Archive for September 1995
Buffalo Tom @ The Acadamy: Loud, Fast And Out Of Control
Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz took a broad stab at his dual Marshal amplifiers, twisting his volume knob past eleven as the Boston trio tore their current single, “Summer,” to post-punk shreads. With eardrum-splitting deftness, the band ripped through nearly twenty songs in just over an hour, drawing heavily from 1993’s Big Red Letter Day…
Read MoreAni DiFranco At Irving Plaza: Powerful, Peerless
Songstress Ani DiFranco performed a powerful, peerless set — the second of two sold out shows at Manhattan’s Irving Plaza — despite a barrage of setbacks that included shoddy monitoring, stubbornly out-of-tune guitars, broken strings and visable exhaustion. The 25-year-old songwriter was armed only with her Alvarez acoustic guitar, black-taped Lee Press-On Nails and a…
Read MoreSuperchunk Pummells Sold-out Crowd
Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan’s convulsed with dizzying recklessness Tuesday night as Chapel Hill’s reigning hook-monger pummelled the sold-out crowd with seething bursts of guitar noise. Spinning and faltering like a Tazmanian across Irving Plaza’s stage, McCaughan came perilously close to knocking pogoing uber-bassist (and former girlfriend) Laura Ballance into the wings. But Ballance and drummer John…
Read MoreLuna Abandons ‘Penthouse’ For Stage
Though frontman Dean Wareham’s deadpan delivery and perpetual straight face were little indication, Luna’s shimmering guitar pop shone brilliantly Saturday night, illuminating the bleak and twisted landscape Wareham navigates with such svelte. Waking their latest triumph, Penthouse, from its mordant and mellow foundation, Wareham and Sean Eden’s wall of swirling, simmering guitars blared a full-tilt,…
Read MoreThe Mainstreaming of Better Than Ezra
It’s a sweltering summer afternoon when Better Than Ezra’s Cary Bonnecaze shows up late from soundcheck 24 floors above the impending clamour of the MTV Music Awards. The band is in New York City to kick of the CMJ New Music Festival with a show at The Academy, collect their gold record and, apparently, shop.…
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