Not sure if it’s the holidaze or or just the cooler weather that’s causing so much dope action on the music tip lately, but I really don’t care. Fact is, practically every night of the week there’s some bomb shit going on. Tonight’s no exception. If you’re not hitting up…
Today’s Thursday, aka Baby Friday, and Thursday nights there’s really only one gig in town worth spending your evening at: the infamous Blunt Club. Whether you’re a hip-hopper, backpacker, punk rocker, indie hipster, what-the-fuck-ever, the Blunt Club’s the bangin’est club night to hit up, five years strong now. This installation…
There’s nothing like a good ol’ drag show to scum up a wholesome holiday with the family. That was the idea at Amsterdam’s 4th Annual Thanksgiving Night Show last Thursday, November 23, when everyone sucked in their turkey-filled guts and squeezed into their clubbing clothes. The fabulously flamboyant show starred…
“We’re planning to do a children’s show in a couple of days, and I was asked which song I would like to play for this kids’ show. I started going through the songs on the record, and with every song it’s like, ‘Oh, shit, here’s the love-story phobia song, this…
Desiree and Mindy Duponte are teenaged sisters, attractive blond girls who each stand around five feet tall and have unusually tiny hands. When they tell people they’re musicians, they usually get a reaction along the lines of, “Oh, you guys play in a band? That’s so cute. ” When I…
Five of the 11 tracks on Robert Plant’s first DVD, Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation (Rounder/Zoe), are new performances of old Led Zeppelin songs. But this set isn’t nearly as safe or nostalgic as the track list would suggest. Captured live in 2005 for PBS’s Soundstage, Plant and a…
“I worry that I’m going to forget, like with ‘Gouge Away,’ I’m gonna think it’s in G,” Kim Deal says in Loud QUIET Loud: A Film About the Pixies (MVD Visual), providing just one example of how this 85-minute documentary shows the influential alt-rock band (whose 2004 reunion tour provided…
Bad Brains: Live at CBGB 1982 (MVD Visual) captures two historic and defunct components of punk rock’s ’70s heyday — the classic lineup of the seminal Washington, D.C., band (featuring vocalist H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jennifer, and drummer Earl Hudson), performing within the cramped confines of the legendary…
Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (Lionsgate) is not a documentary. Leonard Cohen obsessives learned this the hard way, flocking to jam-packed theaters only to encounter Bono’s banal assertion that Cohen’s religious imagery isn’t all that religious. If I’m Your Man documents anything at all, it’s that Cohen is loved most…
They’ve always been known for the Southwestern flavor they bring to the indie-rock table — mariachi horns, spaghetti Western ambiance, the kind of sound that says “Why, yes, in fact, we are from Tucson.” By the time they got to Garden Ruin, though, the members of Calexico were in the…
Keller Williams isn’t the first Deadhead to harbor a secret love for electronica. He is, however, the first to make a career of combining the conflicting genres. This solo performer’s folk-rock leanings (which often transform him into a one-man jam band) are punctuated with spontaneous oontz-ing thumps via an Echoplex…
It’s a safe bet that Pepper grew up on a steady diet of Sublime, Sugar Ray, and post-1995 Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the occasional grunge snack. The Hawaii trio’s sophomoric, agreeable, brand-spanking new No Shame will likely find great favor at barbecues, ganja-flavored get-togethers, and luau-themed fraternity parties everywhere…
The kiss of death when describing a blind date is that he/she/it has a “great personality.” The kiss of death when describing a band is that it has “great musicianship.” Working twixt both extremes are these Finnish black metal pushers — great personalities fermenting beneath a mulch field of great…
When Swedish death metal band Arch Enemy announced in 2001 that original singer Johan Liiva had been asked to leave the band because guitarist Michael Amott wanted “a more dynamic front man,” few people expected that new “front man” would be a woman, a then-unknown German singer named Angela Gossow…
The Bad Boy roster closed the millennium spitting lyrics over an inane series of ’80s classics, a movement that screamed of selling out. However, No Way Out, Diddy’s 1997 vanity-rap debut, went seven times platinum on the strength of the Bowie-sampling “Been Around the World.” Indeed, the man has always…
Along with B.B. King, George “Buddy” Guy is perhaps the quintessential modern blues singer/guitarist. Born in 1936, Guy came from the original wave of Chicago blues players who made a major impact on rock ‘n’ roll, establishing himself with Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor, and Muddy Waters before going solo —…
Although Army of Anyone features half of Stone Temple Pilots as well as former Filter lead singer Richard Patrick, the whole isn’t greater than the sum of its parts. None of the tracks on the group’s debut smolders quite like Filter’s mid-’90s breakthrough, “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” nor does any…
Ben Folds plays the ivory keys like an 11-fingered man suckled on Elton John records. The former front man and namesake of the Ben Folds Five has a clamant, albeit sometimes goofy, presence and an overwhelming talent that at times makes it hard to distinguish his solo work from his…
Pitbull’s newest CD, El Mariel, includes lines like “Welcome to the real Dade County/Where we’re soldiers from birth to the hearse/That’s why my childhood included a bulletproof vest,” and “Welcome to the real Miami/Where we live to die.” Typical rapper throw-down boasts, yes, but that’s the only thing that’s typical…
When DJ Astonish isn’t busy dropping the hip-hop hotness over Valley airwaves every Saturday night from 9 to 11 on KISS-FM 104.7, the banging beatmaster can be found at the new nightspot John Q’s, 7000 East Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale, presenting Naked Wednesdays. While, sadly, no one actually drops trou…
These days, NYC ain’t the only hip-hop haven bustin’ out lyrical clicks and renegade rappers. Straight outta Boston, Mr. Lif is bringin’ back that ol’ Beantown rap sound with Mo’ Mega, a politically charged followup to his highly praised 2002 album, I Phantom. The pseudo-optimistic dread-head is keepin’ it real…
Either Andy Partridge has way too much time on his hands or he’s simply too prolific to be reined in by the confines of XTC, the proto-punk band-turned-Beatles/Beach Boys disciples he founded nearly three decades ago. It’s likely a bit of both; after all, it has been practically 25 years…
