SHOWS A-GO-GO! Champaign-Urbana band Shipwreck ventures our way for a show at the Underground City Tavern
on Saturday, May 20. If anyone can bring the rock, it’s Shipwreck.
This year alone, the band has plans to release an ambitious four —
count ’em, four — EPs, and if the 2005 release “Origin” is any
indication, all four will be worth a listen. The first 2006 EP will be
released July 6. Shipwreck’s sound is, in a word, dreamy — or
sleepy — but that all depends on your opinion of shoegaze songs.
Don’t try branding this quartet, whose members draw influence from
many sources, including
alt-country and psychedelic rock. Shipwreck could surprise you. Also on
deck in our fair city is the hip-hop band Tabakin,
down from Chicago to play Jazz Central Station
on May 20.
SINGLES ONLY: If
you’re like any hip-hop-loving person, you’ve been following
the countdown to the release of the Roots’ new album, The Game Theory, to the second, and finally the folks at Island Def Jam
have thrown the waiting crowd a bone in the form of the LP’s first
single, “Don’t Feel Right.” The play-by-play: The jam
starts with a hammering drumbeat, care of ?uestlove’s sticks, coupled with a pounding piano progression.
The picture is completed by the guest vocals
of one Maimouna Yousef, a soulful songstress who channels Lauryn
Hill’s rasping alto, and the poignant
on-beat verses of Black Thought. “Don’t Feel Right” is a near-perfect
mélange of funk, soul, and hip-hop. The
Game Theory drops in 104 days and counting.
WELCOME BACK: When Hill, Wyclef Jean, and Pras waltzed out onstage together
for the first time in a decade at the concert of the century, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, it was like seeing a ghost. The trio’s short Fugees-inspired performance
left fans tripping over their jaws and wondering whether the get-together really meant a reunion. On
their newly christened Myspace site, the three have dropped another tune
alongside the single “Take It Easy.” In “WannaBe,” Hill poses a question from a Jackson 5 tune: “Can it
be I stayed away too long/Did I leave your mind when I was gone?” If
the new track is any indication, the Fugees have come back just in time.
This article appears in May 18-24, 2006.
