They gave each other names. Names that perhaps no other human had ever been given. From now on she would simply be “VV” and he would be known only as “Hotel.” Together they would be The Kills. They would make music, have attitude, and somehow rule the world based only…

A few months ago, Daniel Johnston revealed that if everything went well, he was going to tour the country behind his new album, Rejected Unknown. This was something of a bombshell, coming from a man who seldom leaves the rural Texas home he shares with his senior-citizen parents, a man…

Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel are Mates of State. First the back story: They call San Francisco home by way of Lawrence, Kansas. They are married, very much in love, and their music and relationship form a seamless insular loop. And they make a lot of joyful noise for two…

Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow is Jonathan Richman’s first studio effort since 1999’s I’m So Confused. And though it is a solid offering — another slab of Richman’s pre-Beatles musings on love and wonder — it ultimately fails to enrich Richman’s oddball oeuvre. All of the…

“It was direct. There was no bullshit, no obscurity. It was like, ‘This is it, this is what I feel.’ It punched you straight in the heart.” Matt Johnson is talking about John Lennon’s lyrical prowess, but he could well be speaking about his own approach to songwriting. Calling from…

Robyn Hitchcock is an acquired taste like the decadent cheeses he exalts in “The Cheese Alarm,” a song from his most recent release, Jewels for Sophia. This is as it should be. Mass ingestion of Hitchcock’s surrealist salad, Syd Barrett-as-fifth-Beatle music could make for an uncomfortable ear-meal for most. Although…

There is something wrong with Thermos Malling. Maybe growing up in strip-mall Phoenix did him in. Forming the melted-delta meta-blues duo Doo Rag — in which he played drums on things as various as film reels, horse troughs and suitcases — may have warped him. Perhaps creating a vocal-amplification device…

Ween Paintin’ the Town Brown (Elektra) Paintin’ the Town Brown, the most recent offering from demented duo Ween, reeks of contractual obligation or more likely Elektra’s failure to understand the burgeoning MP3/Internet culture. Brown was originally intended to be a limited-edition chronicle of Ween’s live shows from 1990 to 1998,…

Pavement Terror Twilight (Matador Records) It’s one of the little ironies of indie-pop that Pavement has hit its creative stride just as much of its initial, underground crowd has grown tired of the band. The postpunk rule of career management has long been that you either reach a mass audience…

Tom Waits has unleashed his first album of new material in more than six years. For those who have followed the lowlife renaissance man’s career over the past 26 years, that statement is all the incentive they need to rush out and buy it. Fortunately, Mule Variations, his first album…

DGeneration Through the Darkness (C2/Columbia Records) Produced by famed glam hag Tony Visconti (T. Rex, Bowie, etc.), Through the Darkness differs little from DGen’s last Ric Ocasek-knobbed No Lunch. There’s a torrent of jumbo, sperm-filled Clash chords, soaring Mick Jones harmonies and ersatz-Clash topical politicizing atop an invented street hustle…

Blondie No Exit (Beyond) It’s pro forma in the world of rock that whenever a band reforms after a long absence, the band members always claim that working together felt like they’d never been away, that they’ve picked up right where they left off. The good news surrounding No Exit,…

Elliott Smith XO (DreamWorks Records) Elliott Smith doesn’t sound very happy. In the few years since his first solo release, Roman Candle, Smith has honed the art of sad songs to a gleaming point, a point where, despite the depression and bitterness, the songs’ ingenuity and honesty leave you smiling…

This is a story about a rock ‘n’ roll tour. There will be no Lear jets and limo rides, however, no five-star suites, cock-crazed groupies, six-figure cocaine binges or cadres of bodyguards. No TVs will be thrown from windows, no furniture will be splintered. This is a story about five…

For two decades, the small, unassuming watering hole nestled between an adult bookstore and a motorcycle repair shop on Rio Salado Parkway in Tempe has served as a place of solace and community for hardworking folks–somewhere to relax with an icy Bud when the dust is still caked on your…