Month: July 2014

Camera Obscura @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg

Scottish indie pop legends Camera Obscura played a bright and mellow show at Music Hall Of Williamsburg. That was their second date in NYC for this summer, on the tour supporting the band’s new album Desire Lines  – the night…

Phantogram @ Zoom Club, Frankfurt

Browsing this year’s album releases, a rock duo called Phantogram caught my attention. The band’s name got me excited. It describes an optical illusion creating the impression of three-dimensionality on a flat surface. If this group could produce similar effects…

Night Club – Need You Tonight (song review)

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Night Club are a synth-pop duo out of Los Angeles who’ve laid their heads before the altar of 80’s New Wave. In an attempt to summon the dark electronic gods of old, responsible for the drink and drug fueled revelry at dance clubs throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, Night Club chose to cover Inxs’s “Need You Tonight,” Michael Hutchence being already somewhat deified in certain circles.

From the first digitized bass hit, Night Club makes their supplicative cries clear. Their language is synth. Digitized and over-saturated, the melodies sound like the beautifully low-fi blips and beeps of 8 bit video games.

The cover is straight forward. No license is taken with the material, the only difference being that the singer for Night Club is female. Her voice is sultry and full. You can picture it coming from a confident, full-figured woman which turns the chorus of I “Need you tonight” into more of an expectation than a request.

Covers like these are typically well received because they’re old enough to evoke nostalgia but recent enough that no grandparent can claim them as their own. The ones who were around can reminisce about the halcyon days when experimentation in drugs, sex and music was the norm. The line between excess and good taste not existing, any indulgence could be chalked up to exploration. Those who are too young to have been there can romanticize its excesses and experimentation without having the consequences that befell many dampen their enjoyment. Night Club’s cover of “Need You Tonight” can help you do that.

More about Night Club on Facebook, YouTube, iTunes as well as their official website http://www.nightclubband.com/.

Guided By Voices @ Irving Plaza, 07/11/2014

I’m sure that Guided By Voices’ fans can fill up stadiums. Or any other location you give ’em. They will know pretty much every song out of the 22 albums the indie rock titans from Dayton, Ohio issued since 1983.…

Heylel blend prog rock with gothic influences in “Nebulae”

The fans of progressive Gothic rock with sensual female vocals will appreciate the debut album by Portugal band Haylel. Fronted by the angelical tone of singer Ana Batista and anchored by a band dedicated to their creative freedom, their music is…

Vince Clarke, Daniel Miller @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg

If you ever get bored in NYC, you have only yourself to blame. On Thursday, July 3rd, Williamsburg Hall of Music turned down the lights and turned up the tunes with two ’80s synthpop British pioneers: musician and songwriter Vince…

Lydia Lunch, Doomsday Student @ Trans-Pecos, Queens

I never thought I’ll go see show at Ridgewood, Queens. Especially a Lydia Lunch show, but I did and it was great! Trans-Pecos located few blocks away from the Myrtle-Wyckoff L & M stop is a totally rad spot for…

Jex Thoth, Agalloch @ Irving Plaza

“The snow, the bitter snowfall You wish to die in her pale arms, crystalline, to become an ode to silence In the soul of a mountain of birds, fallen” What an amazing show! No, really! Probably the top show of…