Raurri Jennings — Metroland

Get on a Good Book

by Raurri Jennings February 7, 2013

Gathered around a wooden card table in the kitchen of Red Square, the Chronicles are in repose in a few folding chairs. The backdrop of metal countertops and lack of bystanders brings to mind a ...

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Dr. John and the Blind Boys of Alabama

by Raurri Jennings November 8, 2012

Dr. John has been my medicine man since junior year of college. From the moment I heard him growl, “Hot steppin’ mama keep on foxing witcha little foxy self,” on “Desitively Bonaroo,” the spell was ...

Out the Trunk

by Raurri Jennings November 1, 2012

There’s a moment in the video for “Marshall Applewhite” where Giant Gorilla Dog Thing (rappers Dood Computer and Dezmatic), Gorilla Tao, and PJ Katz—dressed as Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello of the Teenage Mutant Ninja ...

Whiskey, Tea and Jesus

by Raurri Jennings October 17, 2012

Shuffling onstage bearded and besweatered, emerging Richmond, Va., singer-songwriter Matthew E. White was the embodiment of the warmth he committed to tape on his debut record, Big Inner. White was backed by an impressive nine-piece ...

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Braids, Railbird, Hand Habits

by Raurri Jennings September 27, 2012

Say what you’d like about Valentine’s cockeyed pool table and infamous bathrooms, but they have made one solid booking after another this year, proving St. Vincent’s booking agent dead wrong that there is no market ...

Valentine's

Wilco

by Raurri Jennings August 2, 2012

Over the course of their last four records since the acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and firing of guitarist Jay Bennett, Wilco have become less avant-garde while adding bona fide avant-garde musicians. Anyone present for the ...

Sharon Van Etten

by Raurri Jennings August 2, 2012

Sharon Van Etten, who has been touring in support of her latest album Tramp since February, noted how difficult it is to play the same songs nearly every night for six months. However, her music ...

Camp Bisco

by Raurri Jennings July 19, 2012

On one set of decks, Saturday night, Bitch Please is spinning hip-hop/dubstep mashups complete with raunchy rhymes and build-drop dynamics on the blue channel; on the green channel, Space Jesus weaves more traditional dub with ...

Bootsy Collins

by Raurri Jennings June 20, 2012

As Bootsy Collins, legendary superhero-bassist for Parliament Funkadelic, was warming up the packed audience at Alive at Five for an encore of “Mothership Connection,” a man in the front row was holding up a copy ...

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Shabazz Palaces

by Raurri Jennings April 19, 2012

If there is one group in hip-hop who are innovating at every stage of their game, it is Shabazz Palaces. Formed by producer and MC Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler of Digable Planets (aka Palaceer Lazaro) and ...

Colin Stetson, Tyshawn Sorey, Sarah Neufeld

by Raurri Jennings April 12, 2012

The black-box theater at EMPAC was dark except for the track lights running up either side of the room. A fugue of sampled drum fills, cut-and-paste chords, and disembodied voices panned in the house speakers. ...

WCDB 34th Anniversary Music Festival

by Raurri Jennings March 8, 2012

The crowd for the the WCDB 34th Anniversary Music Festival at Valentine’s was a mix of rowdy students, veteran DJs and rock-show enthusiasts, with some in attendance donning paper-happy birthday hats and balloons. Stretched over ...

In the Name of Prog

by Raurri Jennings February 23, 2012

In I Heart Huckabees, Dustin Hoffman’s existential detective character is explaining the interconnectedness of all the matter and energy in the universe to Jason Schwartzman using a blanket. He juts his hand through the cloth ...

Man Man

by Raurri Jennings October 20, 2011

By the time drummer Tiberius Lyn brought his stick down for the final cymbal crash of “Young Einstein on the Beach,” a one-minute tantrum filled with caterwauling and loony electric piano fills, the crowd at ...

Shabazz Palaces

by Raurri Jennings October 6, 2011

Shrouded in the shiny blueness of his nom de plume “Palaceer Lazaro” for the release of his first two EPs with Shabazz Palaces, rapper Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler (formerly of Digable Planets) has finally stepped out ...

Primus

by Raurri Jennings October 6, 2011

Only the stiffest of upper lips can resist a dose of ’90s nostalgia. Whether you are rolling up the windows in traffic to hide the fact that you’re belting “I’d Do Anything For Love (But ...

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Bon Iver

by Raurri Jennings August 10, 2011

"Stay dry out there,” quipped Bon Iver’s humble mastermind, Justin Vernon, as rain dripped on the crowd surrounding the stage at Mountain Park. “Or don’t. It’s your choice.” Backed by a nine-piece band including trombones, violins, ...

Little Dragon

by Raurri Jennings August 3, 2011

With their third album, Ritual Union, Little Dragon tighten up their minimal electro-R&B sound. Singer Yukimi Nagano has pipes but you will not hear any caterwaulin’. Keyboard commander Håkan Wirenstrand has chops but you won’t hear ...

Camp Bisco

by Raurri Jennings July 13, 2011

‘Who is muddy as fuck?” hollered dubstep DJ 12th Planet in between gusts of tent-rippling bass. The packed tent responded with a resounding holla back in anticipation of the next neck-breaking beat their host would ...

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Mothership Connection

by Raurri Jennings July 6, 2011

Interstellar electric mandolin? Check. Chromium-plated rocket dance shoes? Check. Tactical helmet with nitrogen conversion intake? Check. Armed with all the accouterments necessary for serious space travel, the Disposable Rocket Band set their gamma rays on ...

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Solid Sound

by Raurri Jennings June 29, 2011

This year’s edition of Solid Sound was a wet one. With rainstorms passing over the retrofitted electronics factory in North Adams that is MASS MoCA, all in attendance could be thankful ...

Fleet Foxes

by Raurri Jennings May 11, 2011

In “Montezuma,” the opening song of Fleet Foxes’ sophomore LP, Helplessness Blues, lead singer Robin Pecknold sings, “I’m older than my mother and father/When they had their daughter/Now what does that ...

Colin Stetson

by Raurri Jennings April 27, 2011

Let’s be clear from the (bungee) jump: Colin Stetson’s got chops. On “Judges,” the second song from New History Warfare, Vol. 2, baritone-sax arpeggios whip around the headphones as muted clicks ...

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Rubblebucket

by Raurri Jennings April 20, 2011

When Rubblebucket bum-rushed the stage at Bearsville Theater, they unleashed a contagious case of the booty-shakes that lingered late into the evening. The conquest was an education in syncopated dance, filled with jerky Stop Making ...

Bearsville Theater

Toro y Moi

by Raurri Jennings March 30, 2011

With Underneath the Pine, Toro y Moi’s follow-up to 2010’s chillwave classic Causers of This, it’s clear we’re not in for a sequel. “Intro Chi Chi” begins with distorted, wall-of-sound synths and chromatic washes of Rhodes ...