The Hold Steady is not only one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the United States (their past three albums have landed on year-end best-of lists for three years running, including their latest, Boys and Girls in America), but they’re also one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands…
The downside of achieving massive success is becoming typecast. After leaving the airwaves, many of the original Star Trek cast found it difficult to secure work because of their association with the series; Chumbawamba has a 20-year career but is remembered by most for “Tubthumping”; and, despite having appeared in…
When it comes to straddling genres, few artists have the crossover breadth of Citizen Cope (a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood). He’s listed with granola-heavy Web site Jambase.com, and he certainly has the lazy acoustic-guitar appeal of Ben Harper or Jack Johnson. But his lyrics also have a gritty, street-worn sensibility reminiscent of…
One’s interpretation of Clutch, the mostly metal and sometimes funk-soaked ensemble, depends on where in the game a listener was made hip to the band’s interpretation of Led Zeppelin doing the nasty with Black Sabbath. Fans of their 1993 debut, Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes and Undeniable Truths, still muse…
For a while, it seemed as if the only off-the-chain event going down over at the Rogue East, 423 North Scottsdale Road in Scottsdale, was William Fucking Reed’s rock ‘n’ roll dance party Shake! on Saturdays. Thankfully, this sad state of affairs has been rectified, as the landmark hipster hangout…
We remember back in the day when Shady’s had a different name and was full of bearded, blue-collar workers guzzling beer to wrap up a hard day’s work. Not so much any more — with its new name and new jukebox, the little neighborhood bar has become a hangout for…
By Brendan Joel Kelley If you saw my column this week, you might wonder exactly what a guitar/drums/vocals metal three piece like John Wayne Jefferson sounds like. You can find the answer below, although you should be warned that the songs come off much better live and the production on…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Last week I blogged here about the film Once, starring the Frames’ Glen Hansard and Czech pianist Markéta Irglová. Apparently, the New York Times and myself aren’t the only fans of the film, which is pretty much a musical about two talented people who express their…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Drunken Immortals I ran into a dude who calls himself Letscherous Larry (yeah, it’s spelled wrong, but that’s how he spells it) recently, and he hit me off with a numbered “magic ticket” for a party he’s throwing at the Phix on Sunday, May 27. He…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Just a reminder for you that tonight’s the second installment of the Summer of Sound series; tonight you can hear (and vote for) the bands in the Americana category. That’s Flathead, the Liar’s Handshake, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and Wormwood Brothers, with Deadbolt as the national headliner…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Tempe singer/songwriter J.D. Stooks hit me off with one of his new tracks a couple days ago, “10 Lb Coat,” which you’ll find below. J.D.’s an incredibly talented kid, which you’ll hear below and you can hear more of on his Myspace. He’s actually out in…
In e-mails and comments on my blog, Ear Infection, I’ve gotten into it with the metal kids in town. They’ve criticized me for my opinions about metal or for my not paying attention to it. It’s generally people like Marshall Beck, a musician in several metal bands who got butt-hurt…
Even armed with an illustrated libretto, it’s hard to divine most rock opera story lines. Before Ken Russell’s film adaptation of Tommy revealed the importance of champagne, Marilyn Monroe, and baked beans to the plot, betcha just assumed it was about a deaf, dumb and blind kid pinball-messiah who gets…
Jackson Ellis is freaking out. In late April, the 26-year-old publisher of the independent music and fiction magazine Verbicide got word that starting on July 15, his shipping rates would increase by somewhere between 30 and 40 percent. “It’s not going be the thing that kills me, but coupled with…
Job for a Cowboy sounds like a good name for a country band, but this Glendale combo is in the vanguard of today’s extreme metal movement. The intense grindcore/death metal sound of Doom, their indie EP, and their relentless touring has generated a rabid following — 6 million MySpace plays…
The battle cry of the rawest punk rock and proto-hardcore bands circa 1978-84 was “louder, faster, shorter” and the attitude behind that ethos was about shearing away rock and roll’s accumulated excesses (tedious and/or showoff instrumental soloing, meandering songs). That premise is the bread and butter, the meat and cheese,…
After hearing the debut disc by local lesbian punk/dance trio The Pübes, the only thing left to say is “Oh, hell, fuck yeah!” Led by local folkstress Cameo Hill (who becomes Ivana Pluchya in this band), The Pübes combine the bouncy bad-girl vibe of artists like Suzi Quatro and Bikini…
Tori Amos is the blue-chip stock of the female singer-songwriter boom of the ’90s: Investing in her art has only become more expensive (read: demanding) over the years. With hooks disappearing, her albums have grown longer, while her lyrics have turned increasingly oblique. More memorable than 2005’s The Beekeeper, American…
If Wilco put together a greatest hits album, it probably would contain only two or three songs from Sky Blue Sky — and although that may sound like a criticism, it’s actually more of a testament to the band’s impressive body of work. Whereas 2004’s A Ghost Is Born was…
Although her flamboyant outfits may never be polite, Björk’s last few albums certainly were. The ice-crystal percussion and melodies on Vespertine were stunning but mannered, like an immaculately decorated parlor, while the nearly a cappella Medulla — an album in which beatboxing and throat-singing replaced traditional instrumentation — felt too…
Total chaos. Upon initial inspection, that’s what the songs of local duo Get Down! To Brass Tacks are built upon — synthesizers careen through the compositions like a blind man driving a Mack truck through a carnival of cowbells and fatass basslines, while singer/bassist Aarik Miller shrieks and wails through…
Jimmy LaValle has made music in the past with some interesting bands (Tristeza and Black Heart Procession chief among them), but the best thing that ever happened to him — and listeners, too — was when members of cosmic art-rockers Sigur Rós discovered one of the discs he’d recorded under…
