I. Introduction Were I to saunter up to a podium and announce, through the condescending gaze of a monocle, that “Two-piece bands are really hot right now!” you might just roll your eyes and leave my lecture hall. Of course two-piece bands are hot right now. They’ve been hot for…
Ben Lee, the pop bard of Bondi, Australia, used to be known as that kid from punk band Noise Addict. Then he was known as Claire Danes’ boyfriend (and then as Danes’ ex). These days, he’s just Ben again, touring his ass off and churning out pop numbers as buoyant…
For me, coming up country was difficult under the auspices of Willie Nelson. This young buckaroo in south Texas received all sorts of life lessons and mixed messages from the Red Headed Stranger over the years, from the warning “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” to…
Psalm One’s The Death of Frequent Flyer is an uneven but compelling mix of pure rhyme skills and casual songwriting. One of the best songs on the 14-track disc is “Rapper Girls,” a souled-out attack on untalented female MCs that wraps around Psalm One’s chorus, “This is for my rapper…
Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the title of Impeach My Bush, the third album by Berlin-based raunch-rap mistress Peaches, is a joke whose time has come. (Titles might be Peaches’ true talent — see also 2003’s Fatherfucker.) Whether or not Impeach offers more than exemplary wordplay comes…
Kalas is Matt Pike’s new outfit, and for the Bay Area quintet’s nine-track debut he wields his ax only on a single cut (“Frozen Sun”). That’s because Pike’s primary role is that of a lead vocalist, which is kinda fucked up. Think about it: The dude from Asbestos Death, Sleep,…
Gender identity and uncomfortable intimacy are just hazy phrases for Portland’s Parenthetical Girls to knead into song. The band’s recent release, Safe as Houses, traverses themes of sex and shame from various perspectives, sung by a male (Zac Pennington) with a fragile falsetto. Surrounded by hauntingly minimal electronic pop, Pennington…
“There’s just something about them,” Kristin Allen-Zito sings-mutters to open her 2004 album Helium. Sounds like yet another coffeehouse singer with cigarette-stained vocals, a strummed acoustic guitar and cute “ooh”s in the background, but then she finishes the sentence — “that makes me want to stick my dick in/I know…
Signed while still in high school, Slightly Stoopid’s Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald were probably the “raddest” of all dudes “gnarly,” smoking more weed than humanly possible and tossing out generic SoCal skate-punk. Nearly a decade later, the two may still love to party, but their sound has grown up…
Two well-established truisms are that Cleveland rocks, and that underground heroes Brandtson united all kids growing up on the skids with their massive back catalog on Deep Elm Records. However, on Hello, Control (the Clevo quartet’s sophomore effort for the Militia Group label), the band wonders why “Nobody Dances Anymore.”…
The nine gunshot wounds and subsequent bragging rights at Shady still belong to 50 Cent, but Obie Trice now carries in his skull a bullet (from a violent encounter last New Year’s Eve) and a memory (of his late labelmate Proof). Unlike the larger-than-life 50, Obie sounds genuinely scarred by…
The Raconteurs have the best Web site ever. Modeled in the style of the green-screen days of bulky supercomputers, the site (www.theraconteurs.com) is two-bit awesome, with text-heavy simplicity that ditches mouse controls in favor of keyboard-only commands. Nixing the Flash and the glitz, the Raconteurs do it old school, which…
Listening to Peregrine, the Appleseed Cast’s forthcoming album, you’d never know that the group got its start as an emo outfit named December’s Tragic Drive in Lawrence, Kansas, during the late ’90s. While peers such as the Get Up Kids have taken their adolescent emoting into alt-country territory, the Appleseed…
In the world of instrumental rock, Saxon Shore has little in common with the onanistic, sonically soulless noodling of Eric Johnson or the spaced-out, loosely constructed noise rock of Mogwai. For its latest album, the ensemble teamed with producer Dave Fridmann to produce ten tightly structured, richly layered instrumentals —…
Thursday 13 Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Red (hip-hop, dance) AZ 88: Mr. P-Body (synth pop, electro) Baja Tilly’s: DJs Richy Rich and Big Latin (reggaeton, hip-hop) The Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Camus: KURRENT_affairs with Pablo Gomez (electronic, rock, pop, avant-garde) Cash Inn: DJ Kat (country) Chilly Bombers: DJ Statik (hip-hop,…
1. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Downtown) 2. Kool Keith, Return of Dr. Octagon (OCD Records) 3. Rise Against, The Sufferer and the Witness (Geffen Records) 4. Pearl Jam, Live at Easy Street (Exclusive) (J Records) 5. India Arie, Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship (Umvd Labels) 6. The Black Angels,…
Many bands revel in their roots, but few amble as close to the heartland as the Missouri-based Bottle Rockets. Their no-frills approach is tough and tenacious, reflecting an underdog attitude that tends to downplay resignation in favor of an occasional upward glance. Zoysia, their eighth studio set, provides the ideal…
To be completely blunt about it, ubiquity isn’t really an asset when it comes to playing around town. It’s good to have your name out there, to be recognizable. But if I see your name or your band’s name in the music section’s ads week after week for years, I’m…
Quintron and Miss Pussycat make happy music. Granted, it sounds very raw and punk. Quintron, a veritable one-man band who can pound on drums (or rather, a contraption he calls a “drum buddy”), play the organ, and sing simultaneously, produces records that sound as if they were made in a…
Who would’ve imagined that a poke in the eye during a pickup basketball game would have a profound effect on Doug Martsch’s life and music career? The Built to Spill front man didn’t think much of it when he sustained the injury earlier this year. An eventual trip to a…
St. Madness singer Prophet (né Patrick Flannery) won his battle with testicular cancer earlier this year, and now he’s ready to rock hard again with St. Madness’ newest album. Musically, St. Madness’ sound has always harked back to the old-school days of heavy metal, with crunchy power chords, screaming guitar…
Aloe Blacc, a onetime member of the L.A. hip-hop group Emanon, glides through his solo debut, Shine Through, with panache. Save for a few moments, he doesn’t rap. Instead, he sings a workingman’s blues on “Busking,” renders a lively Afrobeat version of John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” and then easily switches…
