Neil Diamond

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Weekend, 1/25/13

Here are the ten best concerts around the city this weekend, in no particular order.

Jones Beach Theater And PNC Bank Arts Center Schedules Announced: Drake, Wiz Khalifa, Kelly Clarkson, And More

Ah, the summer, the time of year when one can enjoy a concert in the glorious out of doors. This morning Live Nation announced the full lineups for its two local amphitheaters—the PNC Bank Arts Center in bucolic Holmdel, N.J. and the Jones Beach Theater, out on the South Shore of Nassau County ... More >>

VOTE NOW: Will John Coltrane Or Blondie Make It To The Finals In Our Quintessential New York Musician Search?

As March comes to a close, so does our month-ish-long battle royale between 64 New York musicians, all of whom were put in the mix to decide which one best embodied the spirit of the city. Each of the divisions—Uptown, Queens, Downtown, and Brooklyn—has now crowned a winner, and for our ... More >>

Presenting The Elite Eight: John Coltrane, Alicia Keys, Blondie, Neil Diamond, Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Wu-Tang Clan, And Rakim

After three weeks of feverish clicking and arguing, the final eight contenders in our search for the quintessential New York musician have been finalized. Representing the Uptown division are No. 1 seed John Coltrane and No. 14 seed Alicia Keys; No. 12 seed Blondie will have it out with No. 3 seed N ... More >>

VOTE NOW For The Elite Eight: Coltrane vs. Keys; Blondie vs. Diamond; SY vs. VU; Wu-Tang vs. Rakim

After three weeks of feverish clicking and arguing, the final eight contenders in our search for the quintessential New York musician have been finalized—you can peruse the bracket here—and it's time for you to vote. Representing the Uptown division are No. 1 seed John Coltrane and No. 1 ... More >>

SOTC's March Madness: Sonic Youth, Miles Davis, Neil Diamond, And The Rest Of The Round Of 16

​This week, our search for New York's quintessential post-1955 musician is about to get hectic, with the winner crowned as the calendar flips to April on Saturday night. (A rundown of all the matches so far is here.) So for the Round of 16 matchups--four of which kicked off yesterday, four of whic ... More >>

Billy Joel (6) And Neil Diamond (3) Turn SOTC's March Madness Into A Songwriter's Battlefield

​Sound of the City's search for the quintessential New York City musician enters Round Two this week, with battles in the Round of 32 daily. Keep up with all the action here. Things get a bit more melodic (no offense, guys) as two of American pop's most prominent songwriters and members of the Lo ... More >>

Neil Diamond (3) Matches Wits With Gene Simmons (14) In The Latest SOTC March Madness Matchup

The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—continues.We continue matching up the Queens combatants with a face-off between the No. 3 seed, Neil Diamond, and KI ... More >>

Davy Jones, R.I.P.

Davy Jones, the British singer who was a member of the sitcom-spawned band The Monkees, died of a heart attack this morning, according to TMZ. Jones was already a Tony-nominated actor when he auditioned for the group, having been honored for playing the Artful Dodger in a run of Oliver! that moved f ... More >>

Live: Yo La Tengo Light The Menorah At Maxwell's One More Time

Lee Ranaldo & Steve Shelley w/Yo La Tengo, "Mote" Yo La Tengo: Hanukkah Shows Maxwell's December 20-27 Better than: Christmas. Hanukkah doesn't technically end until sundown Wednesday, but Yo La Tengo unplugged their electric menorah at Maxwell's last night, just after a post-midnight sign-of ... More >>

The Weirdest Pedophile Songs Of All Time

​Way back in the '60s, there emerged a bizarre musical genre--guys singing about their attraction to underage girls and how wrong it was! In 1967, Neil Diamond belted the suggestive "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon." ("Please come take my hand/Girl, you'll be a woman soon/Soon, you'll need a man ... More >>

Live: Archers Of Loaf Remember The '90s At Music Hall Of Williamsburg

Archers of Loaf Music Hall of Williamsburg Saturday, June 25 Better than: The banging club night going on next door at Public Assembly, where outside the line stretched around the corner and a guy had passed out on the sidewalk. Some might think it's a slight exaggeration to say that Archers of L ... More >>

American Idol Breaks Out Its Copy Of Carole King: Her Greatest Hits

Michael Becker/FOX​ The same week NBC attempts to take on American Idol by launching the loud, flashy The Voice, Idol makes one of those baffling decisions that only Idol can make: Devoting an entire 90 minutes to saluting the deeply, overwhelmingly annoying singer-songwriter Carole King. I h ... More >>

Live: Cheetah Chrome, Bob Pfeifer, Mike Hudson, And Eric Davidson Look Back At Cleveland's Fiery Punk Scene

Stephen SlaybaughBob Pfeifer. ​ Cleveland Confidential Book Tour, moderated by Luc Sante and featuring Cheetah Chrome, Mike Hudson, and Bob Pfeifer plus Eric Davidson powerHouse Arena Saturday, April 9 Better Than: Watching the East River burn while sitting in a swank DUMBO loft. There must ... More >>

Live: Tom Waits (And A Punk-Rock Neil Diamond) Dominate The Rock Hall Induction Ceremony

The 2011 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Monday, March 14 Better Than: Whatever was happening at Death by Audio tonight that Bruce Springsteen didn't show up to, for whatever reason. First off, let's tell you what you want to hear: Tom Waits stole the show ... More >>

Live: Art-Rock Supergroup Soldiers of Fortune Hit Zebulon, Celebrate Their New Album By Not Playing It

Note the presence in the crowd of actual women. Pic by Mike.​Soldiers of Fortune/Water Fai Zebulon Wednesday, February 10 Better than: Real-life mercenary work. No one wants an opening band that can upstage the headliner, but Water Fai tried a little too hard not to rock the boat. The quarte ... More >>

Q&A: Chavez's Matt Sweeney On How He Ended Up Working With Josh Groban

"What's up, Billy Corgan?" Photo by Annabel Mehran.​Back in the stellar, angular riffage-filled '90s indie-rock days of yore, guitar-rawk behemoths Chavez scorched downtown spots like CBGB while unleashing two now-classic mathy slabs in Gone Glimmering and Ride The Fader. Front and center in t ... More >>

Crooked Fingers

Urge Overkill Play Mercury Lounge Tonight; Tickets Still Available

​Given the public's abiding interest in '90s bands that may or may not have reunited, we thought we'd point out that proudly hedonistic Chicago power-pop goofballs Urge Overkill are taking another crack at it, playing their first live show in forever tonight at Mercury Lounge, and at least las ... More >>

Urge Overkill

Reel Injun Dances With Wolves (and Other Native American Stereotypes)

Presenting The Hilarious Music-Related April Fool's Joke Probability Index

​Tough day on the Internet: Everyone is both probably lying to you and totally hilarious. As we grapple with this whole Fucked Up getting sued thing, let us examine today's other remarkable music-biz announcements and rate them on a) believability and b) amusement.

Why This Decade Sucked, Reason #7: Guilty Pleasures Without Guilt

​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. Previous reasons here, here, and here. ​If you had told us, at the beginning of this awful decade, that intelligent people would one day be writing essays -- serial essays, yet -- on reality ... More >>

Holiday Music Roundup '09

Weird Christmas records: They're not just for Dylan anymore

SXSW 2009: The Perils of "Day Rock" with Obits, Handsome Furs, and American Analog Set

American Analog Set/Handsome Furs/Obits Club De Ville SXSW Friday Afternoon, March 20 "I think this is the first show where I haven't been drunk in four years," is how Handsome Fur Dan Boeckner puts it, his poor sentence construction a further sign of fatigue/sobriety/broad-daylight disorientatio ... More >>

WSJ Catches Neil Diamond Reselling Tickets to His Own Show

Having little entree to the world of high-end showmanship, we did not know it was a Thing for music stars to put some tickets for their own shows up for resale at higher-than-face value and pocket the profits. Nonetheless that's what the Wall Street Journal reports, but the only star they really nai ... More >>

Neil Fucking Diamond

This Diamond is a burlesquer’s best friend

Grammys Fawn over Coldplay and Plant/Krauss, Set Race Relations Back 20 Years

Good for you. As any self-respecting Grammy live blog will have told you by now, the highlight of last night's occasionally lively fiasco was undoubtedly the "Rap Pack" black-and-white "Swagga Like Us" blowout, ostensibly starring Jay-Z/Kanye/Wayne/T.I. but dominated by a stupendously pregnant M ... More >>

Age, Beauty Before Youth at Grammys

Despite myriad concessions to modishness and a Twitter feed, it was a Steely Dan sort of year at the Grammys as Robert Plant and Alison Krause's Raising Sand won five awards including Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year ("Please Read the Letter"), and awards in the Country and Contemporary Folk ... More >>

Live: All Eight Nights of Hanukkah with Yo La Tengo

photo by Liz Clayton Dawn Sutter Madell, via the Yo La Tengo diary Eight shows, eight-and-a-half comedians, eight charities, eight mix CDs, 24 sit-ins, and three Velvet Underground covers later, Yo La Tengo brought another Hanukkah at Maxwell's to a close. But, as befits a band named in reference ... More >>

Kennedy Accused of Under-Tipping Dems, Promoting Neil Diamond

SCHLOCK ROCK

Spend Christmas with the Jewish King

American Idol Week Ten: The Fix is In?

American Idol Week Nine: Broadway Week Sucks Majestically

American Idol Week Seven: Dolly Parton, Butchered

Menorah Report

A Hanukkah fete with Yo La Tengo, the only band worth trudging all the way to Hoboken for

The World's Worst Bobblehead Comes to Brooklyn

Like a Rhinestone Cowboy

Conor Oberst finally emulates the greats by mixing brilliance with bloated bumbling

Forever Young

The joyous clamor of today's youth punches you in the nose

Dry Space

What happens when Murdoch buys the Web's networking portal

Super-Prolific Song Kings From Previous Century Emerge From Rocking Thrones

NY Mirror

Books

Our 27 favorite books of the year

Accept Substitutes

The Loser's Lounge ventures into the present and other dangerous conceptual realms

A Mighty Wind

Garage Punks Discover New Wave and Kick Out the Cans

Theater

Down and Alt

Surreal Endgames, Seedy Glamour

Doo-dah!