Led Zeppelin
How the West Was Won
Atlantic
It's pretty safe to assume that if Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham had never formed Led Zeppelin and set about interpreting blues music with such ferocity then today's music scene would be a whole lot blander.
Between 1969 and 1979 the band released a total of eight groundbreaking studio albums. It wasn't until last month, however, that a truly definitive live album hit record store shelves.
While 1976's The Song Remains the Same and 1997's BBC Sessions attempted to bring the majesty of Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham's stage presence to living rooms neither really hit the mark.
How the West Was Won does all that and a whole lot more. Compiled by Page, the triple album contains tunes from two of the band's 1972 concerts in Los Angeles. And it is the first release of live recordings of Led Zep at its zenith.
Page has tried to fit nearly all the band's most memorable moments into the three-disc set, which includes a selection of both short and long numbers and of course plenty of solos and interplay between Page and Plant.
Although the 25-minute long Dazed and Confused and the 23-minute long Whole Lotta Love are true wonders of modern rock and demand full volume, the band's real mind-numbing virtuosity is more noticeable on the shorter tunes.
From Immigrant Song to Black Dog and onto Dancing Days the sheer power and unabashed energy of Page's guitar, Bonham's drums, Jones' bass riffs and Plant's vocals go straight for the throat.
Digitally re-mastered and without any annoying bootleg fuzz it doesn't get much better than Led Zep's How the West Was Won.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fever to Tell
Polydor
Hitting the scene in the wake of the Strokes-led New York garage rock revival, the Big Apple based art-house trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released its self-titled debut EP to much localized underground acclaim in 2001.
Successful US-wide tours supporting Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Strokes and the White Stripes followed shortly thereafter.
Within a year the trio had conquered the hearts and minds of America's arty garage scene. Thanks to a rise in popularity of US underground music in Europe, the combo successfully crossed the Atlantic last year, where it repeated its earlier success.
Having built up a strong following in both the US and Europe the band and its stylishly sexy new wave sound was snapped up by Polydor, on which it recently released its full-length debut, Fever to Tell.
Balancing noise and melody with a sound reminiscent of late 1970s new wave, Fever to Tell manages to be both raunchy and experimental while refusing to sound pompous.
The underlying theme of the album revolves around some kind of screwed-up sexuality or another. In order to create the mood, Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase employ rockabilly licks and riffs, basic bar-E, dub and some fashionably off-key noise.
There's something for everyone on Fever to Tell. Tunes such as Date with the Night, Tick and Black Tongue see the band toying with rock, Pin is bouncy pop, and the finest moment, Y Control, is gritty-chic new wave at its off-key finest.
Stereophonics
You Gotta Go There to Come Back
V2
Back in the late-1990s, Wales' Stereophonics, comprising Kelly Jones (vocals/guitar), Richard Jones (bass, and Stuart Cable (drums) were considered the greatest thing since sliced bread by the record-buying British public.
The band's early days might have been spent in the shadows of the other Welsh band, Manic Street Preachers, but when the combo's 1997 debut album, Word Gets Around, was released it quickly dispelled any notions that the Stereophonics was just another bunch of Nicky Wire wannabes.
Long dubbed purveyors of "meat and potatoes rock," the band's fifth and latest album, You Gotta Go There to Come Back, sees the band in less starchy mood and setting out to prove that South Wales does in fact have a whole lotta' soul.
Blue Man Group
The Complex
Lava
Long before the Blue Man Group became international television personalities thanks to a string of popular commercials, Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink were fixtures of the New York underground performance art scene.
Formed in 1987 the group was a regular in Central Park and some of the better-known East Village art spaces. In 1991, the trio premiered their production of Tubes and won an Obie Award for its originality.
Making their audio debut in 1999 with the aptly titled, Audio, the trio spotlighted specific Blue Man-made instruments and made forays into avant-garde pop.
The group's second album, The Complex, is somewhat different from its predecessor. Offering listeners an awesome earful of original rock, dance and pop as well a couple of truly fantastic cover versions.
Providing the lyrical content for the blue guys' latest venture are a host of stars including Dave Matthews, Gavin Rossdale, Josh Haden, Peter Moore and Venus Hum to name but a few. The addition of instruments ranging from electric guitar to a Hungarian cimbalom ensure that all the tunes, originals or covers, are more than simply percussive musical-mayhem.
Featuring 14 tunes, the album is a mishmash of vocalized harmonies and instrumentals, the latter of which includes the tunes Above, Time to Start and Piano Smasher, that sees the Blue Man Group in fine percussion-loaded form.
It's the Blue Man's versions of Grace Slick's drug tinged White Rabbit and the Giorgio Moroder/Donna Summer disco classic, I Feel Love, however, that really makes The Complex complete and proves the Blue Man Group is far more than simply a TV advertising executive's wet dream.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not