I’ve been talking a lot about the Brooklyn-based rockers Old Monk recently. If you couldn’t tell from my review of the wonderfully eclectic show at Cake Shop (which, it turns out, Old Monk organized!), or from my rave review of their set at Union Hall, they’re one of my favorite live bands out there. But what are they like in recording? Could their energy possibly translate to a fixed medium? I sat down with their most recent album, Birds of…

Maybe the crowd, a crew of mostly sweet-faced, postpubescent hip(hop)sters, had a hard day at college. Maybe the acts’ bourbon-and-coke styles just happened not to coalesce as expected. Maybe it was just one of those Wednesdays. But Troubadour's billing last night of DaVinci, The 87 Stick Up Kids, Free the Robots, and Freddie Gibbs with live band, The Park, never picked up the momentum for which at least two are known. San Francisco rapper DaVinci had the always-difficult task of…

Innerpartysystem released their EP, Never Be Content today, and with it came a six-song dance party. Never Be Content brings the club or rave party from the outside into your eardrums. The songs are fused with a new life, of sorts, that you would be surprised to expect from a band that was once considered more rock than electronic. It's official, with this release, that rock won't be their first-and-only genre anymore. The band is keenly aware that some people…

Remember 2007? Wiz Khalifa could’ve been the name of a magician for all most people knew, Kid Cudi really was a lonely stoner, and you still checked your MySpace. If you’d been friends on there with Brooklyn rapper Saigon, you’d know that his debut album, The Greatest Story Never Told, has been ready since the summer of that year. According to a few frustration-fueled blog posts on his MySpace, Atlantic, his label at the time, pushed the album back repeatedly. …