Melechesh’s geography — which involves being a thrash/black-metal band from Israel comprising Armenian, Assyrian, Dutch, and Ukrainian musicians who’ve relocated to Europe — makes for an interesting story, but it becomes doubly curious when you consider that the band’s material fixates on ancient Mesopotamia. These are no Sumerian dilettantes, either:…
The opening track wastes no time living up to everything this latest reinvention from the desk of Damon Albarn promised — Danger Mouse pushing the post-Lee Perry echo like The Clash in Sandinista! mode, with pulsing reggae bass from The Clash’s own Paul Simonon and Albarn at his soulful best…
While your iTunes playlist is doubtless clogged with songs by bands well-suited to their noms de plume, Philly/NYC quartet Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is that rare act whose name describes the desired effect its music will have on listeners. Frontman Alec Ounsworth’s uneven squawk recalls Talking Heads’ David Byrne…
Well, oy vey!, opa!, and oh my gosh!, here’s a world-music collective that plays an enchanting blend of Gypsy music (two of the five members of Fishtank Ensemble actually traveled across Europe in a caravan as Croque Mule) and other exotic styles, including klezmer, polka, punk, flamenco, classical, and rock…
Watching Young Love mastermind Dan Keyes wriggle his hips behind the microphone as he yelps, “If you get the chance/You must dance dance dance” on the R&B-tinged “Find a New Way,” one would never know that he used to be a member of an emo band. Keyes, formerly the moping…
“I write my life as it progresses, as it gets worse — whatever,” says Aaron Yates, who headlines Friday at the Marquee Theatre under his nom de plume, Tech N9ne (Blaze Ya Dead Homie opens the show). “I’m like a fan inside this cat called Tech N9ne who writes this…
The jokes about tentacles and ink could write themselves, so we won’t bother. What we will do, however, is note how gleefully the members of Austin’s Octopus Project plow through their glitched-out, post-rock instrumentals. Armed with an arsenal of toys, keyboards, drum machines, and samplers, spouses Josh and Yvonne Lambert,…
Good evening, ladies and gents; this is your captain, DJ M2, speaking from the record deck. I’d like to welcome you aboard Club Vibe, 3031 East Indian School Road, for Sound Trip, where tonight (and every Friday at 9 p.m.), I’ll be piloting y’all on a fantastic voyage through the…
The ’80s are back, and Tricky Bizzniss is surfing the new New Wave thing with a sound that’s a bit electro, but more self-consciously retro. Singer Trixie Reiss was the voice of The Crystal Method’s smash debut, Vegas, while producer Ernie Lake was one half of Soul Solution (the duo…
Cballa I’m trying to count the ways that local Westside rapper Cballa annoys the shit out of me. Let’s start with calling your record Blacc Hitla. Because I’m a writer and by proxy an aspiring grammarian, the misspelling bothers the shit out of me. Now, I understand that urban street…
The dorks in Illegal Substance The other afternoon I was sitting in one of my local watering holes and the B-52’s “Rock Lobster” came on the satellite radio. I had to walk outside; that song and its ilk turn my stomach and make me puke a little bit in my…
Smokescreen Just received a CD and e-mails from the local band Smokescreen, and I’m torn between two opinions about its marketing strategy. I like the band; it sounds like lush late-’90s alt-rock in the vein of Radiohead or the Pumpkins, but not too clone-esque. Here’s the strategy though: the band…
I’ve been following hip-hop since I first heard Run-D.M.C.’s King of Rock album when I was 11 years old. I’m not a fanatic, though; my sneering, hip-hop-obsessed DJ friends will tell you that. They just recently schooled me in hyphy, the cartoonish — and kind of silly — Bay Area…
We liked the Scottsdale club life so much last week that we thought we might hit up a new hot spot, the Cherry Lounge & Pit in Tempe, on Friday, January 26. Mill Avenue was lively and teeming with drunkards when we trekked our way to the popular drinking destination…
It’s a chilly Saturday night downtown, and I’ve just met up with my friend Toxic JuJu to take in “The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra Performs the Music of Led Zeppelin” concert at Dodge Theatre. I didn’t know what to wear for this — do I throw on some jeans and a…
Joe Ely was born along the Rock Island line in Amarillo, three blocks from Route 66. At age 6, he witnessed Jerry Lee Lewis pounding a piano on the back of a flatbed truck. In his early twenties, he picked up a hitchhiking Townes Van Zandt, the now-mythical Texas folk…
In an interview with Celebritycafe.com, John Paul Jones said that someone asked him if he didn’t think The Sporting Life had a Led Zeppelin influence. He replied, “Don’t you think Led Zeppelin has a John Paul Jones influence? I was a quarter of that band.” Indeed, Jones never seems to…
When Taylor Swift first hit Nashville, she faced competition from many aspiring female country stars with beautiful faces and large voices. She had bigger ideas. “I had to figure out a way to stand out and be different. For me, that came through songwriting,” she says. As writer of 11…
For all intents and purposes, Mark Linkous is Sparklehorse. And yet, despite a welcome move to a western North Carolina mountaintop and noteworthy assists from Tom Waits, Danger Mouse, and The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd, his latest release, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain (full of…
G. Love and his Philly compadres Special Sauce may be one of the most unique musical acts to come to the fore of the indie scene in the last two decades. Marrying Beastie Boys-inspired funk and hip-hop with swampwater blues, some traditional lo-fi indie-rock riffs, and laid-back surf pop à…
Though no one’s sure of the exact date, sometime in 1974, in the cold, cold town of Buffalo, New York, a young jazz combo by the name of Spyro Gyra hit the stage. Since then, the group has performed all over the world (seriously — places like Andorra and Jakarta)…
While promoters may have dubbed the tour featuring Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, and John Hiatt “The Four Horsemen Tour,” a better name might have been “Three Texans and a Midwesterner.” Or perhaps “The Founding Fathers Tour,” as these four singer-songwriters should be considered among the founding fathersof the…
