Let’s be honest: Despite the perceived sensitivity injection (courtesy of tear-stained emo and indie artists), radio is no more welcoming to female musicians now than it was during the days of frat-mook nü-metal — well, not to female musicians of substance, at least. Save for Kelly Clarkson and KT Tunstall,…
Metal-core must be a harsh mistress; otherwise, you’d think that more bands in the genre would at least try to inject a shred of originality or imagination into their music. If Orange County’s Scars of Tomorrow don’t necessarily succeed in escaping from the thud-chunk-growl straitjacket, at least they try —…
Hmm, what’s this little story . . . Tilly and the Wall? Let’s have a read: “So the three girls and two boys from Omaha, Nebraska, decided in 2001 to form a band. They called it Tilly and the Wall. But they couldn’t find a drummer! “‘Whatever shall we do?’…
After 10 years at the helm of minimalist indie-mopers Carissa’s Wierd [sic], Pacific Northwesterners Ben Bridwell and Matt Brooke decided, upon that group’s disintegration in 2004, to let their inner Crazy Horses run free on their next musical venture. And so they dubbed their new band, appropriately enough, Band of…
It’s always good to see our local needle-sharers hitting the road with outta-town acts, but it’s even cooler when they breeze into town and get a li’l bit of a homecoming crowd out to hype them up. DJ Element, one of the ‘Nix’s best known turntable talents, has been out…
While we’d like to believe that some good things don’t have to come to an end, Batter the Drag, one of the most innovative (and snarkiest) Tempe bands in recent years, is calling it quits after releasing its first LP, The Big Sleep, early this year. New Times shared a…
Phoenix MC and record label founder Arhythmatik knows that the basement of ASU’s Memorial Union is more than an open venue with strangely acute acoustics. He sees the cellar stage as a mecca of hip-hop culture, and on the last Friday of every month, he shares his vision with hip-hop…
Thursday 29 Acme Roadhouse: College Night with DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Red (hip-hop, dance) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with DJ Jeremy (goth, industrial) AZ 88: Mr. P-Body (synth pop, electro) The Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Camus: KURRENT_affairs with Pablo Gomez (electronic, rock, pop, avant-garde)…
1. Ice Cube, Laugh Now Cry Later (Lench Mob) 2. Busta Rhymes, Big Bang (Aftermath) 3. Yung Joc, New Joc City (Bad Boy) 4. Nelly Furtado, Loose (Geffen) 5. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium (Warner Bros./Wea) 6. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Downtown) 7. Keane, Under the Iron Sea (Interscope)…
Few things sicken me as much as band-reunions-for-cash, whether it’s the Sex Pistols’ appropriately named Filthy Lucre tour a few years back or the constant barrage of ’70s outfits like Black Sabbath hitting the stage again. I saw the Sabbath reunion its first year at Ozzfest, in 1997, and it…
From the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission Web site: DID YOU KNOW? White sturgeon are the largest freshwater fish in North America and can weigh over 1,500 pounds, be 20 feet in length, and live for over 100 years. !!! We had no idea. But Les Claypool certainly does. Claypool…
Born in Communist Georgia, where she played “I Want to Break Free” on air guitar, raised in Belfast, where she fell in love with the singer-songwriter aesthetic, and a certified pop star in the U.K. before the age of 20, Katie Melua quite literally burst onto the music scene by…
“Some songwriters are extremely sensitive about any liberties being taken with their songs,” says Dave Alvin. “God forbid you should touch some guitar part that had nothing to do with the melody or the lyrics.” Alvin himself is not so protective of his own tunes: “This is my address; the…
If you think you know a singer-songwriter and want to be sure before you buy him a beer, check these qualifiers courtesy of Wikipedia: must “write, compose and sing their own material,” “appear primarily at house concerts, coffee houses, folk clubs and festivals,” and be “better known for their meaningful…
The good folks at the Anti label sure know how to pick ’em. But while labelmate and fellow flame-haired vixen Neko Case gets all the attention from horndog rock writers the world over (“She can sing and I’d do ‘er!”), the enigmatic, sometimes disturbingly intense Jolie Holland threatens to slip…
Comets on Fire guitarist Ben Chasny’s Six Organs of Admittance solo project has never been breezy or light; it’s more of a forum to explore experimental, psychedelic textures. Even still, his second Drag City album, The Sun Awakens, manages to take his trademark Robbie Basho-inspired acoustic plucks and manic free…
Though somewhat overlooked over the years because of similar yet much-hyped scenes to its south — primarily in New York City and Washington, D.C. — Boston hardcore boasts a solid history of no-bullshit, no-holds-barred thrash-punk and some killer hometown heroes, including Gang Green, SSD, and Impact Unit (Mighty Mighty Bosstones…
Kinda jammy, kinda classic-rock and kinda alt-country, Steel Train has nevertheless found itself lumped in with its more age-appropriate post-punk and emo counterparts. Sure, the band’s on Drive-Thru Records and sings about, like, feelings and stuff, but it also contemplates the relationships between fathers and sons, sympathizes with alley cats,…
Vader may be the biggest-selling death-metal band ever to crawl out of Poland — and the first behind-the-Iron Curtain band to sign a Western record deal — but that’s obviously not saying much. Vader does, however, deserve some small recognition, if only for tenacity. From their 1990 demo, Morbid Reich,…
Be Your Own Pet doesn’t play punk rock like your random lipstick-wearing MTV pinups, or your pop-punk-happy jokesters, or even your serious-as-cancer anarchists. This Nashville, Tennessee, trio kicks out the raucously inebriated jams in the spirit of ’77 with style. Only a year or two removed from high school, singer…
What with all the Brian Jonestown mass o’ curs barking around MySpace these days, getting all aflutter about a new “psych-rock” band is a task. Mainly ’cause most of these swirlers make it sound like a task, twisting the reverb button to “obvious” and pretending they’re not jam bands. Enter…
Since its early days as a duet comprising Bob Weir and self-styled acoustic bassist Rob Wasserman, Ratdog has experienced its share of musical evolution and personnel shuffling. Counting late Chuck Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson and members of San Francisco’s jazz-based Charlie Hunter Trio among its alumni, the group morphed from…
