Golden is the most modest indie supergroup imaginable. The band sports an impressive underground pedigree. Alex Minoff, who splits singing and guitar-playing duties with Ian Eagleson, has logged time in Six Finger Satellite and the Make Up; drummer Jon Theodore has worked with Royal Trux, Palace and Mars Volta; and…
“‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down’? Quite a loony selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates!” Christopher Lloyd uttered those lines to said bunch of drunken reprobates as he ripped the gramophone needle off a 78 in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He was referring to that merry melody that launched a thousand…
At one point in its history, it was entirely possible that Imperial Teen would forever be associated with Rose McGowan and her deadly confection, given the fact that the band is best known for contributing the creepy, stalkerish “Yoo-Hoo” to the soundtrack of the 1999 film Jawbreaker. The fact that…
Anyone who wants proof of the sorry state of mainstream country music need only look at the struggling career of 30-year-old Allison Moorer, who by all rights should be a major star by now. The Alabama-born singer and songwriter made a big splash in 1998, when her heartfelt ballad “A…
Perhaps the truest line ever written about Bruce Springsteen appeared in Village Voice scribe Robert Christgau’s 1975 review of Born to Run: “Springsteen may well turn out to be one of those rare self-conscious primitives who gets away with it.” As Christgau implies, Springsteen isn’t the sort of fellow who…
It used to be that people struggled to place Sonic Youth’s music within some kind of context. Was it avant-garde improv or pop-culture pastiche? Was it fueled by theoretical abstraction or punk-rock impulse? Self-indulgence or self-negation? Now that Sonic Youth has become a bona fide institution, the band has lapsed…
Salesman’s Girl was never supposed to happen. If everything had gone according to plan, Laura Minor would still be tucked away in a Floridian ivory tower, working on her doctorate in poetry. But shortly after moving to Gainesville to start her Ph.D. program, Minor had a fateful run-in with local…
The hype surrounding RJD2’s debut release, Dead Ringer, is building quickly. Among hip-hop heads, the album already has a next-big-thing glow to it. But this review should really be for non-hip-hop circles: those of us who like hip-hop and who own a few key albums here and there, but who…
Yes, it’s a tired cliché, but the guys of Guster really do march to the beat of a different drummer . . . and that drummer plays the bongos. In a markedly successful “college try,” the band released its first two albums independently, the first while all three members were…
Now it’s official: America loves its morose anniversary celebrations. Whatever the cursed event may be — the Kennedy assassination, the death of Elvis, the Oklahoma City bombing, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey or the release of Invincible, we’ve come to expect a somber annual reminder and the corresponding media hoopla…
“There was one fight called Soup vs. Sandwich.’ Basically like a can of soup fighting this sandwich, essentially. A totally weird, weird sporting event.” John Schmersal, creator of Enon, is talking about a show his band played in Boston a few months back. They opened for something known as the…
Here’s a dating tip for every guy surfing Amor@AOL for a hot Latina mujer. If, after “musica favorita,” she lists, simply, “salsa,” there are three hard and fast commandments you must absolutely heed, lest you risk settling for yet another night alone with your Paulina Rubio CD cover. Number one:…
Back in the early ’80s, the Jesus and Mary Chain set the pace for the über-cool, guitar-heavy British indie scene with a series of confrontationally shambolic singles, including the classics “Upside Down” and “Never Understand.” The ever-contentious Scottish siblings Jim and William Reid articulated the beauty of guitar feedback in…
At just under an hour, The Osbourne Family Album manages to pay tribute to Ozzy while giving a boost to Jack and Kelly Osbourne’s burgeoning music-biz gigs (dour Dillusion, whom talent scout Jack has been developing for Epic, appears here for that reason alone, and Kelly previews her forthcoming debut…
1960s London swings again in the playground of British vocalist/pop-culturist Angie Tillett and her production team at Terminal Electric Works, who have released their sophomore album under the name Death by Chocolate. This swirl of pop art builds sandcastles on obscure ’60s covers, throwing around fragmentary cultural references and instrumentals…
After putting one over on the public — by which I mean the fanatical hundreds who keep up with Damon Albarn’s digital circle jerks — the Blur front man, Dan Nakamura, Jaime Hewlett and everyone else collecting royalties three albums in for one album’s worth of real, ahem, work return…
With all due respect to Cher, it’s Cyndi Lauper who should receive top billing on the pair’s current tour of America. Sure, it’s been more than 15 years since Lauper’s classic debut, She’s So Unusual, made her a star of the pop charts and the MTV generation. It’s now nearly…
The classic American movie Giant is an epic about a Texas cattle baron, Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), his wife (Elizabeth Taylor) and his family. The film, released in 1956, also features the late James Dean and is riddled with clunky foreshadowing, not least of which is a scene in which…
I have this great idea for a reality television show. Here’s what we do: We round up every single exec, producer, consultant, show doctor, set designer, snotty host, vampiric talent scout, PR monkey and anyone else who had a hand in creating Pop Stars, Making the Band and American Idol,…
Earlier this year, Tony Hajjar was in Vancouver, recording a new album with his band, which is both exactly where he should have been and not where you’d expect. Let’s back up. In 2000, At the Drive-In, an El Paso quintet featuring Hajjar on drums, released Relationship of Command, the…
The word “mature” keeps cropping up in positive reviews of this disc —mature songwriting, mature arrangements, mature subject matter, mature performances — and such references are apt. Unfortunately, maturity isn’t the most scintillating quality: It doesn’t quicken the pulse or trigger the endorphins, and can easily slide into less laudable…
One of the less constructive myths to come from our recent Age of Self-Esteem is that anyone anywhere can be a genius, given the appropriate care and feeding of his or her tender muse. Bullshit. As the Pixies proved, genius is born like Athena, fully grown from the head of…
