In the mid-’50s, while Sinatra swung and Elvis and Chuck Berry showed the world how to rock, black Louisianans of Cajun extraction — Clifton Chenier, for one — were plugging in and pumping crackling rhythm and blues into traditional Cajun dance music. The result was tagged “zydeco,” an ebullient and…
And the geeks shall inherit the Earth, indeed. If anyone said that Rush would last 30-plus years in 1975, when robo-tronic drummer Neil Peart joined the Canadian trio (thus transforming it from a derivative bar band into one of the world’s most revered prog icons), they were probably high. But,…
Ever since 50 Cent’s G-Unit mixtape crew earned mainstream recognition with 2003’s platinum-selling Beg for Mercy, members of the group have worked hard to escape Fiddy’s hulking shadow and establish themselves as independent artists. While Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo have certainly capitalized on G-Unit’s success, neither has managed to…
This bill features a pair of bands noteworthy for their rousing style and lively stage presence. Hailing from Chicago’s Irish South Side, The Tossers began in ’93, before Celtic-punk peers Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys. Though long overshadowed by the aforementioned acts, it wasn’t for lack of talent. While more…
Marnie Stern made one of the most intriguing debuts this year with In Advance of the Broken Arm, a cacophonous yet strangely tuneful blast of prog experimentation that verges on indie rock. Stern’s high-pitched, girlish vocals are slathered in guitar pyrotechnics ranging from crazy metal hammer-ons to Sonic Youth-ish squall…
Generally speaking, styles come and go, but idioms last forever. And when four tuff dudes with the right moxie get their greasy mitts around the correct noise-making implements, settle their deadly attentions upon said idiom (you know, ’60s garage rock), and control their own greasy facial spasms long enough to…
Celeb sensations David Beckham and Posh Spice aren’t the only doses of coolness that England’s been hurling across the pond lately. Witness the growth of dubstep, the darkly rhythmic and beyond-bassy EDM (electronic dance music) descendent of UK garage and grime birthed in London’s underground. Championed by such Brit DJs…
It’ll take three days after I walk through the back door to The Great Escape for my own back door to finally get back to normal (from the ravages of drinking — thus the “great escape”). At any rate, I’m pleased as a pig in shit to review this little…
Remember the good, old days (way back in April), when you could sit at the bar with your beer and suck on cancer sticks without freaking the fuck out about getting fined $50? Well, those days aren’t exactly here again, but there are some places in the Valley where you…
Below are four of my favorite “smoking songs” — tunes from throughout the decades that capture the experience of filling one’s lungs with vice. For a more comprehensive list, Google the words “High Times pot songs.” 1. Fraternity of Man, “Don’t Bogart Me” (1968): This song, which begs the listener…
Picture this: You’re walking down a street, circa 1983, and soaking in all sorts of music from the cool cats carrying boom boxes on their shoulders. Or imagine you’re making a cameo appearance in that killer scene in Amèlie, when the lo-fi sounds from the old dude’s portable record player…
Fergie, probably the most lusted-after hip-hop artist in the world, released her solo debut, The Dutchess, last year. It features 13 tracks of brainless dribble, including “London Bridge” and the barely literate “Fergalicious,” which, upon topping the charts, proved once and for all that hip-hop often specifically targets the dumbest…
Every week, a band breaks up, ending more often with a whimper than a bang. That’s a fate South Mountain Lights sought to avoid with The Last Word, the release of which they’ll celebrate with their final show. “We’ve both been in bands where the band falls apart and you…
Rock music history is paved with the asphalt of failure and obscurity — in their respective eras, the now-venerated watersheds the Stooges, Nick Drake, Velvet Underground, and Tim Buckley moved units in the teensy-weensiest figures. But as someone in the blues field observed, “Give me the flowers while I’m living.”…
OZZFEST IS FREE THIS SUMMER! As the words tolled out over the alkali flats, the rejoicing hordes of twitching, gibbering headbangers nearly swept away the bricks and mortar of our fair nation. Thousands of angry white men went into spasms on guitar showroom floors as police reported an unprecedented outbreak…
In movies, metal bands and their fans are often portrayed as anti-eggheads — note the knee-high nihilists and simpletons of Airheads, This Is Spinal Tap, and The River’s Edge. Well, dig this, Movie Producers of Hollyweird: Those who play metal have also attended music school. That’s right; the core members…
Country music is where rock ‘n’ roll was circa 1962 B.B. (before Beatles) and 1975-76 — lots ‘n’ lots of photogenic hat-hunks and pop(py)-tarts playing corporate-approved approximations of the real stuff. Dale Watson, an Austin performer flying beneath the Nashville radar, puts the “tree” back in country as an insurgent…
Remember when popular music had a message? With today’s army of vapid pop stars and record company-manufactured boy bands under the guise of “rock bands,” it seems as though artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez have become as extinct as the woolly mammoth. Then suddenly, the clouds of mediocrity…
With musicians, like athletes, it’s always disheartening to watch them hang around long enough to see their abilities break down. Bad Brains fans, long beset by the band’s notorious instability, have every reason to expect that a present-day reunion album can do nothing but tarnish the band’s hallowed legacy. After…
If we were to take Andrew Jackson Jihad’s latest effort at lyrical value alone, we may suggest a suicide hotline for the folk/punk duo comprising Sean Bonnette and Ben Gallaty. Because we begin visualizing disenfranchised youth snorting coke off a tombstone while reading the Jihad’s lyrics, Edgar Allan Poe, or…
The guys in The Heartless are solid musicians, they have amazing energy onstage, and their melodic punk songs are tighter and more crisp than Fritos in a butt crack. So would somebody please send them some good women so they can sing songs about something other than getting screwed over…
With his hipster-clever DJ alias ganked straight from the legendary series of vampire-killing video games, one would think Atlanta mixmaster Le Castle Vania is gonna be hunting down the undead when he visits the Valley on Friday, July 20. In all likelihood, the only nightcrawlers the 24-year-old turntablist will be…
