Like his buddy Reverend Horton Heat or his inspiration Jerry Lee Lewis, Colonel J.D. Wilkes is pure showman (and he’s no more military than Heat is clergy). Wilkes leads the Shack Shakers through similar intersections of blues/rock/country/rockabilly, wielding the wheel like a man possessed. Holding on to the mic stand…
Through the Eyes of the Dead will sneak up from behind to snap its enemy’s neck. The South Carolina band blends ominous growling with sweet melodies, creating metal (with a touch of grind) that will get stuck in your head. Anthony Gunnels’ vocals express such agony that one can imagine…
Anyone who’s been subjected to Baha’i ska or Krishna punk can tell you that Christianity is not the problem with Christian rock — it’s the manipulation of secular music with religion. Reggae, on the other hand, is religious music in the first place, with a distinctly Judaic root. No surprise,…
Back in 2000, in the year of ye olde nü-metal, a fledgling Disturbed carried on one of metal’s oldest traditions: self-seriousness, bordering on self-parody. Rather than trying to be street like everybody else, singer Dave Draiman and flanks proffered master’s degrees and philosophical pomp. On the new Ten Thousand Fists,…
American Analog Set’s albums are kind of like sampling apple pies made by your mom, aunt, and grandmother. Sure, they don’t taste identical. Sure, Aunt Ruth uses too much salt. But in the end, it’s still just apple pie. AmAnSet’s multiple releases are pretty much just that — a decade’s…
Imagine it’s 1925 and you and your special lady or mister have decided to spend Friday night at the club. Onstage is a new female duet with a forward-thinking way of melding jazz, swing, tightly woven harmonies, and vaudeville-era musical theatre. There’s a tall drink o’ water on the mandolin…
Admittedly I’m a little bit behind on my Dave Matthews clones — once he quit the Blues Traveler harping of his earlier hits, I couldn’t even tell the DMB from Hootie. Then came that John Mayer guy who performed at the Grammys honoring James Taylor, mumbling his hit “Your Body…
Kool Keith is a hip-hop legend going back 20 years to rap’s early beginnings. The onetime Bellevue patient was a member of seminal Bronx group Ultramagnetic MCs before striking out on his own to forge some of the most outlandish rap characters in the pantheon — Doctor Octagon and his…
Barbez is a whirlwind of Old World energy, a picture postcard suffused with smoky moods and late-night cabaret. Like Gogol Bordello getting a makeover from the Dresden Dolls, Barbez mixes Eastern European folk styles from gypsy to klezmer with a Weimar/Kurt Weill fascination, and flavors the sound with a theremin…
On July 27, Kris Johnson — one of the founders of Bad Stain Records — was leaving O’Brien’s (35th Avenue and Northern) when he was approached by two teenage assailants, a male and a female. Johnson didn’t know these people — had never seen them before — yet without exchanging…
While receiving high accolades for her quick-fingered guitar work, Brazil’s Badi Assad is equally dangerous behind the microphone. This reigning bossa queen has been applauded heavily on the classical circuit for an innate ability to sidestep styles with mercurial lightness. With a penchant for jazz and traditional soundscapes, Verde is…
Against Me! never ceases to amaze. Searching for a Former Clarity has songs for everyone, while still being the album longtime fans would want to hear. The disc kicks off with a long guitar intro in “Miami,” which is the standard Against Me! song with throaty, gritty vocals over a…
Between the Buried and Me has solidified its technical metal sound with its new disc, Alaska. It starts off with thick bass lines and quirky guitar riffs on “All Bodies,” which sets the tone for the rest of the album. Also, it’s where we get our first taste of vocalist…
Phoenix eating and drinking establishment The Hidden House (607 West Osborn Road) has been making waves in the DJ scene lately, offering up beats several nights of the week. Among its notable offerings is Foreign Affair, a downtempo rhythm celebration that goes down every Monday night. DJs Delikacy and Xtra…
Oh, gracious. These days, hard rock is a most denigrated genre of music, is it not? With all those Mudvaynes and Slipknots besmirching the landscape, how can any self-respecting individual bang his head without feeling a wee bit peevish? Luckily, the clouds occasionally part for such honorable acts as Monday’s…
After a two-year absence, Broadcast returns with Tender Buttons, a searing, minimalist pop record. Seeing how the band has gone from six members to two, Buttons’ theme of “letting go” makes sense. Vocalist Trish Keenan and her only remaining bandmate, James Cargill, have toyed with the Broadcast concept a bit,…
The seventeen tracks on this CD/DVD combo — combining the 1995 best-of comp Eternal E with all his videos and a new track by his son, Lil E — are charmingly clunky things by today’s standards, all teeth-chattering 808 beats clashing with the sound of things being slapped, rattled, and…
Modern Machines are hardly the first young band to take early Replacements’ drunk-punk and stumble with it. But while so many others have gotten the fucking-around part down pat, this Milwaukee quartet captures the melody and muscle as well. At eight tracks, Taco Blessing is more densely packed with lilting…
1. Kanye West, Late Registration (Roc-a-Fella) 2. Death Cab for Cutie, Plans (Atlantic) 3. Against Me!, Searching for a Former Clarity (Fat Wreck Chords) 4. Between the Buried and Me, Alaska (Victory) 5. Dane Cook, Retaliation (Comedy Central) 6. From Autumn to Ashes, Abandon Your Friends (Vagrant) 7. Common, Be…
Major labels haven’t had a lot of success marketing singer-songwriters (unless they sound like Dave Matthews), and given that their target audience isn’t advertisers’ favored demographic (18 to 25), it might be questioned how much interest they can generate. Duncan Sheik produced the enormous hit “Barely Breathing” (which sounds a…
While it burst from the same U.K. post-punk explosion that produced other such earnest and humorless flag wavers as U2 and The Alarm, New Model Army’s continued to mine the battlefield long after the former dropped politics for messianic introspection and the latter proved to be just an excuse to…
The Posies loved Big Star so much that they became the band. Front men Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer became the backing for Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens when they reunited Big Star for the first time in 1993, and have just finished a new Big Star album with them…
