How’s this for self-confidence: After finishing sessions for its debut album, Richmond, Virginia-based baby band Cassius was apparently so convinced of its own ass-kickingness that the band members broke their leases, bought a tour van and started booking gigs at any club that’d have them. Luckily for the band, I…
This diverting five-song EP inaugurates ex-Libertine Pete Doherty’s new contract with the only American label brave enough to sign a world-renowned junkie hell-bent on seeing how far the English judicial system can be pushed before it throws him in the clink. (Recently, Doherty was fined 770 pounds and ordered not…
Wanda Jackson dated Elvis Presley in the ’50s, and even if she may not have slept with him (“There were things you could and couldn’t do, and my daddy made sure I never crossed that line,” Jackson’s said of the period), just having shared a milk shake with Elvis is…
So you say you’ve been holding your breath in the hopes that some young band would put out a record that sounds even more like the great lost Duran Duran album than The Killers’ Hot Fuss? Well, in that case, you should breathe and check out Popularity, Jonezetta’s hook-filled Tooth…
When Kevin Barnes started Of Montreal in the mid-1990s, he was a bit late to the Athens, GA, scene’s retro pop-rock party. At that time, Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Olivia Tremor Control ruled the roost of the ripening Elephant 6 Collective, beguiling indie-rock audiences and tastemakers by…
Blessed with an uncommon power to transform a sort of jovial brotherhood into eclectic, rootsy rock songs, Marah has always attracted fans with the prowess of its live performances, aiming not to replicate its albums onstage but rather to infuse its albums with the vigor of its stage show. The…
L.A.’s Moving Units worship at the altar of Robert Smith, injecting their very of-the-moment dance rock with a fat dose of post-punk. Like comrades in arms Interpol, The Faint, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Moving Units will get your skinny ass shaking with disco-chic ditties about dance clubs, drama, and…
If you were hankering for many happy returns in 2007, looks like you’re gonna get your wish, bub. Namely, the dope drum ‘n’ bass DJs of Essential Wednesdays, who were dumped from their longtime weekly gig at Sky Lounge late last year, are making a comeback with Liquid Heat on…
1. Snoop Dogg, Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (Geffen) 2. Various Artists, Dreamgirls: Music From the Motion Picture (Col/Urban Soundtrax) 3. Young Jeezy, The Inspiration (Def Jam) 4. Akon, Konvicted (Umvd) 5. Beyonc, B’day (Sony) 6. Omarion, 21 (Sony) 7. Nas, Hip-Hop Is Dead (Def Jam) 8. Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds (Jive)…
Thursday 18 Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cat Eye: Punk Rock Thursdays with DJ Diesel (rock, punk) The Crown Room: DJ Gable (rock, house, hip-hop) e4: “Passport” with DJ Tranzl8r (hip-hop mash-ups) E-Lounge: DJ Domenica (hip-hop, house) GLAM: DJ Vertigo (goth, industrial) Grilled Expedition: DJ Jeff (hip-hop) Hard Rock Cafe: Skandilis…
Damn, a glitch in the interweb prevented this from going up with the previous post about the swell kids in Peachcake, Stefan Pruett and Johnny O’Keefe. Stefan sent me over these tracks for all you fans and haters out in the blogosphere to scope out. But also, besides the nifty…
I always enjoy the little missives I’m sent from Stefan of weirdo duo Peachcake, but this one was so exceptional I had to share it with everybody, ’cause it’s a damn thoughtful and interesting idea. Check it… 2007 has gotten off to a relatively slow start. We’ve been home now…
We Fly Our Kites at Night I don’t ordinarily get vindictive towards bands that I actually like, but I’ve got to solicit y’all’s assistance in lighting a fire under the arses of the guys in spazz/punk outfit We Fly Our Kites at Night. The boys, who I wrote about more…
The Necronauts I’ve been wondering what local indie/alt/punk trio the Necronauts have been up to lately; seems I haven’t heard about any shows or tours recently, and they’re one of the most entertaining acts we’ve got around here. If you’ve been missing Billy, Andrew and Dale as well, I’ve got…
After two holiday weekends in a row and the final shake-off of family obligations (phew!), we wanted nothing more than to return to normal life and normal drinking habits. This week, Club Candids skipped on anything super sizzling and flopped into homey Scottsdale punk bar TT Roadhouse on Saturday, January…
“We put Vaseline on the men’s urinal so you can’t do coke off of it,” Tyler King tells me from behind the bar at the Stray Cat in Tempe, on the Wednesday after Christmas. “Cruel, but funny.” King is, of course, cracking on the reputation of certain punk DJ nights…
In April of last year, New York magazine published an article by Adam Sternbergh called “Up With Grups,” discussing the phenomenon of hipster parents. He touched on the sociological and economic nightmare we face if there is no longer a quantifiable generation gap — if parents’ habits and tastes are…
On a recent cold and rainy Thursday night, my girlfriend CooKie and I plan to hit a hot hip-hop weekly — but not the one most people think of, which is “The Blunt Club” at Hollywood Alley in Mesa. With a crew like Emerg McVay, Pickster One, and Brad B,…
Courtney Love and Sharon Osbourne have a lot in common. They are both outspoken, headstrong women who married men who later became monstrously famous musicians. They both had plastic surgery. They are both known for throwing things — Love for hurling makeup at Madonna, Osbourne for pelting Iron Maiden with…
Young men fumbling to grasp the power of their hormones usually look to the brawny lead singers of hard-rock bands to learn machismo and sexual confidence. Unfortunately, these same impressionable teens simultaneously lap up the music’s misogyny, and so they only develop into self-pitying sexist pigs with an overactive interest…
Any band that calls its members “Vagina Rock Warriors” and takes its name from a pseudonym for a slutty friend must be on a sublime mission to spread its, uh, music to the menstruating masses. But the music made by the three ladies of Juicy Newt — vocalist/guitarist Annamarie Sanchez,…
Diddy has yet to bastardize a classic rock riff from Bob Seger, which is great because I don’t care to hear Diddy’s rap tribute to James Brown slapped down over “Night Moves.” The Seger songbook is just too underrated for that kind of modern-day MTV molestation. Indeed, it seems that…
