See also: Download: Nite Jewel’s Sultry, Direct Song “In the Dark” Chairlift, Nite Jewel, and Bell Crescent Ballroom Saturday, April 14 Watching the trio of on-the-rise bands at Crescent, I saw three very different approaches to both stage presence and synth-driven pop. Headliners Chairlift struck a very entertaining balance between…
Ad Hoc, a DIY/experimental music blog collective created by editors of Pitchfork’s defunct sister site Altered Zones, recently succeeded in raising over $37,000 for the project through a Kickstarter drive and will be going live in the coming weeks. Editors Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander, after ending Altered Zones in…
You’d never know it if you took their black T-shirts, black hair and, well, black outlook at face value, but metalheads have no problem laughing at their own darkness. Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim block capitalized on this with Metalocalypse, a show about a cartoon metal band that simultaneously celebrates…
See also: Sun Araw covers Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque at the Hard Rock Cafe in LA L.A.’s Sun Araw, the slow-rolling psych project of Cameron Stallones, is an ideal gateway into long-form music for those suspicious of epic jam territory. There is nary a Sun Araw tune shorter than six minutes,…
Can’t an emotionally complex, religiously ambiguous metal band get a break? Even though the members of introspective prog-metal titans Shai Hulud are neither uniformly spiritual nor sober, the band has been combating both the “straight edge” and “Christian” tags almost since its inception in 1995. Genre is apparently a point…
Cloud Nothings Crescent Ballroom Tuesday, February 28 When I spoke with Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings, he said he had never been intimidated by extensive touring, high-profile shows, or recording Attack on Memory, the band’s latest record, with punk purist Steve Albini. The band’s excellent set at Crescent — airtight…
Grimes and Born Gold Rhythm Room Monday, February 27 Montreal-based Claire Boucher, known as Grimes, not only has a stirringly sweet voice that she layers like K-pop frosting but also a penchant for weaving bombastic beats inside ambient textures. Her latest record on 4AD, Visions, manages to embody the label’s…
Despite the quick rise of his punk outfit Cloud Nothings through the blogosphere and the warm critical reception of the band’s latest record, Attack on Memory, 20-year-old singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi remains calm. The big, black all-ages Xs drawn on his hands surely negate any ego-tripping. “Some cities on the West…
I wasn’t being hyperbolic when I called St Ranger the most promising young band in Phoenix in my list of personal favorite records from last year. The indie pop band’s newest five-track LP, Life Coach, proves my point, brimming with harmonious group vocals, jangly guitar interplay, and chill atmospherics. The…
Metal legends Metallica recently announced the two-day Orion Music and More Festival, where the band will headline each night by playing a different classic album, Ride the Lightning and The Black Album, in their entirety. There’s a super-long video on the festival site featuring an interview with the band, conducted…
It’s obvious music blogs have a unique place in the great big music discussion. Entire careers have been bolstered by one lone blogger posting a hot new MP3 that quickly catches fire and burns up RSS feeds. However, some of the biggest taste-makers on the Internet have combined forces and…
Zola Jesus, Talk Normal Crescent Ballroom Wednesday, February 1, 2012 In my interview with Nika Danilova, the leader of Zola Jesus, she spoke of her reticence to embrace her childhood dream of pop stardom. While there’s little chance of her tearing up the Billboard charts, Danilova commanded the stage with…
When she was young, Nika Danilova trained to sing opera but often lost her voice due to performance anxiety. When Danilova began performing as Zola Jesus in Madison, Wisconsin, her harrowing voice slowly grew confident among thickets of tape hiss and ambient synths. On her latest full-length, Conatus, Danilova’s voice…
New Orleans bounce queen Big Freedia opened recent track, “Almost Famous, with a succinct and powerful line: “I’d like to thank all my fans /And all my haters /For making me famous.” Beef is beneficial for both parties involved: Music outlets love covering it, fans love chiming in, and any…
After making the acquaintance of a musician, there is not a single more uncomfortable question to ask than, “So, what’s your band sound like?” The player in question will surely stammer, throw out a few choice influences and hyphenated genre designations, and then probably backpedal with the assertion that “the…
In 2010, Billboard Magazine’s annual album sales evaluation read thusly: physical sales were sinking like a septic tank full of concrete, except for vinyl. Sales of records were up 14 percent to 2.8 million units that year. Don’t go proclaiming vinyl an industry savior. It’s hardly enough to resuscitate the…
Welcome to another installment of Up on the Sun’s 2011 Review. Over the next couple days we’ll be counting down our favorite songs, shows, national and local releases of 2011. This entry comes from Chase Kamp, a Phoenix musician and writer. Kamp began writing for Up on the Sun with…
The recent hiatus of Virginia rap duo Clipse — which comprises brothers Pusha T and Malice, whose Neptunes-produced 2002 debut, Lord Willin’, earned acclaim on the pop charts and Pitchfork alike — has resulted in very different paths for its two members. Pusha T appeared on Kanye West’s My Dark…
In a profile of Norwegian black metal pioneers Mayhem I wrote for this week’s issue, I relayed the tale of 42-year-old local radio producer and metalhead Anthony “Spanky” Pranke. Pranke and a few of his chums endeared themselves to Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher and a Norwegian TV crew while they were…
From Keith Richards’ blood transfusion to Ozzy Osbourne’s bat-biting, rumor and lore have been critical to rock music’s appeal, and no act maintains a more infamous collection of legends than Norwegian black metal pioneers Mayhem. To make a long and bloody story short (but still bloody): In 1991, Mayhem singer…
There’s so much to report and so little Internet to shove it in. First things first: the small bit of youth music we’ve witnessed in the Western United States convinces me thoroughly that my generation of American musicians has the studiousness and audacity to be emotionally unflinching in the face…
The southern California leg concluded nicely. Thanks to a great promoter and the draw of some awesome local rippers, we played to 130 kids at The Smell in Los Angeles, a well-known downtown all-ages space with a relatively big stage. We don’t normally get the opportunity to play with big…
