Table of contents for Jan-29-15 in Rolling Stone

1. Kanye West feat. Paul McCartney “Only One” West was jamming with McCartney in L.A. when they hit upon this tender ballad. Sir Paul plays warm keyboard chords while Yeezy pays tribute to his late mother, his baby daughter ... and himself. We can’t wait to hear the other tracks this superduo made. 2. Belle and Sebastian “The Cat With the Cream” Belle and Sebastian’s new album is full of synth-pop grooves, but it’s also got this sweet, wistful dreamer. It’s perfectly lovely. 3. Fall Out Boy “Irresistible” This standout cut from the onceand-future rock stars’ new album is full-on insane, in the best way possible: Patrick Stump howls about a bad romance over amped guitars, bombastic horns and lots more. 4. Diet Cig “Scene Sick” Straight out of upstate…

COMEDY IT’S FOUR WEEKS BEFORE LARRY Wilmore’s The Nightly Show takes over Stephen Colbert’s old 11:30 p.m. time slot on Comedy Central, and the 53-year-old comedian is at home in California trying to mentally prepare for the task in front of him. “I’m drawing X’s on my wall like a prisoner,” he says. “It’s a combination of anticipation, panic dreams and just laughing about it, because there’s nothing I can do right now. Jon Stewart tells me I have no idea what I’m in for.” Wilmore certainly has enough experience. Raised in Los Angeles, he has comedy roots that go back to the Eighties, and he’s worked on everything from In Living Color to The Bernie Mac Show to The Office. In 2006, he began a long stint as the…

SPORTS The 1980 Olympic hockey game between the USSR and the United States – forever remembered as “the Miracle on Ice” – is one of America’s most cherished sports moments, an example of scrappy college kids besting Communist “robots.” But Red Army, a new film about the history of Soviet hockey, shows how off the mark that cliché is. Far from automatons, the dominant Russian teams of the Seventies and Eighties played a freewheeling, elegant style all their own. “Under conditions that seemed to be killing the spirit of the Russian people,” says director Gabe Polsky, “the hockey players were able to express a huge amount of creativity on the ice.” Polsky, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, played hockey at Yale and fell in love with the Soviet team watching…

New Order were born from abrupt change, forming in the aftermath of Ian Curtis’ 1980 death and the end of Joy Division. Now, 35 years later, the New Wave stars are working on a new album in the wake of a less tragic but still significant crisis: It’s their first full-length since founding bassist Peter Hook left the band in 2007, and their first with Bad Lieutenant’s Tom Chapman taking his place. Lead singer Bernard Sumner says the band began writing songs last winter. “It’s rainy and cold and wet and dark,” he says. “It’s a good time to write lyrics.” They’ve recorded a pair of songs, called “Plastic” and “Restless,” at Sumner’s home studio and drummer Stephen Morris’ studio. The band hopes to complete the album in time for…

ROCK SCULLY WOULD ALWAYS RECALL the time he saw the Grateful Dead at an Acid Test in San Francisco in late 1965. “It was sloppy as hell, and Jerry [Garcia] was just learning the electric guitar,” Scully said in 2012. “But he was doing stuff that was really great.” Scully – who died of lung cancer on December 16th in Monterey, California, at age 73 – was so intrigued that he soon became one of the band’s two original managers. In that role, Scully – born in Seattle and partly schooled in Europe – played a pivotal role in the band’s development. The charismatic manager helped arrange the Dead’s first rec ord deal, with Warner Bros., complete with an extraordinary clause for unlimited studio time. And he knew how to…

SHORT TAKE Empire Wednesdays, 9 p.m., Fox Money, power and respect? Empire is a hip-hop soap opera that has it all. Terrence Howard is the excellently named record-label mogul Lucious Lyon, who gets diagnosed with a terminal disease and decides he must leave his Empire Entertainment to one of his three sons. But which one? The social-climbing preppie Andre, the gay songwriter Jamal or the thugged-out rapper Hakeem? Oh, and their mama? Surprise! She just got out of jail after a 17-year bid for the drug-dealing that secretly funded the whole label. Fearsome matriarch Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) wants her piece of the pie, which cranks up the problems-to-money ratio. Creators Lee Daniels (The Butler) and Danny Strong (who decked Roger Sterling on Mad Men) pile on the family melodrama,…

Madonna “Unapologetic Bitch” Bitch, she’s Madonna. The queen of queens has given a taste of her upcoming album, Rebel Heart, with a few songs dropped in advance after an early leak of unfinished versions. And the girl’s in a feisty mood these days – Madonna writing herself a theme song called “Unapologetic Bitch” is like Springsteen doing one called “Jersey Guy Who Sweats a Lot.” These new songs range from the Nicki Minaj collabo “Bitch I’m Madonna” to the gospel-house pieties of “Living for Love” to the Yeezus-style industrial Kanye grind “Illuminati.” But “Unapologetic Bitch” is the standout: a breakup rant over a Diplo-produced dancehall groove, with Madonna shooting a few poison arrows into the heart of some dude who’s done her wrong. ROB SHEFFIELD 2 Chainz feat.…

‘No Flex Zone’ stars make a fantastic, full-flex debut LP “Better run for cover!/Might run for governor!” Rae Sremmurd inform us on their debut. By the time the words leave your speakers, you’re ready to make a campaign contribution. This brother duo from Elvis Presley’s hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, radiate an inescapable exuberance, shouting with the zeal of freshly minted stars as they build off the joyous bounce of last year’s hits “No Flex Zone” and “No Type.” Producer Mike Will Made It’s phantasmagoric funk is a perfect backdrop for rhymes about safe sex and paychecks, emptying out the ATM, and the raw thrill of making it big: “Tokyo drift through the hills/Used to have to walk, no wheels.” This feels more like flying.…

Scottish indie-pop vets go to the club, stretch a little too far “Jump! To the beat of a party line,” Stuart Murdoch sings over Pet Shop Boys-ish synths on the lead single from Belle and Sebastian’s ninth LP. Like many songs here, “The Party Line” pairs vaguely political lyrics with vaguely clubby music – an unusual combination for this band, and one that doesn’t always work. (See the gimmicky EDM-lite track called “Enter Sylvia Plath.”) Thankfully, there are also a handful of inventive standouts like “The Book of You,” where B&S shape electronic music around their strengths, rather than vice versa. Stick it out to the last few tracks and you’ll hear the band’s familiar marvels in a bright new light.…

Rihanna’s ‘Stay’ co-star makes a middling solo debut Louisiana-born pop savant Mikky Ekko, a.k.a. John Stephen Sudduth, had a hell of a breakout with Rihanna’s “Stay,” the 2012 megahit he co-wrote and co-sang. Ekko’s debut solo LP similarly informs grand pop drama with indie idiosyncrasy – but never quite enough to distinguish it, his stirring tenor notwithstanding. The best moments are with “Stay” collaborator Elof Loelv: the fatalistically chipper single “Smile” and the necromantic “Mourning Doves,” which suggests a Sam Smith/Trent Reznor co-write. Elsewhere, the scale feels off : The gigantic melody of “Watch Me Rise,” for instance, deserves a voice more like Beyoncé’s. Then again, given Ekko’s track record, it may well end up getting one.…

Stoner Genius GREAT WAY TO END THE year – with the brilliant I’llsay-and-write-anything stoner king Seth Rogen on the cover [“Seth Rogen at the Crossroads,” RS 1224/1225]. I’ve followed Rogen since Freaks and Geeks and revere him for his fearlessness and humanity. Might be a Canadian thing. Sasha Royce, via the Internet JOSH EELLS WROTE A VERY funny, smart piece about a very funny, smart guy. The Interview aside, when’s Sausage Party coming out? For Sacha Baron Cohen to call a movie the craziest thing he’s ever seen catapults it to the top of my list. Ed Christianson Via the Internet THOUGH I’VE LAUGHED through many of Rogen’s movies and believe wholeheartedly in freedom of expression, I really have to wonder who OK’d a comedy about the assassination of a…

OLD Madonna “Everybody” Bedtime Stories-era Madonna is my favorite, but this is obviously classic. This song would be really fun to do at karaoke. Led Zeppelin “Thank You” I always quote-unquote hated Led Zeppelin. But last year I listened to their whole catalog, and the ballads like this are what really got me into them. NEW Nicki Minaj feat. Jessie Ware “The Crying Game” The Pinkprint was my favorite record of 2014. I love how honest and real she’s being on this song. And if she needs another indie-style singer on her next record, I’m down! Ed Sheeran “Don’t” I’ve heard this a million times, but I had no idea it was by Ed Sheeran. It feels like it could be almost anyone. Miguel “Coffee” This song makes me feel…

APPLE The world’s biggest music store just made it harder for racist rock bands to spread their message. Following a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which named 54 groups it claimed promoted racist agendas, iTunes has removed albums by the English neo-Nazi punk band Skrewdriver, U.S. skinheads Max Resist and dozens of other bands. “Hate music has been a significant source of income for hate groups and an even more significant source of recruitment, particularly among youths,” says SPLC research analyst Keegan Hankes. It’s rare for Apple to remove music from iTunes. In 2013, the company took down a parody song called “Zayn Did 9/11,” about One Direction member Zayn Malik, and in 2008 it removed two LPs by neo-Nazi artists. Neither Spotify nor Amazon has pulled music…

PROFILE ‘NONVIOLENCE IS PRETTY ballsy, pretty advanced weaponry,” says Ava DuVernay. The director of Selma is sitting in a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood talking about her universally acclaimed film, Martin Luther King Jr. and the legacy of the civil rights movement. “You talk to people about King now and they only know ‘I have a dream’ and he believed in peace and he died. Really? That’s what he’s been reduced to?” Selma, which stars David Oyelowo as King, is the antidote to that shallow sense of the civil rights leader’s life – a gripping film about the 1965 protests in Selma, Alabama, led by King, that were instrumental in forcing passage of the Voting Rights Act. Du-Vernay is widely expected to make history this year as the first black…

CLASSIC ALBUMS UNLESS ROY BITTAN CURES cancer or cracks cold fusion before he dies, his obituary is likely to focus on his four decades as the piano player in the E Street Band. He’s so integral to Bruce Springsteen’s sound, he even survived after Springsteen fired the rest of the band in 1989. But Bittan has also had an impressive career as a session musician on some of rock’s biggest albums. On the heels of his first solo LP, Out of the Box, he looks back on his work outside his legendary main gig. David Bowie, Station to Station 1976 I was staying at the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles when we were on the Born to Run tour. David knew we were coming to town, and he wanted a…

PODCASTS CRIMINAL Serial subreddit addicts will love this monthly podcast dedicated to stand-alone (and often bizarre) truecrime stories. Warning: Don’t expect closure here, either. Download This Episode: “Dropping Like Flies,” a fascinating look at Venus’-flytrap poaching in North Carolina. INVISIBILIA A new NPR show on the secrets of human behavior, made by veterans of This American Life and Radiolab. Download This Episode: The pilot is all about dark thoughts – like “an otherwise normal guy who suddenly can’t stop thinking about murdering his wife” dark thoughts. REPLY ALL A show that revels in the weirdness of the Internet, courtesy of Alex Blumberg’s Gimlet Media startup. Download This Episode: “We Know What You Did,” about the guy who invented the pop-up ad. For what it’s worth, he’s really,…

Q&A ABOUT A YEAR AGO, NICK JONAS HIT a dead end. The Jonas Brothers’ days as purity-ring-rocking boyband kings were long over, and the sibling trio had canceled a planned reunion tour and album in the face of low demand. “There were a couple of months of sitting around and doing nothing,” says the singer, 22. “Then I woke up one morning and I thought, ‘This is not my life. I’m going to go work that much harder.’ ” His relaunch as a solo artist worked: Jonas’ ultracatchy single “Jealous” is a Top 10 smash, he’s dating former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo, and his half-naked photo shoots have turned him into a grown-up sex symbol. “It’s really bizarre, to be honest,” says Jonas. “I’ve never had a song like ‘Jealous.’…

SK8R BIEB Justin Bieber was driving around New York when he decided to pull over next to Madison Square Garden and show off some skate tricks. Sadly, he broke his foot playing soccer a few days later. Next up: He’s working on his first album since 2013, expected later this year. Beat Buddies EDM superfriends Diplo and Skrillex watched the L.A. Clippers defeat the Golden State Warriors on Christmas. (They also got a giant cutout of Clippers star Chris Paul.) The pair spent New Year’s together, too, rocking Madison Square Garden with five hours of bass drops. “Best NYE of all time,” Diplo tweeted. SEALED WITH A KISS Sam Smith drew fire from animal-rights activists when he visited Sea World in Australia. “Sea World Australia and SeaWorld America are very…

STEVIE NICKS GOT TO SLEEP AT HOME last night for once, her skinny, half-blind, half-hairless 16-year-old dog, Sulamith, snuggling at her feet, in a four-poster bed too tall for either of them. “I have to take, like, a running jump to get up there,” says Nicks, who, for all the potency of her presence, is five feet one without heels. She lives in an oceanside condo in Santa Monica, a “space pad” with floor-to-ceiling views of half of Los Angeles County. Her bedroom décor is spare: a Buddha statue on the polished hardwood floor, a vintage globe on a stand, a white stuffed rabbit perched on some pillows, a modest flatscreen, a rack of stage clothes in the corner that serves as the only reminder that she’s actually still on…

MARCUS WANNER NEEDED A LITTLE ADVENTURE IN his life. A skinny 15-year-old brainiac with wire-frame glasses and wavy brown hair, he was the eldest of five, home-schooled by their mother, a devout Catholic, near Roanoke, Virginia. Shuttling Marcus between home, church and the Boy Scouts seemed like the best way to keep him away from trouble (and girls). “I missed out on a lot,” he recalls with a sigh. “I didn’t get out much.” ¶ Though Marcus was gifted with computers, his mom and dad, an electrical engineer, also locked him down online. He couldn’t send an e-mail or register on a website without their permission. To make sure he was abiding, he was restricted to the living-room computer, which they could see. “It was the Big Brother-eye-over-the-shoulder thing,” he…

An all-star funk summit with Stevie Wonder and more Superproducer Mark Ronson first branded himself via Sixties pop-soul flavors with Amy Winehouse. This LP moves on to Seventies and Eighties funk, with more sharp casting: Stevie Wonder off ers a harmonica benediction alongside session guitarists Carlos Alomar (David Bowie) and the late Teenie Hodges (Al Green); Kanye point man Jeff Bhasker rocks verses by novelist Michael Chabon; and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker morphs from psych-rocker to space-funker. The magic is in the details. Mystikal conjures James Brown on “Feel Right,” and Bruno Mars animates a Minneapolis groove with EDM builds on “Uptown Funk.” It could even teach Prince a trick or two.…

Malian musicians (plus Eno) revisit minimalist landmark Originally conceived on a stoned bus ride in San Francisco in 1964, composer Terry Riley’s groundbreaking In C drew on John Cage, modal jazz and the repetitive structures of African music. It went on to become a minimalist touchstone whose influence stretches from the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” to Berlin techno. Now In C travels to Africa itself, with an ensemble of 12 West African musicians (plus special guests Damon Albarn, Brian Eno and Nick Zinner) putting an ebullient spin on the old rhythms. Kalimbas and koras pulse throughout, but with surprising solo turns, a gentle middle section and a spoken vocal, this is proof that In C remains spry as ever at 50-plus.…

Nineties-loving young MC turns in a passionate, clever debut Brooklyn’s Joey Bada$$ made his name with a couple of mixtapes released while he was still in his teens, trading on classic boom-bap New York rap. His official debut LP still sounds like it’s stuck in the past, with solid production from oldschool legend DJ Premier and his latter-day disciple Statik Selektah. But tracks like “Piece of Mind,” about the day-to-day struggle of being a black youth, explore fresh lyrical ideas, and Joey’s impassioned delivery excels. Once he gets in his zone, he never slips up: “I could’ve been stealing your purse/Or just been putting in work/And leaving niggas in the dirt,” he raps on “Curry Chicken.” “But ever since birth/I knew I would be something on this Earth.”…

Nu-metal survivors rage, whine and mope like it’s Y2K Like Dorian Gray with a blowout, nu-metal holdovers Papa Roach have made their latest album sound like an eerie time capsule from the early 2000s. Between the airy synth breakdowns copped from old Linkin Park LPs on songs like “Face Everything and Rise” and “Never Have to Say Goodbye” to woe-is-me lyrics like “all that’s left is the emptiness inside of me,” on “Broken as Me,” the band thoroughly revels in its arrested development. Singer Jacoby Shaddix even raps a humble-brag about getting past the “money, the fame, the booze, the girls” on the pity party “Gravity.” Somebody please tell him that, though his band may still be on the charts, MTV has canceled TRL.…

In RS 1224/1225, contributing editor Je_ Goodell reported on the historic agreement between the U.S. and China to signifi-cantly cap and reduce carbon emissions [“The Secret Deal to Save the Planet”]. With game-changing U.N. climate talks in Paris scheduled for later this year, many hope the U.S.-China deal is just the beginning of serious climate commitments worldwide. RS readers shared their thoughts. GOODELL’S PIECE GAVE ME hope that a lasting impact on climate can be made through international governance. It will be interesting to see whether the GOP’s 2016 presidential candidate will promise to break one of the biggest policy agreements in China-U.S. relations in recent history. Landon Knapp, Charleston, SC VERY INTERESTING READ, but I remain skeptical. I fear that in Paris, the U.S. and China will say they’ve…

MADONNA WAS IN AFrica in late November, visiting schools built by her Raising Malawi nonprofit, when the first leak hit the Web: 40 seconds of “Rebel Heart,” a defiant, dance-y track she had recently been working on. Three weeks later, the leak became a flood. Madonna was back in New York on December 17th, when fans started alerting her via Instagram that 13 demos recorded for her unfinished 13th album, also called Rebel Heart, had been illegally posted online and were spreading like wildfire. It was an unprecedented leak: Nearly a full album’s worth of work arrived four months before its planned April release date. “She was devastated,” the singer’s longtime manager Guy Oseary says. Madonna’s response was swift and dramatic: She decided she would complete six tracks and get…

BOOKS It’s a bite-size storybook with pretty pink covers and colorful illustrations, but don’t let that fool you. First Year Healthy, cartoonist Michael DeForge’s stunningly psychedelic new graphic novel, isn’t kid stuff . It chronicles a year in the life of a woman who’s just been released from the hospital for an undisclosed mental illness – and the giant magical cat that may or may not be killing people on her behalf. According to DeForge – a designer for the animated hit Adventure Time – the far-out concept came from someplace close to home. “I wanted to write about trauma and recovery, based on my own struggles with mental health,” he says. “Horror’s a pretty flexible genre. When you’re working with heightened emotions, that hysterical tone can seem more real…

Simon Rich, the showrunner for FXX’s new comedy Man Seeking Woman, recently turned 30 – but he’s already done more than some people twice his age. The youngest son of New York magazine writer-atlarge Frank Rich and brother of ROLLING STONE contributor Nathaniel Rich, he ran Harvard’s campus humor publication, The Lampoon, during college, then became one of the youngest writers in the history of Saturday Night Live. He went on to crank out two novels and four laugh-outloud-funny shortstory collections – one of which, 2013’s surreally romantic The Last Girlfriend on Earth, is the basis for his new show. “They’re some of the weirdest stories I’ve ever written,” says Rich. “But they’re also, bizarrely, the most personal.” Man Seeking Woman follows Josh Greenberg (played by Jay Baruchel) as he…

TRIBUTES EVERYONE HAS A FAVORITE STORY ABOUT JOE Cocker, who died of lung cancer in Colorado on December 22nd at age 70. Some are upbeat, like Paul McCartney’s memory of first hearing Cocker’s throat-shredding version of “With a Little Help From My Friends.” “It was just mind-blowing,” McCartney says. Others remember Cocker singing that song, with his trademark body-twitching moves, during his career-making set at Woodstock in 1969. “It was the first time anybody I knew had seen him, and he had so much soul power,” says Woodstock organizer Michael Lang. “It was one of those magical moments.” Other memories are tragic: In 1974, in one of many attempts at a comeback after various personal excesses had derailed his career, Cocker barely made it through a show at the Roxy…

TELEVISION Girls Sundays, 9 p.m., HBO satire returns for its fourth season, Hannah Horvath remains the same fumbling spaz she’s always been. Four years after graduating from college, she’s floundered her way into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which means now she has to actually sit down and write something. How does she handle the pressure? She doesn’t. “Everybody’s saying it’s such a gift, you know?” she complains. “To have all this time to write. But then how come the only thing I want to do is Google the one month where Woody Harrelson and Glenn Close were a couple?” Dunham’s often maddening, often preposterous, always divisive comedy had a particularly divisive third season. And that’s mostly because these girls just keep on repeating the same disasters and clinging to the…

WHEN THE FOSSIL-FUEL DIvestment movement first stirred on college campuses three years ago, you could almost hear Big Oil and Wall Street laughing. Crude prices were flirting with $100 a barrel, and domestic oil production, from Texas to North Dakota, was in the midst of a historic boom. But the quixotic campus campaign suddenly has the smell of smart money. One of the biggest names in the history of Big Oil – the Rockefellers – announced last September that they would be purging the portfolio of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund of “risky” oil investments. And that risk has been underscored by the sudden collapse of the oil market. After cresting at more than $107 in mid-June, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate dipped below $50 a barrel…

Marilyn Manson hones his dark magic for his best, most twisted alt-rock party in years Illustration by EDWARD KINSELLA Back in the Nineties, Marilyn Manson sold a lot of records and scared a lot of parents by playing Alice Cooper shockrocker at the goth pity party. With his Methy the Clown fashion sense, lyrics like “I am totalitarian/I’ve got abortions in my eyes” and industrialmetal sound, Manson terrorized Christian politicians and tasteful music fans alike. He hit his high point with the android glam of 1998’s Mechanical Animals, moaning, “We’re all stars now in the dope show,” over music that sounded like David Bowie being sucked down a trash compactor. But in the 2000s, the dope show got a little too dope even for him. It’s tough to be…

Bruce’s greatest official bootleg ever is full of fire and verve Imagine hearing Springsteen go from “Racing in the Street” into “Thunder Road” into “Jungleland” – and then he comes back out for the second half of the show. This epic Cleveland set is from August 9th, 1978, a highlight of the fabled Darkness tour, simulcast on local station WMMS. Springsteen burns through classics like “Rosalita” (with a snippet of the Village People’s “Macho Man”), castoff gems like “Fire” and covers from “Summertime Blues” to “Twist and Shout.” The peak is the 10-minute “Prove It All Night,” with the long, moody guitar-piano intro. This is simply the greatest live LP this greatest of live rockers has ever officially released.…

Pop-punk heroes continue their evolution toward noisy, no-holds-barred pop mania Fall Out Boy American Beauty/American Psycho Island Open an album with a horn fanfare? Repurpose Suzanne Vega’s beloved “Tom’s Diner” refrain? Sample Mötley Crüe? Anything officially goes for Fall Out Boy on their sixth album, the group’s biggest, broadest, most unabashed pop smorgasbord yet. The emo survivors jumpstarted their transformation into all-out omnivores on Save Rock and Roll, the 2013 LP that marked an end to their four-year hiatus, and they slam on the gas on this followup, which is daringly named after a classic Grateful Dead album and a Bret Easton Ellis novel. When everything connects – like on the single “Centuries” – FOB are a glorious nexus of Seventies glitter rock, Eighties radio pop, Nineties R&B and…

R&B star has trouble keeping the plot on uneven concept album With younger, fresher soulmen like Miguel, Frank Ocean and the Weeknd on the scene, Ne-Yo has been left grasping for relevance. In the intro to the deluxe edition of this sprawling album, he confusingly describes Non-Fiction as “complete fiction” about “real characters going through real things.” The music, sadly, can be just as tough to follow: Ne-Yo aimlessly veers from fist-pumping with David Guetta and Pitbull to pimpstrolling with Jeezy and Juicy J. His smoothest moves come when he channels longtime influence Michael Jackson (the Off the Wall groove of “Coming With You”) and Marvin Gaye (the I Want You seduction of “Integrity”). Some things never go out of style.…

The Decemberists’ first LP since 2011 ups the hooks and deepens the emotions The Decemberists What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World Capitol “O Philomena,” sings Colin Meloy on his band’s return after a fouryear hiatus – because Jills and Judys clearly don’t excite his quill like the polysyllabic hottie he implores to “open up your linen lap and let me go down.” With sultry ooh-wahs and chiming guitars, “Philomena” might be the catchiest cunnilingus tribute since Foxy Brown’s “Candy,” and it shows a band refreshed, enriching its trademark folk rock with Seventies pop plushness and hooks. It’s a good move for a crew whose lexically intoxicated smarty-pants instincts can get the best of it. “Cavalry Captain” flaunts bright Chicago IX brass and backing vocals à la the…

Cult folk-rock crew captures the wild fun of its concerts Philadelphia six-piece Dr. Dog have amassed a jam-bandlike cult following that can be confusing if you’ve only heard their seven albums. In the studio, they’re a competent crew of Beatles disciples who cut straightforward, surfy folk rock. Their live shows, on the other hand, are full of electric enthusiasm and sharp proficiency that illuminates how they became so well-loved. Cut during a 20-show stretch last year, Live at a Flamingo Hotel (any Flamingo Hotel will do, apparently) has 19 swaggering, giddy takes of fan favorites like their better-than-the-original Architecture in Helsinki cover “Heart It Races.” Check it out and the idea of following them on tour will suddenly seem totally reasonable.…