With stunning production from old rival Marley Marl, KRS-One delivers a sharp retort to Nas’ recent proclamation that Hip Hop Is Dead — but not without kicking some dirt on gangsta culture. The highlights on this 12-track disc are many, including “Nothing New,” in which the Teacha delivers his indictment…
Those of you hoping Smashing Pumpkins’ comeback record is an unmitigated disaster will be disappointed: It’s not. Those of you afraid that head Pumpkin Billy Corgan made another The Future Embrace (his über-synthpop, somewhat cheesy solo album) will be happy: He didn’t. With drummer Jimmy Chamberlin the lone member of…
Interpol’s major label debut, Our Love to Admire, isn’t as monochrome (or monotonous) as its previous two albums. “Pioneer to the Falls” is arguably the richest song they’ve ever recorded, a track that channels the stormy textures of the Cure’s Pornography. Death-march piano and woodwinds add counter-melodies, a giant quivering…
Since the Beastie Boys released License to Ill more than two decades ago, all paths into New York nostalgia and downtown have led back to them. So what’s a guy named Adrock, or MCA, or Mike D to do? No wonder, with The Mix-Up, they’ve got nothing to say. It’s…
You know that warm, contented feeling you get when it’s woundingly cold outside and you’re snuggled up in your favorite blanket sipping cocoa and watching Roseanne reruns? You can get nearly the same effect, minus the calories and eyestrain, from the fanciful sounds of What Laura Says Thinks and Feels…
Ever since Motion City Soundtrack frontman Justin Pierce announced his trepidation for what is to come on the insanely catchy “The Future Freaks Me Out,” from the Minneapolis fivesome’s 2003 debut, I Am the Movie (Epitaph), it’s been nearly impossible to deny the band’s infectious hooks. Combining the immediate likability…
Kajak — the sophomore long-player from namesake/frontman Benedikt H. Hermannsson’s Icelandic easy-listening band — may not be the textbook definition of a guilty indie pleasure, but it’s close. The lyrics aren’t in English; the cover art looks like it was designed by your 3-year old nephew; the musicianship’s a smidge…
Neither a critic’s band nor a super-popular radio sensation, Gary Lightbody’s Glasgow group was, once upon a time, just a struggling indie-rock outfit, more Belle & Sebastian insular than Coldplay make-out music. By the time their breakthrough record, Last Straw, finally got to the States in 2004, Snow Patrol had…
The hipster headquarters known as Glam, 3174 East Indian School Road, isn’t just a hotspot for seeing faux-hawked emo kids making out with chicks wearing American Apparel on a glowing, multicolored dance floor straight outta Saturday Night Fever. The joint’s like the world’s coolest jukebox come to life, with bomb-ass…
Thursday 12 Andersons: S.W.A.G. Thursdays with DJ Essence, DJ Astonish, & Bryce Breeze (hip-hop, reggae, R&B) Baja Tillys: DJ Adrian (old school, R&B, cumbia, reggaeton) Bikini Lounge: Sophisticated Boom Boom with DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro, R&B) Bobby Cs: Willy B. (old-school R&B) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom…
I am drunk, and I’m standing in the middle of a baseball field, dancing with Governor Janet Napolitano. No, this wasn’t a dream, although I have to admit I woke up the next morning and wondered, “Did that really happen?” But it did, and on the 4th of July. And…
We remember when “nightlife” at 40th Street and Indian School consisted of a run-down Taco Bell and a super-scummy dive bar. But now that the Arcadia neighborhood is suddenly sexy, there’s a little scene happening at The Vig that we decided to tap into on Saturday, July 7. (Click here…
Yes! Finally, Club Candids punked out on the weekend circuit and cruised to Covet Boutique in Scottsdale on Wednesday, June 27, for its in-store party. (Click here for more photos.) The spot was super chi-chi but with a hipster indie vibe. Kids sipped beer and super-tasty vodka lemonade while they…
In a time when the opportunity for unsigned musicians to jump-start careers via MySpace seems already to have come and gone, the steadily building success of Tempe’s Eyes Set To Kill is both encouraging and confounding. Since posting a profile on the ubiquitous Web site in March 2005, the band’s…
Becky Stark, frontwoman for psych-pop/indie-folk foursome Lavender Diamond, is on a mission for peace. “All of our concerts we open by saying something like, ‘Congratulations, everyone, for peace coming to planet Earth . . . let’s hear it for peace on Earth,’ and everyone always wants to applaud,” she says…
The Sopranos blackout, Paul McCartney’s bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road, the vast number of sharpshooters hidden in the shadows of Dealey Plaza, and the inexplicable public fascination with Paris Hilton. America wrestles with these enigmas, seeking answers and finding none. Bigger than all of them is the…
Based on the CD Rusty’s Waltz, it’s hard to tell where Jen Powelson stops and the band Haven James starts, meaning that while there is some additional instrumentation on the disc — tiny doses of fiddle, mandolin, cello, and some very Mark Knopfler-esque leads — Powelson’s loud rhythm guitar and…
Think of the music played by Spain’s Son de la Frontera as pure acoustic music that does not rely on any studio gimmicks. The five-piece group from Morón de la Frontera has a sound marked by the presence of the très (a three-stringed instrument commonly used in Cuban folk music)…
While absorbing the Blueshammer ersatz and pheromone-scented metallurgy of Icky Thump, the White Stripes’ sixth record, it’s hard not to long for the candy-striped sibs who once sat in that little room, working on something good. Remember them? Way back before the supermodel weddings, Nashville mansions, and sundry side projects?…
The men of Linkin Park seem awfully insecure. Minutes to Midnight is stuffed with take-us-seriously gestures, including the presence of producer Rick Rubin and liner notes that couldn’t be needier if they’d been written by Sally Field. For instance, the Parkers reveal in a footnote to “What I’ve Done” that…
It’s been four years since Fountains of Wayne’s last studio album, but the wait has been more than worth it, because FOW produces incredibly well-constructed pop. Besides a gift for hummable melodies, the group’s bite-size vignettes of middle-class angst (think John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom) reveal a novelist’s eye for detail…
W.O.M.B. has always been difficult to define. Ever since the Valley band’s debut LP, 1999’s Warriors of Make Believe, the group has been producing thematically diverse music that ranges from the playful and poppy to the haunting and experimental. Now that singer/guitarist Marta Wiley and drummer Cristiana Cole have parted…
