Before the pop punk wing took control of emo, the genre was influenced by the churning, contrapuntal guitar acrobatics of math rock and post-core vets such as Jawbox and Fugazi. In Braid, you can hear this uneasy clash of styles in songs such as “Never Will Come For Us” and…
Mark E. Smith: What a grouch. The grizzled limey bastard has already laid off two of the four musicians responsible for the creation of The Real New Fall LP, and is no doubt throwing the stink eye at the remaining pair. Historically, the dismissal is barely even a footnote. Smith…
When At the Drive-In, the greatest multiracial post-punk band ever from El Paso, Texas, broke up three years ago, half of its members formed Sparta and began ambling down a road from Over the Top Town to Well-Meaning Dullsville. Wiretap Scars, Sparta’s 2002 debut, was At the Drive-In with none…
After helping create the genre-busting Southern hip-hop that fellow Georgian pioneers OutKast would ride to superstardom, Goodie Mob’s third album, 1999’s World Party, sounded like a discouraging dead end. The content-free rhymes were poorly received and led to the departure of the Mob’s most formidable weapon, the crooning, keening rapper-singer…
If you’re still in mourning over the demise of the mighty Jesus Lizard (five years removed, I know I am) and, to a lesser degree, At the Drive-In, then let the frenetic post-punk roar of Seattle’s These Arms Are Snakes salve some of those wounds. Like the former, these guys…
The voice that launched a thousand careers (from ATB to Paula Cole and dozens of other imitators), Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLachlan took “Possession” of the female singer/songwriter crown in 1993 with her third album, the multi-platinum Fumbling Toward Ecstasy. One can hardly blame her that so many less talented…
For pop acts John Mayer and Maroon 5, touring together is like a class reunion. Mayer and Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine met while attending a summer music class at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. “They became friends and started jamming together and that kind of thing,” says…
He probably won’t be sporting yellow stitching, but Los Angeles-based house DJ Doc Martin is indeed the genuine article. Martin started spinning records back in ’86 — nearly two decades ago — and in the interim he’s held court at practically every legendary venue on both sides of the Atlantic,…
Of the seven trillion (and counting) members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man always has shown the most promise. From the get-go, the sandpaper-throated roughneck dazzled, with an exuberant flow and one head-spinning turn of phrase after another. His debut solo outing was a stunner, but Meth has never recovered…
The title of the Ponys’ debut, Laced With Romance, is as accurate as that Spears girl is chaste. With lines like “I only love ya ’cause you, ’cause you look like me,” the band is like that disheveled boyfriend who drinks too much at parties and never says he loves…
Disappointed by the Cardigans’ swerve from disco-flecked fizz-pop into touchy-feely roots-rock on their new Long Gone Before Daylight? Don’t turn to these fellow Swedes for comfort. This self-titled album, the follow-up to a CD released to the sound of crickets in 2000 by the Seattle indie Up, is a relaxed…
Looking for some raw, underground sounds? Scrape the polish off the wax — the Tempe-bred Drunken Immortals take an organic approach to hip-hop, crafting inventive, socially conscious songs layered with live instrumentation and lyrical insights. The eight members of Drunken Immortals — Brad B, Tony Love, Professional, Crow, Mic Cause,…
Clutch is one band that music listeners either love or hate, and lead singer Neil Fallon admits that it has to do with his sense of humor. Fallon has this innate ability to meld humorous and intelligent lyrics over a bed of guitar-driven, funk-laden rock, something he established on Clutch’s…
1. Authority Zero, Andiamo (Lava) 2. The Cure, The Cure (Geffen) 3. Velvet Revolver, Contraband (RCA) 4. Atreyu, The Curse (Victory) 5. Lloyd Banks, Hunger for More (Interscope) 6. Beastie Boys, To the 5 Burroughs (Capitol) 7. Slipknot, Vol. 3: Subliminal Verses (Roadrunner) 8. Breaking Benjamin, We Are Not Alone…
At what point, exactly, did you really begin to hate garage rock? When legions of stylist-rumpled, wanna-be retro-rockers took over the airwaves? When ad agencies started tapping into that “hipster sound” to sell Subarus and Happy Meals? Or when you were in Guitar Center, cringing as some golf-shirted goober flubbed…
If the music biz took applications for power-pop professionals, Zach Rogue’s résumé would be killer. On its debut, Out of the Shadow, his San Francisco quartet flaunts its many melodic references: high-lonesome country tunes, Simon & Garfunkel-style ballads, sunny Big Star introspection. If those credentials weren’t enough, Rogue Wave’s plum…
It’s little surprise that Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy recently completed rehab for painkiller addiction; the man who summoned A Ghost Is Born is clearly haunted. After ambitious stabs at a history-of-rock concept album and a summery pop record culminated in 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — a post-9/11 rumination on…
What’s next for Bebel Gilberto? That was the question posed by many impressed by her acclaimed debut album Tanto Tempo (2000), a delicate bossa nova update dominated by the cut-and-paste mentality of producers such as Amon Tobin and Suba, and the reported 1.2 million copies it sold in the world…
Stop me, oh, oh, oh, stop me, stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: Band (Vue) jumps from indie label (Sub Pop) to a major label (RCA) that’s trying to cash in on a hot music trend (garage rock), submits full-length album (Down for Whatever) that keeps…
“. . . Welcome back to Entertainment Tonight, I’m Mary Hart! It’s been an up-and-down year for Hollywood’s famed Coppola family, and no one knows that better than Robert Carmine, actor and lead singer of the alternative-pop group Rooney, and son of Rocky co-star Talia Shire, whose brother, of course,…
In venues from Tempe to Tokyo, Phoenix-based DJ Radar is notorious for dominating audiences with his innovative hip-hop creations. Now, in worn denim jeans, an olive green Bruce Lee tee shirt and a cap, Radar stands poised to dominate a crowd in an uncommon venue: a classroom. Half a dozen…
Detroit rappers D12 are preparing for the ultimate test of their popularity — touring without main man Eminem. The flaxen-haired rapper with the machine-gun mouth is working on his follow-up to 2002’s The Eminem Show. D12’s Swifty (Ondre Moore) says that when Eminem gets the album under his belt, he…
