trippin’ out with the Squid A few weeks back I wrote here in my column Revolver about the instrumental sensation that is Attack of the Giant Squid, and in the blog I’ve mentioned Squid homeboys An Aesthetic as well. Both are fucking great bands, and I just received word from…
these guys scare me I’m not sure what it is about me that attracts the dregs of humanity; there are numerous examples I can site — I spent a year dating a stripper, then my friends try to hook me up with a (half-assed) recovering heroin addict as a girlfriend…
Okay, so that comeback album never quite came back, stalling out on the quality trail somewhere between It’s Hard and Roger Daltrey’s latest solo album. And the band’s down to two crucial members from the glory days of “Substitute” and “I Can See for Miles.” But if The Who can…
Upstairs at the recent One Stop Shop hip-hop producers’ conference (sponsored by G-Unit), I’m at the booth of Money Management, the company that manages 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Young Buck, Tony Yayo, and more, talking to a cat named Kasper about the state of music in Phoenix. I tell him…
In the theoretical “school of rock,” Isis front man Aaron Turner would be the kid at the head of the class who has an eloquent answer for every question and writes the essays that the teacher always reads aloud to the rest of the class. Or maybe he’d be the…
The pioneering British gore-metal band Carcass may’ve disbanded in 1995, but its legacy has never been stronger. In fact, not content merely to borrow from the masters, an entire new subgenre of unashamed copycat bands has arisen in Carcass’ wake, each one an attempt to cut closer to the heart…
“I think we all strive for some sort of identity or knowing of self,” says 30 Seconds to Mars drummer Shannon Leto from his car in Los Angeles. “The way to go about it can be a little rough around the edges, but I don’t think there’s an arrival date…
Born in 1936 in Jamaica, raised in Texas, and based in Phoenix, Big Pete Pearson is proof that the blues (as a flourishing, vibrant form) is not dying of old age and House of Blues-bred respectability. Likely among the last of the breed of Chicago-style bluesmen, Pearson has a burly,…
Brothers Peter and David Brewis may have an unerring knack for melodic hooks, but full songs prove a trickier proposition for them. Two-thirds of Field Music, the Brewises deliver their second album of frequently shimmering ditties on Tones of Town, stitching together Beach Boys harmonies, string sections, and XTC-style pop…
Keller Williams, the one-man jam band, is known for his ability to get the sound of a full orchestra out of his acoustic guitar using a variety of pedals and loops. On Dream, he invites 20 friends along for 16 unpredictable performances as a trio, quartet, full band, and duo…
Seattle singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes has long been uncomfortable with critical responses to her music as dark, lonely, and deeply depressed; instead (as she’s taken to saying), she plays “spooky American music.” This may seem like a minor semantic quibble, but it’s crucial to getting your head around Sykes’ second full-length…
Saliva’s rote fusion of rap metal, grunge, and alt rock should’ve died before the turn of the century, but it never has. Amazingly enough, the more generic and obsolete the Memphis band sounds, the more records it sells: “Ladies and Gentleman,” the first single off Blood Stained Love Story, recently…
For two decades, Walter Salas-Humera and his Silos have been one of the leading lights of Americana music. Sadly underappreciated, the New York-based Silos have released more than a dozen efforts that merge country, folk, and indie rock in increasingly fascinating ways. The band’s high-water mark was Cuba from 1987,…
Think about how many reality-TV-show marriages have ended in divorce — and then think about how many groups created in the artificial light of television (The Monkees, The New Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Archies, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, The Bugaloos, Cyanide, Josie…
Until some impresario rounds up a troupe of working prostitutes to personally give each audience member a hand job, you’re not going to get a better wet-dream marketing triumph than The Pussycat Dolls. Originally a neoburlesque dance troupe in L.A. that quickly franchised in Sin City, the whole PCD enterprise…
Having a musical legend you call dad can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you don’t have to go on American Idol to get the industry’s attention. On the other hand, you kind of have to spend your whole life selling records in the old man’s…
Mommy and Daddy? We’ve been really good lately, so can we go on a field trip with our bestest buddies to the Kindergarten Rave on Saturday, February 24? Don’t worry, there’ll be supervision from growned-ups, like our two special hippy-hoppy friends, Grand Buffet from Pittsburgh (who’ll be performing), and we’ll…
Dense with vivid, lively chirp patterns, Gui Boratto’s debut full-length offers authentic dance-floor splendor. The Brazilian producer’s use of summery melodies on the diverse Chromophobia makes for many pleasant moments, as he sometimes warms wobbly, gritty android movements with surging synths (“Terminal”) or lights the way with splintering trance (“The…
Thursday 22 Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night (hip-hop, rock, dance) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (various) Blue Note: DJ Soloman, & Fredj (acid jazz, house) Bobby C’s: Willie B (old school R&B) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cat Eye: Punk Rock Thursdays (rock, punk) Cherry Lounge: DJs Tranzl8tr, & Earth (rock, ’80s, hip-hop)…
1. The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (Sub Pop) 2. Bloc Party, Weekend in the City (Vice Records) 3. John Mayer, The Village Sessions (Sony BMG) 4. Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High (Island Records) 5. Dear and the Headlights, Small Steps, Heavy Hooves (Equal Vision Records) 6. Lucinda Williams,…
If getting obliterated only two nights a week just isn’t enough to fill whatever emotional void you’ve got going on, Club Candids has found the perfect place to make an early-week pit stop to fill your empty vessel with the glorious numbing power of booze. And you don’t have to…
Occasionally I receive CD’s from local bands that need some constructive criticism, to put it politely. Today I’ve got two for you… The first, and least offensive, is Captain Squeegee and the Soap Suds, which other than earning an honorary doctorate in dumb-band-naming, really need to figure out what the…
