Now it’s official: America loves its morose anniversary celebrations. Whatever the cursed event may be — the Kennedy assassination, the death of Elvis, the Oklahoma City bombing, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey or the release of Invincible, we’ve come to expect a somber annual reminder and the corresponding media hoopla…
“There was one fight called Soup vs. Sandwich.’ Basically like a can of soup fighting this sandwich, essentially. A totally weird, weird sporting event.” John Schmersal, creator of Enon, is talking about a show his band played in Boston a few months back. They opened for something known as the…
Here’s a dating tip for every guy surfing Amor@AOL for a hot Latina mujer. If, after “musica favorita,” she lists, simply, “salsa,” there are three hard and fast commandments you must absolutely heed, lest you risk settling for yet another night alone with your Paulina Rubio CD cover. Number one:…
Back in the early ’80s, the Jesus and Mary Chain set the pace for the über-cool, guitar-heavy British indie scene with a series of confrontationally shambolic singles, including the classics “Upside Down” and “Never Understand.” The ever-contentious Scottish siblings Jim and William Reid articulated the beauty of guitar feedback in…
At just under an hour, The Osbourne Family Album manages to pay tribute to Ozzy while giving a boost to Jack and Kelly Osbourne’s burgeoning music-biz gigs (dour Dillusion, whom talent scout Jack has been developing for Epic, appears here for that reason alone, and Kelly previews her forthcoming debut…
1960s London swings again in the playground of British vocalist/pop-culturist Angie Tillett and her production team at Terminal Electric Works, who have released their sophomore album under the name Death by Chocolate. This swirl of pop art builds sandcastles on obscure ’60s covers, throwing around fragmentary cultural references and instrumentals…
After putting one over on the public — by which I mean the fanatical hundreds who keep up with Damon Albarn’s digital circle jerks — the Blur front man, Dan Nakamura, Jaime Hewlett and everyone else collecting royalties three albums in for one album’s worth of real, ahem, work return…
With all due respect to Cher, it’s Cyndi Lauper who should receive top billing on the pair’s current tour of America. Sure, it’s been more than 15 years since Lauper’s classic debut, She’s So Unusual, made her a star of the pop charts and the MTV generation. It’s now nearly…
The classic American movie Giant is an epic about a Texas cattle baron, Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), his wife (Elizabeth Taylor) and his family. The film, released in 1956, also features the late James Dean and is riddled with clunky foreshadowing, not least of which is a scene in which…
I have this great idea for a reality television show. Here’s what we do: We round up every single exec, producer, consultant, show doctor, set designer, snotty host, vampiric talent scout, PR monkey and anyone else who had a hand in creating Pop Stars, Making the Band and American Idol,…
Earlier this year, Tony Hajjar was in Vancouver, recording a new album with his band, which is both exactly where he should have been and not where you’d expect. Let’s back up. In 2000, At the Drive-In, an El Paso quintet featuring Hajjar on drums, released Relationship of Command, the…
The word “mature” keeps cropping up in positive reviews of this disc —mature songwriting, mature arrangements, mature subject matter, mature performances — and such references are apt. Unfortunately, maturity isn’t the most scintillating quality: It doesn’t quicken the pulse or trigger the endorphins, and can easily slide into less laudable…
One of the less constructive myths to come from our recent Age of Self-Esteem is that anyone anywhere can be a genius, given the appropriate care and feeding of his or her tender muse. Bullshit. As the Pixies proved, genius is born like Athena, fully grown from the head of…
Even before my first spin of Fed to Your Head had ended, I sensed that the album would inspire strongly contradictory feelings, and a brief prowl across the Internet confirmed my suspicions. An online reviewer at www.ink19.com likened Scorched Earth to “a third-rate Lenny Kravitz” and concluded with comments that…
There is a secret history of British New Wave. Beneath the cosmetic façade of Boy George and Adam Ant lurked a legion of post-punk misfits — champions of cheap guitars, thrift-store glamour and reckless experimentation. Behind every Duran Duran was the spiky funk of the Pop Group; behind every Bow…
Japanese taiko drumming is an art form that is as visual as it is auditory. Kodo’s army of drummers, sinewy and scantily clad in traditional costume, muscle 900-pound drums in perfectly choreographed unison while participating in a complex piece of performance art that is equal parts athletic performance and spiritual…
There very well may be something terribly wrong with the members of Speedealer. “Everybody in this band is pretty pissed off,” says bassist Rich Mullins. “I think our attitude is that, in order for something to rock, you have to really mean it. Jeff [Hirshberg, guitar/vocals] calls it a tremendous…
The trio’s second disc since reimagining itself on 1997’s Zaireeka, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is casually electronic and curiously acoustic. Sounds from both ends of the musical spectrum crash in the middle and collapse into smiling, sad piles of overcast optimism and, as leader Wayne Coyne puts it, “sunshine…
Like virtually all products of American culture, hip-hop has traveled on globalism’s winds to take root in the unlikeliest of places — from Serbia to São Paulo. Africa Raps: Senegal, Mali, and the Gambia, a compilation on German label Trikont, brings rap’s Afrocentric tendencies full circle, collecting recent material from…
If Kruder and Dorfmeister are a blunt before breakfast, then Jazzanova is cocktails after dinner. Stylish and sophisticated, Jazzanova’s debut LP In Between (discounting 2000’s remix collection) is a journey through nu jazz that you’re not likely to forget. The six-man team from Germany has dominated the jazz-dance and down-tempo…
Alicia Keys is so 2001’s Lauryn Hill: a young, beautiful, smart African-American woman with more talent than the white critical community knows how to handle, pushed to the lip of the mainstream media stage by editors and producers grateful for the chance to chip away at their guilt over never…
The first time I ever laughed out loud in a rock club? It was in Manhattan, and They Might Be Giants were playing at a little club called Dr. B’s in Soho. It couldn’t have been more than 1981 or ’82, but they emerged on the scene like a fully…
