Scott H. Biram bills himself as “the Dirty Old One Man Band,” and he lives up to the moniker by cranking his Gibson through a fuzzy old amp, blowing primordial blues harp with the aid of a harmonica rack, and providing relentless rhythms with an amplified homemade foot stomp board…
The Derailers’ Honky-Tonk Checklist: Songs about women — check. Song about beer — check. Song about guns — check. Song about a pickup truck — miss. Three out of four ain’t bad, and neither is Soldiers of Love, the sixth album from The Derailers. It’s good for what it is,…
It’s probably fair to say that every rock band secretly pines for a breakout record, and local dub-punks Authority Zero are no exception. AZ has just finished its self-titled third LP (due out in October), an album guitarist Bill Marcks says will be to its last record, Andiamo, what AFI’s…
San Diego foursome Pistolita is just beginning to stand on its own feet, but its roster of experience speaks volumes more than its members’ ages. Not only is the piano-driven rock band the very first signing to powerhouse booking agent Andrew Ellis’ Montalban Hotel label, but it’s already toured with…
It would be difficult to imagine two artists who better embody the spirit of authentic Americana than John Fogerty and Willie Nelson. Each has established an indelible imprint, from the relentless refrains that framed Fogerty’s Creedence Clearwater Revival hits to the rugged, backwoods drawl Nelson navigated. Likewise, their careers paralleled…
Britt Daniel fans who cut their teeth on “Girls Can Tell” and “Kill the Moonlight” may be shocked to hear how freely Daniel borrows from The Pixies and Nirvana on these first two Spoon releases, back on the streets for the first time since more than a handful of hipsters…
Get these motherfucking emo bands off this motherfucking album. No, really — get these motherfucking emo bands off this motherfucking album. The soundtrack accompanying what’s arguably the year’s most anticipated cheese-horror flick is a giant mess — namely because it’s full of pounding, stuttering dance remixes of songs by new-punk…
Is the world ready for a Dirty South rap single that’s not about ostentatious automotive modifications or garish cosmetic dentistry? Waco’s Strange Fruit Project is banking on it. “Soul Clap” marries funky brass (arranged by Denton funk-rockers Mingo Fishtrap) and jazz guitars to a handclap beat. The deceptively simple beat…
The fourth release from Danish alt-pop stars Mew seems ripe for success in an American market currently embracing Coldplay/Keane epics and its indie flipside of slacker lullabies by The Shins and Rogue Wave. And the Glass Handed Kites opener “Circuitry of the Wolf” comes churning out with stuttered strums, spooky…
Like many of their contemporaries from the bygone dance-rock era, Ratatat’s Mike Stroud and Evan Mast are trying to expand beyond the fizzy, body-moving instrumentals for which they first gained attention. Ratatat’s 2004 self-titled debut gained admirers alongside accusations of cranking out sound-alike tracks, so Classics offers some variety alongside…
Here’s a real-life kind of needle exchange for you: A decade ago, superstar lesbian DJ Irene was shooting up meth and living out of her car in between gigs working the wheels of steel at L.A. dance clubs like Arena. Thankfully, the spiky-haired Sapphic spinstress eventually swapped out the tracks…
Thursday 24Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with DJ Jeremy (goth, industrial) AZ 88: Mr. P-Body (synth pop, electro) Baja Tilly’s: DJs Richy Rich and Big Latin (reggaeton, hip-hop) Bunkhouse Lounge: DJ Doom (dance) Camus: KURRENT_affairs with Pablo Gomez (electronic, rock, pop, avant-garde) Cash Inn: DJ Kat (country) The Crown Room:…
It’s not a new phenomenon, but lately the perceptions of what punk rock is and is not have irritated the hell out of me. Do three chords, a faux-hawk, and a 14-year-old’s snotty voice make a band punk rock? Is there a formula? Does it have to be loud and…
Hello, Dan Quayle here. As the 44th Vice President of the United States of America, I all but coined the phrase “family values” back in 1992, when I famously criticized Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock. Sure, it was a fictional character, and yes, I was roundly…
No matter how bad some things are for people, they cannot resist. You know you should watch your cholesterol, but every once in a while, McDonald’s sounds terrific. You really oughta turn off the TV and hit the gym, but, hey, you’re kinda tired and maybe there’s something good on…
How come every time you see a NOFX picture, someone in the band is wearing an Adolescents shirt? Because The Ads friggin’ wrote the book on old-school, Orange County agit-punk, that’s why. And talk about living fast: The band was signed to Frontier Records, recorded its now-classic self-titled album (better…
On a quiet stretch of Old Litchfield Road in Litchfield Park, a jazz group called the Energy Trio is warming up at Park Wines, an unassuming wine bar that usually features straight-ahead, traditional jazz. But these band members look about as much like a typical jazz band as they sound…
Remarkably lovely U.K. trio The Clientele, whose sound primarily falls somewhere between the bright psych-pop of late-’60s Britain and the lush jangle-chime of L.A.’s ’80s Paisley Underground scene, pulls off the rare, swell trick of reminding you of literally dozens of artists — the late Arthur Lee, Dream Syndicate, Mercury…
Pity the poor music journalist charged with the task of describing the enticingly exotic and eccentric music created by DeVotchKa. Over its six years of existence, scribes and screed-slingers (including this one) have used a plethora of hyphen-laced phrases to describe the Denver foursome’s strangely sumptuous sound, including such idioms…
If Gary Numan had to be remembered as a one-hit wonder, well, at least he gets to be remembered as the one who gave the world “Cars,” a paranoid portrait in icy detachment that finds him alone in his car and enjoying it not because he’s doing something twisted like…
Had they been around in the 1800s, Austin-based band Asylum Street Spankers would have been traveling the country in a caravan like a giant band of Gypsies, unloading a plethora of instruments — drums, guitars, standup bass, fiddles, washboards, harmonicas, banjos, ukuleles, Dobros — and rocking every stop with equal…
Sunday afternoons are meant to be spent maxing and relaxing, instead of stressing out about returning to your hellish job for another week of rat-race-style torture. So it’s a good thing that Counter Culture Cafe, 2330 East McDowell Road, has its weekly event HeadSpace, at which you can kick back…
