The longer a band stays around, the harder it is to really hear the music it makes. On its new album, Chicago-based Tortoise struggles to overcome backlash against the post-rock it has exemplified over the past decade. It’s All Around You may not do the trick, but the record holds…
Right now, somewhere in suburban America, a perennial rite of passage is taking place: A pack of ratty, longhaired, disaffected 17-year-olds lolls in a high school parking lot, gettin’ stoned while Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” rages from the blown-out speakers of someone’s primer-dappled El Camino. And to them, it probably doesn’t…
The post-punk revival is the new grunge. There’s nothing wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeve, but today’s revivalists are remarkable for their ability to stage complete simulations of the artists they seem to adore. Which is not to say that Franz Ferdinand is bad. Its self-titled debut is…
What’s Selling Top 10 sellers at Swell Records (414 South Mill Avenue, Suite 120, Tempe) for April 30 through May 6: 1. Richard Humpty Vission, Big Floor Funk (System Recordings) 2. DJ Dan Mixed Live Ruby Skye, San Francisco (Moonshine Music) 3. Cut Throat Logic Mixed Tape (self-released) 4. Atllas…
The venerable local nonprofit Web site and message board AZPunk.com just keeps on giving to the local music scene. This weekend, it’s hosting the first-ever AZPunk.com Featured Band Riot at Minder Binder’s in Tempe, a three-day festival event with sets by 19 local bands that the site has highlighted over…
Husky-throated Austin, Texas, singer Bob Schneider is a musical jack-of-all-trades. In the ’90s, Schneider fronted a funk-rap combo (Joe Rockhead), followed by a blues-based jam band on tour with Dave Matthews (the Ugly Americans), culminating with a hard-edged alt-rock act (The Scabs). Since the turn of the millennium, Schneider’s been…
His cowboy hat should clue you in, but if you’re slow on the pickup, let’s just say DJ D:Fuse isn’t your typical dance-club spinner. Raised on album rock and alternative music through his youth, D:Fuse (a.k.a. Dustin Fuselier) wanted to get away from that, so he started the industrial act…
With the unbridled spirit of a gang of children tearing up a birthday party, the Thermals are a very fun band with simple, visceral songs that smack the listener in the face like a rake. This is punk rock from a smelly garage, with a little bit of an art…
Sacramento’s Low Flying Owls swoop into the Valley, bringing a modern mlange of hard, distorted guitar rock and off-kilter psychedelic experimentalism to promote their second full-length, Elixir Vitae, an excellent offering that flirts with many styles but decides it likes two the best. Vitae’s loud tracks are repetitive enough to…
“Reined in” are words that probably haven’t been used to describe music by Slipknot, the costume-clad kings of noise. Lead singer Corey Taylor chuckles after he catches himself using that phrase in reference to Slipknot’s forthcoming album, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. “The album is a really good amalgam of…
A year ago, L.A.-based producer/DJ Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton probably couldn’t have imagined doing a track for Jay-Z, hip-hop’s Frank Sinatra. Neither could Jay-Z, as it turns out. Instead, Burton made an irresistible album with Brooklyn MC Jemini (hip-hop’s Mel Torm?) and called it Ghetto Pop Life, which was appropriate,…
So far, it’s been mostly disaffected techno kids who have been conjuring up this ’80s renaissance that we’re enjoying (or is it a Dark Ages that we’re mired in?). The Lovemakers, on the other jelly-braceleted hand, come out of Oakland, California’s indie rock scene, and present themselves more as a…
Phoenix once again welcomes one of the 20 regional Technics/DMC World DJ Championship rounds, the first stop on the path to the world title for scratch fanatics. You already know the names of past world champions — Mixmaster Mike, Q-Bert, Swamp, Craze — but if you want to check out…
The Neon Philharmonic can blame its commercial failure on the same malignant spirit that regularly sends the catchiest, craftiest stuff skidding into the bargain bin of history. Only “Morning Girl” made it onto the radio (#17, 1969), and it’s a vivid summary of the style: orchestral pop in the mode…
Top 10 sellers at Zia Record Exchange (3851 East Thunderbird Road, 602-482-3119) for April 26 through May 2: 1. Various Artists, Rock Against Bush (Fat Wreck Chords) 2. Fear Factory, Archetype (Liquid 8) 3. D12, D12 World (Shady Records) 4. Kottonmouth Kings, Fire It Up (Suburban Noize) 5. Modest Mouse,…
A new monthly Brit Pop/indie/New Wave night, Trash!, debuts this Saturday with a maudlin splash, previewing the new full-length LP by mope master Morrissey, titled You Are the Quarry. Trash!, unlike most dance nights around the ‘Nix, will feature live bands at each installment, along with DJ Manchester’s Cockney sound…
With 2002’s Medicated Magic, this group of ebullient New Orleans R&B vets broke through to a new audience hungry for the type of traditional sounds peddled by young musical neocons like Norah Jones (who actually contributed vocals to the disc’s “Ruler of My Heart”); the Brass Band’s party-hearty jazz-funk isn’t…
The Cold Vein, New York hip-hop duo Cannibal Ox’s 2001 debut, served as a kind of lightning rod in the battle between underground and mainstream hip-hop that’s ravaged the form since approximately 1612. Packed with MCs Vast Aire and Vordul Megilah’s hyper-textual braggadocio and produced by Def Jux honcho El-P,…
While other New York bands write historical fiction based in the smoky barrooms of the New Wave era, French Kicks are engaged in a romantic fantasy that takes place in the studio. Indie music, much less rock in general, is rarely so produced and resolutely hi-fi as The Trial of…
Fifty years from now, when some young rapper’s delivering Eminem’s introduction speech at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, he or she will no doubt celebrate Marshall Mathers’ nearly unparalleled knack for conflating the comedic and the tragic. Maybe the Hall will even screen 8 Mile with a…
Two years ago, Ms. Holland sat in her bedroom with a couple of friends to demo up a couple of sophisticated folk tunes and make a CD she could sell from the edge of the stage at gigs. She called it Catalpa, and her fans quickly began burning copies and…
