If Gary Numan had to be remembered as a one-hit wonder, well, at least he gets to be remembered as the one who gave the world “Cars,” a paranoid portrait in icy detachment that finds him alone in his car and enjoying it not because he’s doing something twisted like…
The Phenomenauts could be the most inspired shtick-rock band to hit the scene since the day someone brought a Mexican wrestling mask to a Los Straitjackets practice. Hailed as California’s “Best Live Band” by the East Bay Express, The Phenomenauts’ shtick is simple yet effective. Bearing costumes, props and helmets,…
Several undiscovered classics down the road from Geek the Girl, it’s becoming increasingly clear that poor Lisa Germano is doomed to be remembered, if at all, as the chick who played fiddle for John Cougar Mellencamp. But maybe that’s what drives her to create such dark, unsettling pop. While arguably…
When Matt Sharp started plotting the real-life return of the Rentals after seven years of focusing on other things, he didn’t want to get all hung up on bringing in people who’d actually been in the Rentals on either Return of the Rentals or Seven More Minutes. He was more…
Annalee Fery has the perfect voice to get across the brooding indie pop she and her bandmates in Monsters Are Waiting traffic in for much of their album Fascination — just blasé enough to bring some much-appreciated Debbie Harry to the mix without suggesting that she doesn’t really mean it…
Remember that movie Blast From the Past, where Christopher Walken barricades himself and Sissy Spacek in a backyard bunker, believing their home has been hit by a nuclear missile from Cuba? And then, after 35 years of eating Sissy’s meat loaf and raising that doofus from George of the Jungle,…
Anthony Hamilton hasn’t had an easy time of it. His first release was shelved when Uptown Records hit the skids. And then, after proving himself a critical darling with sales to match on MCA, he signed to Soulife, which went out of business just in time to not release what…
The first time Tom Petty decided to cut a solo record with Jeff Lynne of ELO producing, it ended up being his biggest collection of pop hits since Damn the Torpedoes. While there’s not much chance that Highway Companion will do what Full Moon Fever did on radio — it’s…
As the U.K.’s most infectious punks, the Buzzcocks may one day be forced to take the fall for every lame-ass pop-punk band this side of Blink-182. But the Buzzcocks’ original blend of over-caffeinated pop and punk was always more adventurous than that. And more legitimately punk. While everyone from Hüsker…
