photos by Tim Griffin

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco @ The Moody Theater in Austin 11/30/2011

Wilco taped an episode of the TV show Austin City Limits last night (11/30). They were probably playing around the time the Grammys announced that their new album The Whole Love is nominated for the "Best Rock Album". Pictures from that TV show taping, including one of the setlist, are in this post. Look for the show to air sometime next year.

Who picked up a copy of the limited edition "Speak Into the Rose" 10" that the band released for Record Store Day on Black Friday?

Wilco play the same Austin venue, but to the public and not for TV and with an opening set by Nick Lowe (he did make a special appearance at the TV taping), tonight, before continuing on a tour that includes five Chicago shows later this month. All dates and more ACL pictures below...

Continue reading "Wilco taped an Austin City Limits episode (pics), now on tour "

photos by Jessica Amaya

"Wilco gets everything backwards.

Rock bands are supposed to start small, releasing music on obscure, independent labels, and working their way up to a major record company contract. Wilco, though, began their career on a major label subsidiary in 1994, divorced it to release 2001's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, signed to another subsidiary, and, four studio albums and one Grammy later, decided to start their own indie imprint, dBpm Records. Their first release on that label, The Whole Love, is out today." [The Atlantic]

Continue reading "Wilco release new album, played their 2nd Summerstage show w/ Nick Lowe in the rain (pics & setlist)"

Wilco @ Rumsey Playfield (Central Park) -- 9/22/2011 (photo by beaucolburn)

"Loved the show..nice mix of the new album--love it!, plus the usual "singalongs" and plenty of older gems. Was that tweedy's son dancin' on stage? And except for the lines at vending, I really enjoyed the venue tonight.
And no rain!
Back tomorrow for round 2. For those going, Wilco on about 7:50, played a little over 1.5 hours, then back for an extended encore. Total show 2-2.25 hours I'd say. 25 songs!" [A Cherry Ghost]

Continue reading "Wilco played Central Park Summerstage (setlist), will again tonight "

Advanced tickets are on sale for the Harvey Milk show happening at Saint Vitus TONIGHT (7/13). (thanks Vinney)

Nick Lowe opens for Wilco at Central Park Summerstage on September 22nd. Tickets go on AmEx presale at noon. General sale begins Friday at noon.

UPDATE: There's a Wilco presale too.

Wilco at Sasquatch (more by Josh Darr)

After a weekend of Wilco-related shows and the band's own Sold Sound Festival which just took place in North Adams, MA, Wilco have announced their own tour. The tour kicks off in September and continues through early October with support from Nick Lowe, whose "I Love My Label" Wilco covers as the b-side to their new single. They'll hit NYC on September 22 at Central Park Summerstage. Ticket info is not available at the moment, but check Ticketmaster for updates.

The tour is in support of their new album The Whole Love which comes out September 27 on their own d8pm label. Limited edition 7"s of the "I Might" single with the Nick Lowe cover as a b-side were available at Solid Sound. Check those songs out below along with album artwork, tracklist, and all tour dates...

Continue reading "Wilco announces new album & tour dates (Summerstage)"

Nick Lowe will hit the road with a full band for the "first time this millenium" for a string of US tour dates. The U.S. line-up, featuring Geraint Watkins (keyboards), Robert Trehern (drums), Johnny Scott (guitar) and Matt Radford (bass), will play less than twenty dates in all, four of them in NYC. The first three dates will go down at City Winery on Oct 20th (tickets), 21st, (tickets) and 22nd (tickets), with a fourth at The Bell House on October 24th (tickets).

Nick Lowe is preparing to release three of his LPs, The Impossible Bird, Dig My Mood and The Convincer, on vinyl for the first time ever via Yep Roc on 9/21. Preorder them now individually, or in a three pack.

Full tour dates and a few videos, below...

Continue reading "Nick Lowe touring w/ full band, playing 4 NY shows (dates)"

Elvis Costello @ Bonnaroo 2009 (more by Graeme Flegenheimer)

SPECTACLE: ELVIS COSTELLO WITH... fuses the best elements of talk and music television and invites viewers to enjoy an intimate conversation between host Costello and his guests, punctuated by rare musical performances by Costello, his guests and a wide variety of musicians.

Sundance Channel in the US, along with CTV in Canada have picked up the show for a second season, with taping scheduled at New York City's famed Apollo Theatre at the end of September.

Continue reading "Elvis Costello taping 2nd season Spectacle shows @ the Apollo - get tix (Neko Case, Levon Helm, Ray Lamontagne...)"

[Nick Lowe] is a rarity in popular music: an artist who enjoyed a first flush of success as a younger man, then took time to reinvent himself, embracing his maturity and advancing age. "I think of my career in two halves," he said.

Back in the 80s, a realisation struck him about pop music: "If you were in your mid-30s (as he then was) you'd had it -- unlike jazz, for instance, or country-and-western. You couldn't be too old to be a blues singer. So I thought, well, I'll find a way to use the fact that I'm getting older, this thing that everyone tries to disguise and hide in the pop business. I'm going to shove it up front and use it as an advantage.

"The way I wanted to record myself, which I knew wasn't for everybody, I'd never get mainstream success, was for my records to have a certain under-produced, handmade quality to them."

These days, then, he deliberately foregrounds his own songs: "I'm anxious to have them covered," he said. "It's one way I earn my living. I like other artists to think: 'That's a good song, I could do it better than him.' [Telegraph UK]

Some best-of videos of Lowe and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Nick Lowe - 2009 Tour Dates w/ Bill Kirchen (City Winery)"

Tickets are on sale for an October 17th Nick Lowe show at Carnegie Hall in NYC. All dates below...

Continue reading "Nick Lowe - 2008 Tour Dates (Carnegie Hall)"

Elvis Costello, Nick & Robyn, Grand Ballroom, NYC - April 9, 2008 (sketchguy)

Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe sing "Indoor Fireworks", then joined by Robyn Hitchcock for "If I Fell In Love" and "Mystery Train" during the amazing encore! [sketchguy]

Tickets go on sale Thursday for Nick Lowe's upcoming show at Maxwell's. (thx all)

"I've known Nick over 30 years," Hitchcock said of his label mate, "and we live about two miles away from each other. Nick is a master of putting a lot into a very small space, but not making it sound crowded, and he's probably got better at it as time goes by. But unlike me, I think Nick has changed enormously over the years. Listening to something like 'So It Goes' or 'Heart of the City' and then listening to stuff off 'At My Age,' like 'Long Limbed Girl' and 'I Trained Her to Love Me' -- I'm not sure I'd even recognize him as the same vocalist.

"His stuff now to me sounds like some sort of sophisticated silver-age nightclub music from the late '50s, something from the smoke age, to be sure," Hitchcock continued, "whereas I think my stuff essentially always harks back to the Beatles of 1967 -- that's my bedrock year. Nick's just two or three years older than me, so I think his bedrock year might be a little bit earlier. I always imagine his music being cut at some old analog studio in Memphis or something. You expect this engineer to come out and show you some marvelous three-inch tape they've got or some seven-track desk that has been there since Doc Pomus was on hand." [San Francisco Chronicle]

Continue reading "Nick Lowe is playing Maxwell's & other tour dates"

win tickets....

The Hold Steady and The Virgins are playing Webster Hall on May 2nd. Tickets go on sale April 12th. Regina Spektor, Nick Lowe, Sondre Lerche and many others are playing the annual day show at Canal Room (April 29-May 2). This is all part of this year's Tribeca Film Festival which believe it or not includes movies too (Lou Reed's Berlin directed by Julian Schnabel included). The day shows are for festival pass holders only, but I have two pairs of tickets to give away that get you in to the Canal Room for the whole week. How to win, and full festival details/lineups, below.....

Continue reading "Tribeca Film Festival music programming - The Hold Steady, Regina Spektor, Nick Lowe, Sondre Lerche, movies & stuff"

In a music career spanning more than 40 years, Nick Lowe has profoundly affected the music industry as a singer, songwriter, and producer. He began recording in 1966 as a member of the rock band Kippington Lodge, which was later renamed Brinsley Schwarz, notable for its influence on '70s punk. [NPR]

Continue reading "Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock, Ron Sexsmith - 2008 Tour Dates"

DOWNLOAD: Allen Toussaint - Do The Do (MP3)
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Nick Lowe @ 7 WTC, NYC - Sept 19, 2007 (CRED)

* Celebration & High Places are playing a free show
* Beirut & Fifth Veil are playing in Fort Greene
* Joe's Pub in the Park continues w/ Patty Griffin & Allen Toussaint
* Weird Al Yankovik at Beacon Theatre
* Foo Fighters are at Irving Plaza
* Apples in Stereo are at Maxwell's
* Happy Birthday Friction @ Mercury Lounge

Come out TONIGHT to The Mercury Lounge and celebrate FRICTION's 2-Year Anniversary with a stellar lineup featuring:

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS 10:30PM
DIE ROMANTIK 9:30PM
THE MOST SERENE REPUBLIC 8:30PM
THE BLACKS 7:30PM
with DJ FINGER ON THE PULSE (BROOKLYN)

DOWNLOAD: Larry Silverstein on 7 WTC demolition? (WMV)

"7 World Trade Center, a building in New York City, is located across from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. The name 7 World Trade Center has referred to two buildings: the original structure, developed in 1985 and the current structure. The original building was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks and replaced with the new 7 World Trade Center, which opened in 2006. Both buildings were developed by Larry Silverstein who holds a ground lease for the site from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. [Wikipedia]"

Lou Reed, Brazilian Girls, Suzanne Vega, and others, helped celebrate the opening of the new 7 World Trade Center in May 2006. The Hold Steady, Old 97's, M Ward, and others played (and are playing) free concerts there this week.

Free concerts are good, but is real estate developer Larry Silverstein? Not acccording to the many conspiracy theories floating around.

Larry Silverstein, the controller of the destroyed WTC complex, stated plainly in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided jointly to demolish WTC 7 late in the afternoon of 9/11. In the documentary "America Rebuilds", aired September 2002, Silverstein makes the following statement;

"I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." [What Really Happened]

Larry went on to convince the courts that the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was in fact TWO ATTACKS. That means he profited on 9/11 by collecting 3.5 billion dollars in insurance money TWICE - for a total of 7 billion dollars. More on that conspiracy theory and/or fact (depending on how you look at it), at What Really Happened.

Nick Lowe plays a free concert at 7 World Trade Center tonight (Sept 19, 2007).

Just today I posted about the free show The Hold Steady are playing at Prospect Park, and another one at a Barnes & Noble. Nick Lowe recently played a charity show at Housing Works. The Old 97's are playing two shows on a boat this week (July 27), and as previously posted - M. Ward is scheduled to play a show in NYC on September 18th. What do all these things have to do with each other? This is what:

Three extraordinary evenings, nine exciting artists and it's FREE at 7 World Trade Center Park, Greenwich and Vesey Streets.

9/17: The Hold Steady, Old 97’s & Illinois
9/18: M. Ward, Victoria Williams & McCarthy Trenching
9/19: Nick Lowe, Holmes Brothers & Ollabelle

Presented by Wall Street Rising and produced by Michael Dorf

Continue reading "Hold Steady, Old 97's, Nick Lowe & M Ward - free shows @ the World Trade Center, a boat & other TOUR DATES"