The “official” record — Stereo, credited to Paul Westerberg, remember him? — is sloppy in an “artful” way, meaning songs abruptly end when the tape runs out while others collapse when the guy singing them peters out; they’re demos, or sound like them, assembled from two years’ worth of basement…
Cibo Matto’s 1996 debut, Viva La Woman, was a refreshing blast of ass-shaking grooves and nonsensical lyrics, made distinctive by its evocative samples and spare instrumentation. The duo’s 1999 follow-up, Stereo Type A, expanded upon Viva La Woman’s methods, using more instruments and more band members — including keyboardist Yuka…
It was the best of country, it was the worst of country. At least that’s what some folks will say after spending four days and nights at what is most certainly the biggest country music and camping event of the season. Cooking, concerts and mega-karaoke, which arrives in an 18-wheeler…
If you’d asked me about spite incarnate 10 years ago, I would’ve told you about the Feldman brothers of New Rochelle, New York. Two siblings in the family tuxedo business, they worked side by side for 15 years until someone got too passionate about cummerbunds or expanding the powder-blue inventory…
James Mercer’s van is leaking. This is not a good thing. Mercer, leader of the Shins, will soon depart with his band on a two-and-a-half-week tour that includes a stop at Nita’s Hideaway in Tempe this Monday night, April 22. The mostly West Coast swing will be the Shins’ most…
“Every time, I get nervous,” says rapper Gift of Gab at sound check for a performance at L.A.’s Wiltern Theatre. “Like, two minutes before I go on. Every time.” Across the stage, DJ/producer Chief Xcel fiddles with the knobs and needles on his turntables. “Can you put my MPC at…
What is it they say about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery? If it’s true (ask Pearl Jam about Creed), then we should probably feel flattered to death by the April 14 band showcase hosted by Mill Ave. Beer Company. The event just happened to coincide with the seventh…
For those about to mope, we salute those who would slap some sense into you. Call it Mystery White Boy Disease: Every bonehead with a dreamy voice and a dreary outlook gets the Jeff Buckley hype treatment these days, though most croonin’ ‘n’ cryin’ playas are more King Cobra than…
The members of D.C.-based Moodroom could host a Career Fair at the local high school — in another life they were (and in some cases, still are) Coast Guard officers, graphic designers, social workers, film and television composers, and wanna-be pro-soccer players. But don’t hate them because they’re yuppies. As…
. . . and then God created the Savage Republic. Circa early ’81, in the transverse utility tunnels beneath the UCLA campus to be precise, spontaneously combusting in a post-punk/industrial clatter of guitar, two basses, drums and scrap-heap percussion — Joy Division and Einstürzende Neubauten colluding on the Can songbook…
Being blessed an alt-country songstress must be as endlessly tiresome as being Cher’s plastic surgeon. You have to compete with gusto as genuine as the impossibly bewitching Neko Case and pop-country schmaltz like 2001 Best New Artist Grammy winner I Am Shelby Lynne (and I’ve been around since 1989). No…
Bob is back. Don’t be scared — we’re not talking about Bob Bennett, Republican ideologue, or a freshly shellacked Bob Barker, but rather indie rock legend Bob Mould. Front man for seminal outfits Hüsker Dü and Sugar, as well as author of several terrific solo albums, Mould has enjoyed a…
No one ever sets out to conduct the world’s worst interview, in much the same way every 10-car pileup on the freeway was once just a bunch of guys and gals on their way to work. Certainly Frank Black should make for a fascinating read — he’s a brilliant singer-songwriter…
Jim O’Rourke has heard his excellent new album, Insignificance, likened to the work of flag-waving Floridian rabble-rousers Lynyrd Skynyrd one too many times. “That’s how I’ve been able to spot all the one-minute listeners,” he says, laughing, admitting that the first few bars of the record do in fact bear…
It should come as little surprise that Andrew W.K. loves roller coasters. “I take fun very seriously,” the Detroit native says during a recent phone interview, his excitement level rising when talk turns to amusement parks. “There’s no such thing as going too far; there’s no such thing as too…
It’s getting harder and harder to tell the good Neil Young records from the bad ones; they’re all blending into the same backfiring buzz, differentiated only by the guitar he chooses to pick up and/or plug in. At this late date, all of it sounds like Rust Never Sleeps or…
You think rock is a man’s world? Tell it to Ely Guerra. Mexico’s most neglected rockera, Guerra bounced back last year from years of obscurity brought on by label mismanagement with a showstopping acoustic performance at the 2001 Latin Alternative Music Conference last summer in New York, followed by a…
Imagine our disappointment in hearing the recent news that Steve Earle’s excellent 1992 CD Train a Comin’ had been discontinued by its label. That sparse but powerful record — which jump-started Earle’s stalled, post-rehab career — always deserved a wider audience but instead is being benched. It proves once again…
During its nine-year run, Medeski, Martin and Wood has become all things to all people. The trio continues to satisfy the jazzbo crowd who count on the band’s Blue Note releases to bear the future-fusion torch. But somewhere along the way, the dreadlocked white-boy network stopped playing Hacky Sack for…
Joe Herrera likes to take the attitude that every musical experience has value. For instance, Herrera — a husky 23-year-old trumpeter affectionately referred to by local jazz peers as “Little Joe” — spent two years, off and on, playing Broadway show tunes on cruise ships. Traversing as far north as…
As a worshiper of the mythical Delta bluesman Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton always longed to hear stories about Johnson from musicians who’d actually seen him play. But it took years before Clapton felt comfortable broaching the subject with Johnson’s friend Muddy Waters. Clapton knew that many blues pioneers consider it…
Just west of Manhattan, across the Hudson River, lies the burg of Jersey City, the second most populous township in New Jersey. It’s a city littered with a history of corruption and mob influence, thanks to its Depression-era mayor, “Boss” Frank Hague, an FDR crony, and his successor, John V…
