Last year, Betty Blowtorch earned $45,000 on tour — not a bad take for a then-unsigned all-chick sleaze-rock band with songs like “Shut Up and Fuck.” Of course, Betty Blowtorch spent $44,000 to earn that 45K, paying the rent with day jobs between two-week touring stints. Reminiscing about a decade…
When you were a kid, and you went to see a magic show, which kind of viewer were you: The one who got utterly swept away and believed that those doves appeared from nowhere, or the one who sat with furrowed brow, trying to figure out how the trick was…
When Philadelphia’s legendary Roots crew takes the stage at Tempe’s Club Rio on Tuesday, it will be a homecoming of sorts. Sharing the bill with a phalanx of fellow hip-hoppers and rappers including Dilated Peoples, Pokafase and Foot Clan, the Roots are making a return to familiar territory. For the…
If you were to meet Adam Carroll at a bookstore or a coffee house, the sort of place where he hangs out when not playing gigs, you probably wouldn’t surmise that he’s one of the most esteemed new Texas singer-songwriters to emerge in some time. A squat, shy and quirky…
With a voice incisive enough to slice through Kevlar and a body that’s more butter than Land O’ Lakes, Bed-Stuy native Inga Marchand fuses equal parts LL Cool J braggadocio and early Boogie Down Productions’ street sagas as rapper Foxy Brown. And with Broken Silence, her third album, Brown shows…
Pop quiz time: Name all the rock ‘n’ roll “brothers” that aren’t technically made up of siblings. Lessee — Righteous Brothers, Dust Brothers, Radar Brothers, Gibson Brothers, Waco Brothers, Brothers Four, Brothers Uv Da Blakmarket . . . maybe Bros . . . Duran Duran and the Dead Kennedys …
Texan (by way of New Mexico) Gilkyson has had many labels, been many things to many people: daughter (to Academy Award-winning folk singer Terry Gilkyson), sister (to X guitarist Tony Gilkyson), New Age thrush (to those who tuned in to her late ’80s records and early ’90s work with Andreas…
When he walked onstage at the 20th anniversary of the Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio’s Rosedale Park in May, Estéban “Steve” Jordan was resplendent in a purple jumpsuit with gold buccaneer sleeves. But what stood out most was how frail the 62-year-old accordion legend looked. Like a skeleton clinging…
It’s a lovely Saturday afternoon in Tucson, and a casually dressed man in his late 40s is browsing a local record store’s CD bins. Suddenly he does a double take at a disc; it’s a live bootleg called Murder City Nights by legendary ’70s Australian band Radio Birdman. Snatching up…
This much was clear: She wasn’t coming back on her own. “Where’s Lu?” a woman, apparently a manager, was asking. “We’re late.” Lu was last seen standing behind the outdoor stage, just after the rain had soaked the venue’s parking lot, flipping through a thick black binder of song lyrics,…
Watch me sell five copies of the new Beta Band album before this review is over. Apparently the only Scottish combo not currently signed to Matador, the Beta Band has very little in common with its contemporaries Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai and Arab Strap. Well, maybe there is at least…
The cover of the White Stripes’ third release depicts the Detroit duo surrounded by shadowy Ninja assassins who, as the last page of the CD booklet reveals, turn out to be friendly members of a media circus. Could this be a not-so-subtle indication of how Jack and Meg White feel…
A few weeks ago, in Chicago, I wandered into one of those cheese-and-toothpick parties that the entertainment industry likes to throw for itself. The event itself wasn’t much, but the musical guest of honor was: the superannuated Eric Burdon, fronting an accomplished if Spinal Tap-ish quartet called The New Animals…
At its mercenary heart, the idea behind the Wu-Tang Clan came as much from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as it did from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The Clan’s 1993 debut album, Return to the 36 Chambers, laid the basis for the subsequent torrent of solo…
The popularity of tough-nosed hip-hop continues to present challenges to R&B vocalists. Soulsters who go too heavy on sentiment, eschewing the sort of musical nods that might enhance their credibility with ‘bangers, risk coming across as weak, passé — old school in a tame way. But those who overemphasize biceps,…
Friends, be careful what you name your group . . . you just might get called that one day. Anyone who’s tried coming up with an irresistible band handle knows it’s tough sledding — just ask the Unsavory Gastrointestinal Effects! So many odorous, odd and frankly silly band names can…
Ask anybody who the hell Billy Lee Riley is and the response will range from a casual shoulder shrug to a mumbled “I dunno.” Considering that Riley helped shape a crucial portion of 20th-century culture and define the very notion of rock ‘n’ roll, it’s almost laughable how unheralded he…
This week we venture into the outdoor produce market of contemporary music, there to compare apples and oranges: two collections of reinterpretations of classic and semi-classic film music, rooted in heavy metal and remix aesthetics. Fantômas, a sorta-all-star hard-rock quartet, consists of Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle, Faith No More), King…
The six members of Detroit-based D12 (it’s short for Dirty Dozen; the discrepancy between the actual number of rappers in the group and its double-size moniker has something to do with the fact that each person’s alias is also counted) made a pact years ago that, if any of them…
Charles Thompson is on his way to see a man about an ax. “I’m on my way to see Toru,” he intones in a stylized, Peter Lorre-esque cadence, “Japanese guitar repairman . . . to the stars.” Thompson, better known as Frank Black, trusts his guitars to L.A. legend Toru…
Perched on a stool at a local watering hole a few weeks back, sitting with a female acquaintance, we’re discussing the state of local music when the conversation inevitably turns to Bleed American, the much-hyped, much-anticipated album from Jimmy Eat World. My companion, a twentyish college grad newly smitten with…
Clay and Jency Rogers bought their East Mesa house when the market was good for young families. It’s a clean, well-lighted place in the middle of a new subdivision, but it’s in East Mesa, to be sure. To the north of it is where Guadalupe Road ends. Just stops. But…
