Music

The criterion for this list was simple: Only the hardest, heaviest metal albums were considered. Bands that play a hybrid style of metal that is not thrash, speed, death, black metal, hardcore, grindcore, or some amalgamation thereof were not included. What follows is pure effin’ metal. Bang your head off…

Now is a bad time to be a giant music corporation, but ethically challenged music fans couldn’t ask for better days. Bootlegging has always been about catering directly to the fans, and the Internet breeds the best bootleggers yet: bigger and stronger and faster than ever before, the better to…

For nearly a decade, the giants of electronic dance music, a cold-blooded cadre mostly from northern Europe, lumbered across the Earth. Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, Seb Fontaine, Judge Jules, and Fatboy Slim dominated small suburban dance floors and Ibizan caverns alike with crafty disco assembled from chest-rattling bass…

Clearly, nobody needs a primer on indie rock. We all have our own idea of what it is, right? Nonetheless, why is it that so few of us can agree on who deserves such a designation? Fact is, attempting to define indie rock universally is as futile a task as…

Hey, dude. So here’s my mix tape that’s been 12 months in the making. Sorry it’s taken a while, but reality often moves at the same molten pace as a couple of the bands culled here. While the new folksters get accolades for their freaky psychedelic tendencies, there’re plenty of…

Another year, another wave of quirky British bands pouring into the States. It’s got all the makings of a new British Invasion. Well, except for one thing — the invasion. For every Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand that succeeds in North America, there are dozens more that barely make it…

Recordings of DJ mixes have been multiplying like e-mail spam over the past decade. The sheer volume of said releases is overwhelming, and it makes one wonder: Who the hell is buying them? There must be a demand if labels keep issuing the things as if the music industry has…

Latin/Anglo Crossover is what Latin American artists have always dreamed of and what American artists are starting to realize they need to pull big sales numbers out of a shrinking market. Crossover success means jackpots in both concert tickets and CD sales, so expanding a fan base across genres, countries…

The Nashville way of making music is unlike any other, comparable only to the studio system of Hollywood’s golden age — a closed system of songwriters, producers, record labels and artists that creates most of the sounds you don’t want to admit you listen to on the radio when no…

the Brothers Bell Today I’m talking with brothers Mike and Jared Bell, aka the Lymbyc Systym. The duo’s on the verge of releasing its first LP for Mush Records, already home to avant-weirdos and ethereal experimentation from artists like Clouddead, Her Space Holiday, Aesop Rock and more. The LP, which…

The Three Adams I’m actually pretty relieved that ’06 is in the books now; it was a pain in the ass year that I spent with a pain in the ass girl (who’s history as well) and I’d just as soon pretend it didn’t happen. In celebration of its ending,…

deep fried squid For the last couple of months – since this blog began, really – I’ve been harassing my fellow hard-drinker Tony Patino of Attack of the Giant Squid to leak me some preview tracks from the as-yet-untitled album the band’s been working on. If you don’t know, the…

Luke & Danny of North Side Kings I spent last night listening to the punk rock go down at BANNED in Tempe!, listening to DJ’s Alvin, Nate Dogg and Cro-Mag throw down the dope shit at the Stray Cat (which you’ll be able to read more about in my column…

Parents, be warned! Children, watch out! A new scourge sweeping through the country threatens to seduce innocent music fans into a life of crime! It starts with something as simple as a catchy new pop song, and it ends in federal prison with a forced sodomy nightcap. This slippery slope…

The babies were wearing scuba gear, and levitating above all the houses in the neighborhood. And when Christopher Pomerenke woke up, he wrote a song about the surreal scene from his subconscious, called “Throw Your Babies.” The tune serves as the leadoff track for I Know What It’s Like to…

To the best of drummer Victor DeLorenzo’s recollection, when the Violent Femmes unleashed their own peculiar strain of punk-inspired folk on the Milwaukee club scene of the early ’80s, people generally thought they were “demented.” “They didn’t understand how anyone would think that other people would want to see some…

If any good can be said to have come of what Elvis Costello refers to here as “a fearsome chain of events started out by a mean-tempered woman called Katrina and ably assisted by some nincompoops and incompetents,” you could start with Costello’s rekindled relationship with American R&B royalty Allen…

Watching the members of Cream retrace their steps, from Eric Clapton talking Ginger Baker into letting Jack Bruce join the band in 1966 to their acclaimed reunion in 2005, you have to wonder how they made it through a conversation, let alone two years of constant tours and classic albums…

Imitation is most definitely the sincerest form of flattery. For a perfect example, look no further than local ska group The 2 Tone Lizard Kings. The eight-member outfit, which has been a regular at joints like Alice Cooper’stown, covers a slew of ska classics in its raucous repertoire, including throwbacks…