.m. in the front barroom, taking you on a journey of the human experience through music. The next headliner, nationally touring act, DiTrani Brothers, begins at 12:30 a.m. on the main stage.
DiTrani Brothers, Bobby and Walker, originally hail from North Bend, Washington, but began traveling coast to coast with their songs in 2013. Since then, the duo has evolved into a full band, complete with Dana Hubanks on washtub bass, and Eddie Gaudet on drums. Together, the band plays originals inspired by ragtime, Roma swing, and the traditions of these genres. After DiTrani Brothers, Friday’s music wraps up with a final performance in the front barroom at 1:30am from TCBand.
Saturday’s festivities with the first headlining act of the evening, The Steam Donkeys, performing at 8:30 p.m. on the main stage. With a long and well documented history as one of Buffalo’s longest standing country rock/folk outfits, The Steam Donkeys have seen their fair share, with multiple national tours, album releases, and lineup changes since its formation in 1991.
Local acts Catskill Mountain Boys and Rob Falgiano continue the party, before headliner Tough Old Bird hits the front barroom at 10:30 p.m. Formed in Fillmore, NY by songwriting brothers Matthew and Nathan Corrigan, Tough Old Bird provides a blend of authentic folk and blues that create a vision of the rural landscape it comes from. The group features a mix of electric guitar, accordion, harmonica, and acoustics that provide a sound that is at once both ancient and modern.
Seth Faergolzia’s 23 Psaegz follows Tough Old Bird with a set at 11:30 p.m. on the main stage. Touted as the 2010 successor to Seth Faergolzia’s 13-year project, Dufus, 23 Psaegz carries on the warm, weird legacy of Dufus by “stretching the boundaries of musical experience with unmatched craze and care”. Although the group was originally formed to perform Seth’s puppet-rock-opera “23 Psaegz”, it carried on to eventually become a collaborative backing ensemble for Faergolzia’s web of musical endeavors.
After a performance in the front barroom by Twenty Thousand Strongmen, final headliner of the evening, PA Line, will wrap up Saturday night on the main stage at 1:00 a.m. PA Line exhibits an original performance with musical styles ranging from Mumford and Sons, to Simon and Garfunkel. Each performance aims to get the feet dancing and create intimate emotional connections between artists and fan.
After such a headliner-packed Saturday night, Sunday’s music starts in the early afternoon, with Michael Faltyn kicking off on the main stage at 2:00 p.m. Performers alternate between the front barroom and main stage until the festival concludes with the weekend’s final performance by Ann Phillippone at 6:00 p.m.
Ann Philippone
Singer-songwriters Kathryn Koch and Sam Sugarman will provide support for the headliner for the evening, Tiny Rhymes, who will perform at 5 p.m. on the main stage. Tiny Rhymes is a folk group that draws more inspiration from the classical, chamber, and indie worlds than the country of bluegrass realm of folk. On Tiny Rhymes’ song-writing abilities, Artvoice writes, “Some people like to write songs while others tell stories. Vocalist/guitarist Sharon Mok tells her audience a story. Her voice floats beautifully above the acoustic sounds of her ‘chamber-folk’ band only to be matched with the soothing sounds of cello and violin.” The group features members all classically trained, but remaining instinctive in their composition and arranging choices.
For the first time since 1998, one of hip hop’s most influential groups, New York’s A Tribe Called Quest, will be releasing a new album Nov. 11 via Epic Records entitled We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 YourService. The album can be pre-ordered here. The entire album was recorded at Q-Tip’s home studio in New Jersey.
Some of the major musical guests on this album include Andre 3000 of Outkast, Kendrick Lamar, Busta Rhymes, Jack White, and Elton John. The album was recorded just before Phife Dawg passed away back in March due to complications from diabetes.
Currently, there has been no official announcement of an upcoming tour to support this album, but is more than likely in the works.
NBC has just announced that the Tribe will make its Saturday Night Live debut Nov. 12 along with Dave Chappelle, who will also be making his SNL debut as host.
With the holiday season rapidly approaching, Avenged Sevenfold has decided to play Santa Claus, and give A7X fans an early Christmas present in the form of the band’s new seventh studio album The Stage. The music world was going crazy after the band’s virtual performance on top of the Capital Records building in Los Angeles on Oct. 27.
An announcement that the band was working on a new CD would have been great news, but with all the hints that A7X has been showing the past couple of weeks, fans had a feeling something huge was around the corner.
Others in the music business have released an album in this fashion before, but only through a digital media source. Avenged Sevenfold fans can head right out and pick up a physical copy of The Stage at any record store.
Since the announcement, Sirius/XM Octane has been playing tracks off the new album with intro’s by A7X frontman M. Shadows. Shadows recently had an interview with Sirius/Xm’s rock and metal DJ Jose Mangin, to talk about how the release came about.
Mangin showed some love to A7X for breaking the mold for an album release. He asked Shadows the reason why the band decided to go this route to release the new album:
There’s a million reasons, but I guess the most prominent reason would be just the lack of, you know, originality in the way people are releasing records these days. The internet is so quick, things happen instantly. When your parents have iPhones, and they know everything that’s going on, you know everyone is connected and you can do something like this and the word is gonna get out there. A lot of it has to do with our boredom of having to go through three to four singles before you get to the record release, and then three months later it’s finally out, and all the excitement is gone. We just wanted to give the fans the cherry on top right off the bat and just say, here it is. You thought that we were messing around for a year, but we’ve been working.
A lot of bands, you’re hearing what people are saying. You know their reviewing this, you’re hearing the vibe of the record before you even get to hear the music and that’s just wrong to me. Like I want people to make their own decision. Listen to the music and figure it out for yourself instead of being fed the press release. Like, this is what its going to sound like and it’s our favorite most melodic heaviest thing ever. It’s just so boring at this point.
After Mangin plugged all the ways on media you can hear the album, he wanted to confirm that fans could purchase a physical copy immediately from retailers. Shadows replied:
Well that’s the craziest thing, Props to Capitol Records for being able to pull that off. This is the first surprise release that actually has a physical release with it. You know when you talk about Radiohead or Kanye (West) or Beyoncé, it was all digital, but we’ve been able to sneak records into the stores. So you can go anywhere and pick it up now.
After joking with Shadows about hiding the new album with a fake cover or labels, Shadows confessed, “We definitely had some fake labels going around, and we also had (Chris) Jericho’s fake album title.”
A7X set up pop up shops in New York and Los Angeles over the Halloween weekend to celebrate the release and for fans to get their hands on some A7X merch.
The Stage Tracklist:
01. The Stage
02. Paradigm
03. Sunny Disposition
04. God Damn
05. Creating God
06. Angels
07. Simulation
08. Higher
09. Roman Sky
10. Fermi Paradox
11. Exist
The song is heavily influenced by The Specials’ 2 tone remake of Dandy Livingstone’s reggae classic “Rudy, A Message to You,” recalling the infamous rude boy reindeer’s tale of one foggy Christmas Eve in a campy video.
While the Jesus and Mary Chain, led by brothers Jim and William Reid, released a compilation record, 21 Singles, in 2002, the upcoming release will give fans their first dose of new material since 1998’s Munky. Eighteen years is a long time to wait, but this announcement comes as a taste of candy for all the devoted fans who feared this day would never arrive.
Adam Yauch was raised Jewish and played at the former 
Russell had been suffering from a variety of ailments over the past few years. In 2010, he was hospitalized for a brain fluid leak and heart failure. He suffered a heart attack in July of this year, causing the cancellation of several tour dates. Russell’s last performance was in Nashville July 10.
He moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17, where he became a member of Phil Spector’s infamous “Wrecking Crew,” a loose-knit group of studio musicians responsible for the backing music for Jan and Dean, Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, Frank Sinatra, the Monkees and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
Cohen’s most famous composition, “Hallelujah,” has been performed by everyone from 
Following his five year retreat, Cohen again returned to the studio in 1999. The result was the 2001 album Ten New Songs. He continued writing, recording and touring through the early years of the 21st century. A bitter legal dispute with his former manager Kelley Lynch, however, left him financially strapped.
Harbron is a New York City and Hudson Valley resident who spent his career photographing the early careers of rock icons such as 
