Unlike many of its ’80s Cali punk peers, Bad Religion aged like wine, not delivery pizza. While most bands of that era realized their potential within the first two albums and then began a slow, sometimes torturous slide into mediocrity, creative stagnation and beyond, Bad Religion started as a “good,…
The Polish American Club in Miami, Florida, seems an unlikely place for the Faint to do a concert. It’s basically a banquet hall, the kind of space you might expect to visit for a polka dance — if you’re into that kind of thing. But to see a band that…
It has been 22 years since Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released “Planet Rock,” a seminal hip-hop cut that borrowed its funky electro goodness from the German act Kraftwerk, and Bambaataa is still perfecting the beat, whether it’s in hip-hop, breakbeat, or drum and bass form. After releasing several…
Once Nick Cave finished his last major round of detox a few years back, he instituted a daily routine of getting up at 7 a.m. to write music obsessively. And it was starting to show. Cave’s discs since 1997 — often intense, achingly beautiful detours from the Bad Seeds’ sex…
Five years ago, on the most audacious move of a brilliant debut, Mos Def declared “The Rolling Stones could never, ever rock like Nina Simone,” and reclaimed rock ‘n’ roll for the ghetto. On The New Danger, he puts his music where his mouth was. Bristling with guitars and filled…
Von Bondies
Figures. The minute the Donnas put a cartoon of themselves on an album cover, they stop being one. Gone are the uninterrupted sneers that meant either a) the Donnas are gonna bend all you matchstick men to their whim (“Are You Gonna Move It for Me,” “40 Boys in Forty…
The opera I Pagliacci may have spawned the murderous harlequin, but ICP elevated it to, well, something similar to an art form, if you count merchandising and marketing. The homicidal Juggalos’ combination of predictably cartoonish rap-metal and lowbrow performance art owes obvious inspiration to KISS (or maybe Spinal Tap), but…
“My,” said Little Front Row Kid to the Michigan trio onstage getting ready to play, “what big amplifiers you have.” “The better to cause your frontal lobe to rupture and make blood, bone, and gray matter ooze painfully out of your ears with, my child,” said John Olson. “My, what…
Gaze upon the cover of the Last Vegas’ sensitively titled Get Hip debut, Lick ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, and you’re face to face with four hairy dudes who look as if they’ve spent the last six tour stops showering at a gas station. Actually, the music catches that Pennzoil shampoo…
Detroit’s Soledad Brothers — named after the three African-American inmates of California’s Soledad Prison who were convicted of killing a guard there in 1970 — layer the faux-revolutionary shtick a little thick on Voice of Treason, their third studio album. The reach for meaning is endemic to the roots-fixated garage-blues…
Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers are scheduled to perform on Monday, November 8, at the Rhythm Room.
Thursday 4 Acme Bar & Grill: DJR (all genres) Acme Roadhouse: DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (Top 40, hip-hop) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Piranha Room/Area 51 with DJs Jeremy & Ricky (industrial/goth, electroclash) Axis/Radius: Ladies’ night with DJ MCB & Josh Royal (all genres) AZ 88:…
Get your b-boy boots tied for the arrival of DJ Haul and Mason this Thursday, November 4, at the Blunt Club (at PI, a.k.a. Boston’s, 5014 South Price Road in Tempe). These L.A. DJ dudes are on the upswing, having won URB magazine’s annual mix-tape contest a while back, and…
Slouching back into a booth at Casey Moore’s, Billy Goodman passes up a cheeseburger to nurse a Corona instead, quietly joking that he could use about three. The lanky Necronauts front man, with his dark-framed glasses and head of thick spiral curls, talks about needing to relax, yet he’s so…
It’s 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon and I’m almost 200 miles from home, about 20 miles as the crow flies from the Mexican border in southern Arizona. I’m visiting my buddy Andy Hersey, a genuine Sonoran cowboy who gave up horseshoeing a few years back to pursue a career as…
Log on to the Gloritone Web site and you’ll find yourself redirected to www.massivestars.net, home of Massive Stars. Basically, it’s two-thirds of Gloritone (Tim Anthonise and Scott Hessel minus bassist Nick Scropos, who’s now in Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers) with new bassist Chris Serafini (Ghetto Cowgirl, The Stereo) and…
When people think of musical satirists, they think of “Weird Al” Yankovic song parodies when they should be thinking of Neil Innes, a guy who composes original music that slyly sends up artists and genres. He plied his craft in the ’60s with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, the British…
Radiohead gets more press, but the best band in England is actually the Delgados. Not only have they made five terrific albums, but they began the Chemikal Underground label, leading a Scottish pop explosion with releases by Mogwai, Bis, Arab Strap, and Aerogramme. While they began as something of a…
Richard Buckner and Damien Jurado are scheduled to
perform on Thursday, November 4, at the Old
Brickhouse.
Bless craggy Leonard Cohen, the enigma, the romantic, the religious pervert in sackcloth and tailored suits, the servant of Montreal, the Juddhist. Bless him for his arrogance and his humility, and for opening the doors of the permissible and making the unthinkable possible. Cohen took the Old Testament, cold razor…
Maroons’ cuter name is Lateef & the Chief: MC Lateef, half of undie hip-hop duo Latyrx (along with partner Lyrics Born), and DJ Chief Xcel, half of slightly less undie hip-hop duo Blackalicious (along with partner the Gift of Gab). Ambush is their debut mini-album: nine servings of the sort…
The biggest no-one-saw-it-coming success in music in recent years has to be the multiplatinum O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Since then, head-scratching record execs have been trying to divine the magic that made that high-lonesome collection such a smash among baby boomers. The latest attempt to recapture that magic…
