Email Author Chris Parker

2005 Stories by Chris Parker

• Clutch

  published December 15, 2005

  Someday they'll discover it's not your environment at all, but a biochemical switch in the brain that determines whether you're into stoner metal... More >>

• Nickel Creek

  published December 8, 2005

  Gorgeous bluegrass shaded with a blend of contemporary pop and rock influences, the San Diego trio Nickel Creek's supple, earthy tones blow... More >>

• Kaskade

  published December 8, 2005

  Growing up in Chicago, Kaskade was initially into British New Wave acts such as The Cure and The Smiths before discovering clubs, Frankie Knuckles... More >>

• Propagandhi

  published December 8, 2005

  Steadfastly political and occasionally amusing (as on "Homophobes Are Just Mad They Can't Get Laid" and "Degrassi Junior High Drop Outs"), these... More >>

• Saves the Day

  published December 1, 2005

  Arriving on the heels of the Get Up Kids' success, Saves the Day burst out of the box with 1999's Through Being Cool, a terrific punk-pop... More >>

• (International) Noise Conspiracy

  published December 1, 2005

  If Kurt Cobain can get a hit musing about disposable teenage culture, why can't a bunch of Swedish Marxists? If, as Marx suggests, communism is a... More >>

• The Crystal Method at Myst

  published November 17, 2005

  It's been called dance music for people who like rock, but the tag's too reductive. While The Crystal Method's "big beat" sound has often featured... More >>

• The Rocket Summer

  published November 10, 2005

  For every hundred bedroom guitar heroes, there's a Bryce Avary, the kind of driven kid who doesn't just dream it. Avary recorded an EP at 18,... More >>

• MXPX

  published November 10, 2005

  Bands change, fortunately, and so does the music they make. But that implies opinions must change, too. After describing MXPX as a pale Green Day... More >>

• X-Factor

  published November 3, 2005

  You know the feeling in the air when the barometer and temperature drop as a big storm blows in? It's like that around Jean Grae these days. Not... More >>

• Never Sleep Again Tour

  published November 3, 2005

  Argue if you will about screamo's artistic merit -- if you were 16, growing up in an environment of Incubus and Limp Bizkit, you'd have a lot of... More >>

• Sage Francis

  published October 27, 2005

  If his rhymes were weapons, he'd be a 30mm chaingun, eviscerating the landscape with enough unrelenting wordplay to make the New York... More >>

• Coheed & Cambria, Blood Brothers, and Dredg

  published October 20, 2005

  Please welcome tonight's three contestants for accolades, riches and fame. From Los Gatos, CA, we have Dredg, whose meandering, oceanic... More >>

• Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell

  published October 20, 2005

  Caitlin Cary began playing violin when she was very young, but had let music lapse in favor of a creative-writing degree when she met Ryan Adams,... More >>

• From Autumn to Ashes, Armor for Sleep

  published September 29, 2005

  It's feeling a lot like the early '90s, with rock acts selling hundreds of thousands of albums on little indies, and the majors out in force with... More >>

• Four Tet

  published September 29, 2005

  Kieran Hebden secured a contract for his English post-rock band Fridge while still in his teens. With the money he would've used for school, he... More >>

• Time Bomb

  published September 22, 2005

  Some bands are fireworks, some wine. Some burn brightly and die quickly, others need time to develop their full bouquet. Ireland's The Frames came... More >>

• Unseen

  published September 22, 2005

  Boston's Unseen exemplifies old-school hardcore, from its shout-along English Oi! roots to America's machine-gun tempos, extending the legacy of... More >>

• Th' Legendary Shack Shakers

  published September 22, 2005

  Like his buddy Reverend Horton Heat or his inspiration Jerry Lee Lewis, Colonel J.D. Wilkes is pure showman (and he's no more military than Heat... More >>

• Kool Keith, Esham

  published September 15, 2005

  Kool Keith is a hip-hop legend going back 20 years to rap's early beginnings. The onetime Bellevue patient was a member of seminal Bronx group... More >>

• Barbez

  published September 15, 2005

  Barbez is a whirlwind of Old World energy, a picture postcard suffused with smoky moods and late-night cabaret. Like Gogol Bordello getting a... More >>

• Duncan Sheik, and David Poe

  published September 8, 2005

  Major labels haven't had a lot of success marketing singer-songwriters (unless they sound like Dave Matthews), and given that their target... More >>

• The Posies, and Deathray Davies

  published September 8, 2005

  The Posies loved Big Star so much that they became the band. Front men Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer became the backing for Alex Chilton and Jody... More >>

• Spitalfield, and Hidden in Plain View

  published September 8, 2005

  Being a good emo/pop-punk band these days is like being a natural blonde in a sea of peroxide. It's easy to get lost in the waves, but these bands... More >>

• Bad Boy Bill at Myst

  published August 18, 2005

  Born in Chicago, Bad Boy Bill grew up on hip-hop as well as dance music. There in the hotbed of house, he listened to Farley Jackmaster Funk of... More >>