If you think you know a singer-songwriter and want to be sure before you buy him a beer, check these qualifiers courtesy of Wikipedia: must “write, compose and sing their own material,” “appear primarily at house concerts, coffee houses, folk clubs and festivals,” and be “better known for their meaningful…
The good folks at the Anti label sure know how to pick ’em. But while labelmate and fellow flame-haired vixen Neko Case gets all the attention from horndog rock writers the world over (“She can sing and I’d do ‘er!”), the enigmatic, sometimes disturbingly intense Jolie Holland threatens to slip…
Comets on Fire guitarist Ben Chasny’s Six Organs of Admittance solo project has never been breezy or light; it’s more of a forum to explore experimental, psychedelic textures. Even still, his second Drag City album, The Sun Awakens, manages to take his trademark Robbie Basho-inspired acoustic plucks and manic free…
Though somewhat overlooked over the years because of similar yet much-hyped scenes to its south — primarily in New York City and Washington, D.C. — Boston hardcore boasts a solid history of no-bullshit, no-holds-barred thrash-punk and some killer hometown heroes, including Gang Green, SSD, and Impact Unit (Mighty Mighty Bosstones…
Kinda jammy, kinda classic-rock and kinda alt-country, Steel Train has nevertheless found itself lumped in with its more age-appropriate post-punk and emo counterparts. Sure, the band’s on Drive-Thru Records and sings about, like, feelings and stuff, but it also contemplates the relationships between fathers and sons, sympathizes with alley cats,…
Vader may be the biggest-selling death-metal band ever to crawl out of Poland — and the first behind-the-Iron Curtain band to sign a Western record deal — but that’s obviously not saying much. Vader does, however, deserve some small recognition, if only for tenacity. From their 1990 demo, Morbid Reich,…
Be Your Own Pet doesn’t play punk rock like your random lipstick-wearing MTV pinups, or your pop-punk-happy jokesters, or even your serious-as-cancer anarchists. This Nashville, Tennessee, trio kicks out the raucously inebriated jams in the spirit of ’77 with style. Only a year or two removed from high school, singer…
What with all the Brian Jonestown mass o’ curs barking around MySpace these days, getting all aflutter about a new “psych-rock” band is a task. Mainly ’cause most of these swirlers make it sound like a task, twisting the reverb button to “obvious” and pretending they’re not jam bands. Enter…
Since its early days as a duet comprising Bob Weir and self-styled acoustic bassist Rob Wasserman, Ratdog has experienced its share of musical evolution and personnel shuffling. Counting late Chuck Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson and members of San Francisco’s jazz-based Charlie Hunter Trio among its alumni, the group morphed from…
To say that DJs Senbad and Pete “Supermix” Salaz have been around the block in the ‘Nix is a freakin’ understatement. Salaz just celebrated his 20th year DJing, after starting out with local legend Eddie Amador back in 1986. The self-proclaimed “house music souldier” and partner Senbad have been rocking…
Thursday 22 Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Red (hip-hop, dance) AZ 88: Mr. P-Body (synth pop, electro) The Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Club Central: DJs Ernie G. (hip-hop, R&B) & Luis (salsa, merengue) The Door: DJ J Nasty (hip-hop, Motown, Top 40) E-Lounge: DJ Adrian (hip-hop) Harley’s 2303: DJ Juan (progressive…
There are a lot of odd and brow-furrowing ways to make it as an artist in the music business, from American Idol and its imitators to battles of the bands like the Bodog Battle of the Bands that the gambling Web site www.bodog.com’s founder Calvin Ayre is sponsoring. (It’s online…
She’s been branded everything from tortured and bruised to moody and difficult, but right now, Fiona Apple just has a case of the sniffles. Talking on the phone from her Venice, California, home, the much-praised, much-embattled singer/songwriter/pianist is lying low, preparing to embark on the biggest concert tour of her…
The two years since The Walkmen released their critically hailed second album, Bows + Arrows? Pure joy. The New York City band enjoyed every bit of a lengthy world tour, and along the way, the five members — singer-guitarist Hamilton Leithauser, guitarist Paul Maroon, bassist Walter Martin, drummer Matt Barrick,…
Steve Albini, arguably the most influential and prolific recording engineer in the history of “alternative” music, has left his sonic signature on more than a thousand albums, including the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa; PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me; Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile; Flogging Molly’s Swagger; and Nirvana’s In Utero. He’s…
The lousy CD cover to Knives in the Attic’s 5 song EP, Death Pop, does it a great disservice. Sure, the blood-spattered, knifed teddy bear doodle fits the angst/death-obsessed lyrics, but it comes off amateurish. And this is a band that should be in the midst of a bidding war,…
This furious five-piece came kicking out of Denton, Texas, five years ago as a rock-’em-sock-’em reaction to their burg’s then-burgeoning prog-emo scene (see At the Drive-In). Despite some Fugazi guitar chops similar to their Denton peers, the Gamblers’ preference was to rock out like the MC5. Endless touring and label-hopping…
If you thought that The Stills were initially lumped into the same scene as Interpol and the Walkmen because of timing rather than musical similarities, the quintet cements that notion on Without Feathers. More Radiohead than Rapture, Feathers finds the Montreal band more interested in creating expansive soundscapes than in…
Many notable artists shuffle off this mortal coil, only to endure the usual posthumous “previously unheard release” cash-in attempts. The superlative Personal File is far from that. File is a collection of voice-and-guitar-alone performances from 1973 to 1976 and the early ’80s found in storage at the House of Cash…
With a fearsome wheezing and creaking, the highly anticipated second installment of Ann Arbor, Michigan, producer Dabrye’s trilogy, Two/Three, sounds more like an infernal machine than the feel-good hit of the summer. Dabrye builds on the bleak, industrial sound scrapes of producers like the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA by adding somber…
“Thank you to members of the media for coming today. As press secretary for country-pop superstars Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood, I’d like to clear up two points of confusion before taking questions regarding the pair’s U.S. summer tour. First: In seeking to annul her four-month marriage to Chesney last…
Stanley Dural’s blend of styles — including (gasp!) pop — may have once raised hackles among aficionados of southwestern Louisiana accordion boogie, but it’s also an open door, for us non-purists, to the bright colors of zydeco, America’s most cheerful traditional music. Anyone who’s heard the swinging, bubbly style that…
