While singer David Johansen was a classic Jaggeresque frontman and Johnny Thunders oozed degenerate charisma and played snarling lead guitar, Sylvain was the group's foundation, bringing textured riffs and rhythmic power that underpinned the songs' melodies and meshed with the bass and drums. The twang of his Gretsch guitar countered Thunders' blistering, distorted leads and gave the group a melodic bedrock.
This week local singer-songwriter Fiona Silver released a video for her latest single — the aptly named "2020."
Silver wrote the song and also directed the video. As she explained:
"I wanted to make a video that reflected some of the themes of [2020] — protests, police brutality, environmental issues, financial insecurity, and of course the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the incredible perseverance of spirit I found from people coming together, supporting each other, and celebrating life in the face of fear. It's been a wild year..."
Her band features Guy Fiumarelli on guitar, Steve Salerno on bass, Brian Duke on drums and Gregg Foreman on keys.
Sam Jayne, the talented singer-songwriter of Love as Laughter and Lync, has died. He was 46.
According to his friends and multiple media outlets, he had been missing since Dec. 7. There was a frantic social-media-driven search for him. Police found him in his car on Tuesday. An NYPD spokesperson told Pitchfork that a preliminary investigation didn't show any "signs of criminality." (Update: His family created a website in his memory. According to his family, he died of an undiagnosed heart condition.)
Jayne had been bartending at Daddy's and Clem's in Williamsburg.
This Brooklyn Vegan post has tributes from his many peers in the music business.
The above video is for the Love as Laughter track "Coconut Flakes" from 2007.
The prolific John Dwyer and his merry band of Osees are releasing an epic live set titled Live at the Henry Miller Library Big Sur... which you can stream next Saturday, Dec. 19. (Details here.)
Ahead of that they've released a view tracks from the show, including "Gelatinous Cube."
Local duo the Acute (you may have seen them play this year in Tompkins Square Park) recently released an EP titled Infinidy ... the above video is for "Newsical," the first track from the record.
BTW this is the final Bandcamp Friday of the year, in which the platform foregoes its revenue and gives the bands all the $$$ from the day's sales.
Last weekend, after an ill-advised doomscroll, I was feeling a little down... walking along Avenue A, a cyclist went by with a speaker attached to his messenger bag. This song by the Damned was playing... which I hadn't heard in years. A fleeting moment that lifted my mood. From the under-appreciated Strawberries LP from 1982, this is "Life Goes On."
In case you already haven't heard this 500,000 times since it was released late last month... here's Karen O and Willie Nelson ("the Duet We Didn’t Know We Needed in 2020") with their soothing acoustic cover of "Under Pressure."
Something a little different ... this is "Something on Your Mind," a song from 1971 by Karen Dalton from the folk blues singer's second and final studio album.
Although Bob Dylan once called her his favorite singer from the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, she was mostly forgotten until some years after her death in 1993 at 55.
She is the subject of a new documentary (produced by Wim Wenders) titled "In My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton" that's featured at DOC NYC this month.
Pinc Louds have a new single and video out today ... the band describes "Spellbound" as "a bolero-tinged ode to classic harmony groups of the 50’s and 60’s."
And there's a dreamy summer-in-the-city vibe in this video filmed in Tompkins Square Park...
Osees have a new record out today. John Dwyer’s band — you may know them as Oh Sees and Thee Oh Sees and a few others — remains incredibly prolific and ass-kicking.
From that new record, here's the 94 seconds of "Dreary Nonsense."
