There’s just something so awesomely asinine about a hicked-out country cover of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus,” which is the leadoff track on this EP of eclectic, acoustic remakes. Mourning Woody turns the dark techno-pop hit into a jangly, upbeat hoedown of a song, and in the process accomplishes something almost…
The Weary Boys and Rose’s Pawn Shop show is the best double bill in bluegrass for both purists and evolutionists. RPS has a malleable alt-country sound, wrapped up in skillfully crafted songs with vocal harmonies and elaborate instrumentation, like “Lone Rider,” which opens with what sounds like a banjo sounding…
In eyelinered Chicago goth-pop wanna-bes Kill Hannah’s sort-of hit “Kennedy,” singer Mat Devine brags that he wants to be a Kennedy and, after living fast and breaking hearts and kissing the girls of centerfolds on the tongue, die young. We don’t really believe Devine, because two songs later on that…
You don’t have to be a dork to like Primus, but these days it sure helps. Dismissed by critics and hipsters alike as “cartoonish weirdo wankery” and almost universally named as the scapegoat for the nü-metal holocaust of the late ’90s, Les Claypool and company may have a hard time…
Voted most likely to bring an accordion and dance-punk beats to the emo-kid table at lunch, the exquisitely dressed young men of Panic! At the Disco took their first step down the road to superstardom not by being from the same Las Vegas stomping grounds as Brandon Flowers or even…
When it made its first crude, unintelligible blast onto the metal landscape, no one could have foreseen that Napalm Death would do anything other than flare out into obscurity as a quickly worn novelty. But the band, now grinding away into its 25th year, would not only go on to…
Fuck amps that go to 11 — Tim Carroll lives life with the volume ratcheted up to 20. The 48-year-old gay vocalist for Minneapolis punk foursome Faggot is hardly shy about his sexual orientation, jamming it down the throats of anyone attending their riotous gigs, during which Carroll and his…
The SYR series of recordings were the right idea at the right time. Issued via Sonic Youth’s imprint — beginning in 1997 and continuing, albeit sporadically, to the present day — the releases allowed the group to shrug out of verse-chorus-verse strictures self-imposed as (relatively) new Geffen signees. Lyrics were…
The first-ever mix CD to come from Napoli’s Marco Carola shows no signs of amateurism. After all, Carola is quite familiar with techno, having been DJing at least since 1990, before rolling out his own productions, subsequently establishing a label called Design Music, and recording with Adam Beyer. His selections…
Downtown Phoenix seems to be a ginormous cluster-fuck of urban progress these days. Between the massive mess of light-rail construction and a few new skyscrapers going up, it’s quite the challenge getting to the handful of off-the-chain events going on downtown. However, you’ll wanna brave this urban death maze on…
There’s nothing like a good ol’ drag show to scum up a wholesome holiday with the family. That was the idea at Amsterdam’s 4th Annual Thanksgiving Night Show last Thursday, November 23, when everyone sucked in their turkey-filled guts and squeezed into their clubbing clothes. The fabulously flamboyant show starred…
Desiree and Mindy Duponte are teenaged sisters, attractive blond girls who each stand around five feet tall and have unusually tiny hands. When they tell people they’re musicians, they usually get a reaction along the lines of, “Oh, you guys play in a band? That’s so cute. ” When I…
They’ve always been known for the Southwestern flavor they bring to the indie-rock table — mariachi horns, spaghetti Western ambiance, the kind of sound that says “Why, yes, in fact, we are from Tucson.” By the time they got to Garden Ruin, though, the members of Calexico were in the…
Keller Williams isn’t the first Deadhead to harbor a secret love for electronica. He is, however, the first to make a career of combining the conflicting genres. This solo performer’s folk-rock leanings (which often transform him into a one-man jam band) are punctuated with spontaneous oontz-ing thumps via an Echoplex…
It’s a safe bet that Pepper grew up on a steady diet of Sublime, Sugar Ray, and post-1995 Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the occasional grunge snack. The Hawaii trio’s sophomoric, agreeable, brand-spanking new No Shame will likely find great favor at barbecues, ganja-flavored get-togethers, and luau-themed fraternity parties everywhere…
The kiss of death when describing a blind date is that he/she/it has a “great personality.” The kiss of death when describing a band is that it has “great musicianship.” Working twixt both extremes are these Finnish black metal pushers — great personalities fermenting beneath a mulch field of great…
When Swedish death metal band Arch Enemy announced in 2001 that original singer Johan Liiva had been asked to leave the band because guitarist Michael Amott wanted “a more dynamic front man,” few people expected that new “front man” would be a woman, a then-unknown German singer named Angela Gossow…
The Bad Boy roster closed the millennium spitting lyrics over an inane series of ’80s classics, a movement that screamed of selling out. However, No Way Out, Diddy’s 1997 vanity-rap debut, went seven times platinum on the strength of the Bowie-sampling “Been Around the World.” Indeed, the man has always…
Along with B.B. King, George “Buddy” Guy is perhaps the quintessential modern blues singer/guitarist. Born in 1936, Guy came from the original wave of Chicago blues players who made a major impact on rock ‘n’ roll, establishing himself with Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor, and Muddy Waters before going solo —…
Although Army of Anyone features half of Stone Temple Pilots as well as former Filter lead singer Richard Patrick, the whole isn’t greater than the sum of its parts. None of the tracks on the group’s debut smolders quite like Filter’s mid-’90s breakthrough, “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” nor does any…
Ben Folds plays the ivory keys like an 11-fingered man suckled on Elton John records. The former front man and namesake of the Ben Folds Five has a clamant, albeit sometimes goofy, presence and an overwhelming talent that at times makes it hard to distinguish his solo work from his…
Pitbull’s newest CD, El Mariel, includes lines like “Welcome to the real Dade County/Where we’re soldiers from birth to the hearse/That’s why my childhood included a bulletproof vest,” and “Welcome to the real Miami/Where we live to die.” Typical rapper throw-down boasts, yes, but that’s the only thing that’s typical…
