• 'American Idol' Season 13 Recap: Top 7 Make Predictable Picks For Contestant's Choice

    After two weeks in the top eight, American Idol is finally down to seven contestants this week and decided to let the remaining singers show their real stuff (yet again) with their own choice of song. Thus, the picks were pretty predictable and everyone performed thusly. It's pretty well established who the stars are on this season of Idol -- Jena Irene, Alex Preston and Caleb Johnson, and those three had the strongest showings. The mediocre singers were mediocre and the boring guys were boring.

  • Concert Review: Cloud Nothings at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 4/13/14

    What sets Music Hall of Williamsburg apart from all of the other major venues I’ve been to is the absence of a barricade between the audience and the stage. For the first time in my life, I was able to stand right next to the stage and rest my arms and my beer on it. I chose to hang around stage left, and it turned out to be the best spot in the house for taking photos of the bands.

  • Concert Review: Mt. Doom in New Brunswick, NJ, 4/11/14

    New Brunswick, New Jersey is a city basically run by college students, and because of this, their basement music scene has become semi-legendary (there’s even a Wikipedia article about it). There are dozens of “venues” that are simply the basements of houses rented out by students at Rutgers, and they all have cool names like “The Candy Barrel” and “The Cooler Ranch”. The name of the house I went to last night was “Mt. Doom”, which I thought was particularly cool, since I’m a huge Lord of the Rings fan. Though the basement at Mt. Doom was dimly lit and heavily tagged with graffiti, it was a relatively neat and organized space for a punk show.

  • 'American Idol' Season 13 Recap: Top 8 (Again) Time Travel to the '80s

    With past Idol favorite David Cook as this week's mentor, the cream of this year's crop rose to the top with some super solid performances. As this point, though, we know who is going to be consistently good and who's going to be a little shaky. So, without further ado, let's get into who was good, bad and passable on this week's American Idol.

  • A Basement Show in Haledon, New Jersey

    My friend Jeff's house in Haledon is absolutely filthy, and has been ever since I started hanging out there in 2011, but tonight there seemed to have been a few efforts made to clean up the place. For starters, there weren't any broken beer bottles anywhere, and the old laptop that was Office Space-d into a million pieces at the last show had been (mostly) swept up. Of course, Jeff still didn't have any mic stands or power strips for the bands to use, but at least you could safely walk around the space.

  • 'American Idol' Judges Use Season 13 Save on Sam Woolf

    The Top 8 on American Idol remain intact, though they're much less safe than before. For the third week in a row, last night 17-year-old Floridian babyface Sam Woolf found himself in the dreaded Idol bottom three, but this week, he was spared from being sent to retirement and was given another chance. Yes, the judges buckled and finally used the one save per season on Sam. But, did they make the right choice?

  • 'American Idol' Season 13 Recap: Top 9 Show Growth During Rock Week

    "I'm with the band!" is something each of the American Idol season 13 contestants have had to say before they were plucked from obscurity, thus, it is the theme of the top 9 week this year. A month into the Hollywood rounds, none of these performers are unseasoned anymore, and the rock week on Wednesday night (March 26) proved that.

  • 'American Idol' Season 13 recap: MK Nobilette (Finally) Goes Home

    Last night, the Top 10 contestants on American Idol continued to try and prove themselves by tackling some of the biggest hits. After some really solid performances (and some less than awesome performances), it was finally an Idol goodbye to MK Nobilette this week.

  • 'American Idol' Season 13 recap: Top 10 Tackle Billboard Hits

    With the top 10 contestants on American Idol being established, this week they took on the Billboard top 10 hits between 2011 and now. With rockers like Caleb Johnson and Jessica Meuse and indie guys like Sam Woolf and Alex Preston, it was sure to be a week where singers left their comfort zones.

  • 'American Idol' Season 13 recap: Ben Briley Sent Packing

    Even though Songs from the Cinema was far and away American Idol's best live show this season, relatively strong performances weren't enough to keep all 11 contestants around. After faltering with a take on Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" last night, country crooner Ben Briley was sent home.

  • 'American Idol' season 13 recap: Top 11 Show They're 'In It To Win It'

    Last week, American Idol had one of its flattest weeks in a long time, so the show had a lot to prove for its trip to the cinema this week. Luckily for the contestants of the Top 11, they nailed it. Even the bad performances weren't so bad, and there were some truly breakthrough performances. In a season where a lot of the singers surfacely only seem OK, this week, they proved they're "in it to win it" (as Harry Connick Jr. would say).

  • 'American Idol' Season 13 Recap: Top 12 Go 'Home'

    It's the second week of live shows on American Idol, and to further get fans to know the contestants, producers picked the theme of "Home," which basically means the singers can choose anything they have a vocal connection to.
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