Pigeon John is one interesting bird. Born into a bi-racial household, the future underground rapper (born John Kenneth Duncan) spent parts of his childhood in both the whitest (Omaha, Nebraska) and blackest (Inglewood, California) cities in America. As a Southern California teen skate-rat, he teethed musically on a balanced diet…
When you think of this Texas-bred activist songwriter, you can’t help flashing back to the cover of her 1988 album Short Sharp Shocked. It was a black-and-white photograph of the musician taken during a protest of the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, and it shows her getting absolutely…
Pigeon John is one interesting bird. Born into a bi-racial household, the future underground rapper (born John Kenneth Duncan) spent parts of his childhood in both the whitest (Omaha, Nebraska) and blackest (Inglewood, California) cities in America. As a Southern California teen skate-rat, he teethed musically on a balanced diet…
Fun fact: Cy Young, the winningest pitcher in major-league history and the human yardstick by which all other hurlers are measured, is also baseball’s all-time king in career losses. Does that compromise his legacy? Hell, no! Cy Young had to be flippin’ good to go out there and lose 316…
Chamillionaire (né Hakeem Seriki) is a rapper, but he’s no muthafuckin’ potty-mouth. True to his reputation as a high-minded master of flow, the Houston native managed to record his fifth studio album, Ultimate Victory (2007), without using a single four-letter profanity. That’s a fairly remarkable feat, considering how many useful…
It’s been 20 years since Johnny’s little girl broke from her country roots. Yup, Rosanne Cash was just as proto-punk as her old man when she moved to New York City, started writing jagged, introspective folk songs, and married a guy named Leventhal. I mean, it doesn’t get less country…
Fun fact: Cy Young, the winningest pitcher in major-league history and the human yardstick by which all other hurlers are measured, is also baseball’s all-time king in career losses. Does that compromise his legacy? Hell, no! Cy Young had to be flippin’ good to go out there and lose 316…
Back in the day — and by “day,” I mean the mid-’80s — a movie star wasn’t really a movie star until he cut a shitty, self-indulgent music album that bombed everywhere except Soviet satellite states. After a Don Johnson Heartbeat here and an Eddie Murphy So Happy there, the…
You know how death-metal dudes like to growl in their songs — raspy and guttural, like they’re passing broken earthenware through their belly buttons — and then alternate those sounds with clean, pitchy vocals? Raspy, soft, raspy, soft. Well, Fear Factory frontman Burton C. Bell was one of the first…
“Not Bob Lindbeck!” huffs a disclaimer on the band’s MySpace page. Hey, we can dig it. You pay your dues, you put in 10 years of really solid, Being There-era-Wilco-inspired alt-country, you get one of your songs on a freakin’ iMac commercial . . . and still, people mistake you…
You know how death-metal dudes like to growl in their songs – raspy and guttural, like they’re passing broken earthenware through their belly buttons – and then alternate those sounds with clean, pitchy vocals? Raspy, soft, raspy, soft. Well, Fear Factory frontman Burton C. Bell was one of the first…
“Not Bob Lindbeck!” huffs a disclaimer on the band’s MySpace page. Hey, we can dig it. You pay your dues, you put in 10 years of really solid, Being There-era-Wilco-inspired alt-country, you get one of your songs on a freakin’ iMac commercial… and still, people mistake you for some over-the-hill…
Remember those kooky Freedom Rock TV commercials (“Turn it up, man!”) from the ’80s? It was a great gimmick — and potentially adaptable to any music genre, be it gangsta rap or Christian pop or Celtic punk. Can’t you just envision it gone Irish? “Oi, Seamus, is that Sham-Rock?” says…
There’s an easy way to distinguish between “alternative metal” and regular, old-timey heavy metal. Critics and rock anatomists will tell you about “time signatures” and “syncopation,” but the lyrics offer a more rewarding contrast. For example, instead of instructing the head-banging masses to “Pour some sugar on me,” an alternative-metal…
One of the saltiest, sliest, most macho hombres ever to slap a bass guitar, Mike Watt truly is a breed unto himself. Raised in the hardscrabble port town of San Pedro, California, Watt taught himself bass and practically rewrote the book on it. His “thudstick” would be the dominant expressive…
The Valley’s nattiest garage-revival foursome has a pimpin’ little spring lined up for theyselves. After a smattering of local shows this month, the Nots are off to Spain, where they will spend the better part of April assaulting the Iberian peninsula with their incendiary brand of lusty, keyboard-drenched go-go rock…
Nothing says “modern American blues” quite like . . . Mesa? It’s the dodgiest cultural pairing this side of “Utah” and “jazz,” but that hasn’t stopped the Phoenix Blues Society from establishing a fine live-music tradition in this city of menudo joints and Mormon churches. In this, the 19th year…
You know what must really chap Nick Oliveri’s frequently bare hide? Seeing ex-Queens of the Stone Age bandmate Josh Homme with his new rock-legend friends and his new supergoup, just looking so fucking happy, while poor Oliveri is stuck hustling beard-wax money by playing a series of West Coast solo…
Admittedly, it’s not the kind of question that keeps you up at night. Or triggers piercing migraine headaches. Or makes your nose bleed uncontrollably. Still, you’re interested in knowing: What is America’s longest continuously active ska band? According to Robert Hingley, singer and lone remaining founding member of The Toasters,…
Nothing says “modern American blues” quite like… Mesa? It’s the dodgiest cultural pairing this side of “Utah” and “jazz,” but that hasn’t stopped the Phoenix Blues Society from establishing a fine live-music tradition in this city of menudo joints and Mormon churches. In this, the 19th year of the Blues…
You know what must really chap Nick Oliveri’s frequently-bare hide? Seeing ex Queens of the Stone Age bandmate Josh Homme with his new rock-legend friends and his new supergoup, just looking so fucking happy, while poor Oliveri is stuck hustling beard-wax money by playing a series of West Coast solo…
One must admit that Mariah Carey seems much cooler — much saner — after her gutsy, concealer-free turn in the Oscar-nominated abuse saga Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. You think it was easy for the image-oriented star of Glitter to go public with the same mottled bed-face…
