I’d wager Wayne “The Train” Hancock drools when he looks at the calendar and discovers it’s a leap year, meaning he can tour 366 days instead of the usual 365. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but really not much of one, as the 44-year-old Austin singer-songwriter and guitarist has made the…
Around this time last year, perhaps you were thinking to yourself, “Wow, now that Barack Obama’s the president, I guess all those über-political bands that have been raging against George W. Bush and his policies for the past eight years are totally screwed. Now what are they gonna complain about?”…
I’d wager Wayne “The Train” Hancock drools when he looks at the calendar and discovers it’s a leap year, meaning he can tour 366 days instead of the usual 365. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but really not much of one, as the 44-year-old Austin singer-songwriter and guitarist has made the…
The following is an excerpt from a screenplay I’m working on, tentatively titled Cocoon 2: The Return . . . of Agnostic Front. Scene One: A retirement home for aging crust-punks in Yonkers, New York. Members of old-school hardcore bands Urban Waste, Sheer Terror, S.O.D., The Icemen, and others sit…
Here’s a potentially fun idea: Find yourself a soccer mom or Dockers dad — maybe your own, or your neighbors down the street — and say to them, “I bet you’d like Between the Buried and Me, because they’re named after that Counting Crows song ‘Ghost Train.’ You should check…
Here’s a potentially fun idea: Find yourself a soccer mom or Dockers dad – maybe your own, or your neighbors down the street — and say to them, “I bet you’d like Between the Buried and Me since they’re named after that Counting Crows song ‘Ghost Train.’ You should check…
Back in the ’90s, Alabama-bred Auguste Arthur Bondy went by the name Scott Bondy, and he fronted a hard-charging alt-rock trio called Verbena. They sounded so much like Nirvana that Dave Grohl — who produced the band’s 1999 major label debut, Into the Pink — probably had such intense flashbacks…
Back in the ’90s, Alabama-bred Auguste Arthur Bondy went by the name Scott Bondy, and he fronted a hard-charging alt-rock trio called Verbena. They sounded so much like Nirvana that Dave Grohl – who produced the band’s 1999 major label debut, Into the Pink – very probably had flashbacks to…
Until Sufjan Stevens gives California his “Fifty States Project” treatment, we’ve got Your Yellow Dress, a gentle indie-folk outfit that waxes wistful and nostalgic about the people and places of its native Orange County. The band centers around Alex Poska — who sings of SoCal coastlines, streets, childhood memories, and…
A few years back, California native Brett Dennen was a camp counselor, teaching kids outdoor survival skills and playing his acoustic guitar by the fire at night. Yep, he was that guy. But that guy self-released an album in 2004 and started playing in coffeehouses. Since then, the bushy-haired singer-songwriter…
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Boston electro-pop quintet Passion Pit’s backstory: Two years ago, falsetto-voiced frontman Michael Angelakos — then just a dude making tunes by himself in his bedroom — wrote a batch of fizzy love songs to give to his girlfriend as a Valentine’s Day present. Those songs…
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Boston electro-pop quintet Passion Pit’s backstory: Two years ago, falsetto voiced frontman Michael Angelakos – then just a dude making tunes by himself in his bedroom – wrote a batch of fizzy love songs to give to his girlfriend as a Valentine’s Day present (which…
As we all know, Carson Daly isn’t good for much. But I have to give him — or, more accurately, Last Call’s talent booker — credit for bringing the excellent Los Angeles band Nico Vega on the show to play a couple of songs last spring, after which the buzz…
If you’re a rock band that hails from pretty much anywhere in New Jersey, perhaps the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon you — more than a Grammy or induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — is for Bruce Springsteen to play with you onstage. It…
In the pantheon of Horrible Things That Can Happen to a Band — drug overdoses, plane crashes, getting shot by a crazed fan, marrying Courtney Love — a broken windshield wiper on the tour van probably ranks pretty low. Then again, what if a torrential downpour suddenly strikes during an…
If you’re a rock band that hails from pretty much anywhere in New Jersey, perhaps the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon you – more than a Grammy or induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame – is for Bruce Springsteen to play with you onstage. It…
In 2004, when the Pixies got back together, thereby launching the alt-rock reunion industry, Frank Black told the Boston Globe, “We’ve had this chip in our back pocket for a long time — we’re cashing it in this year.” So how much worth is left in the chip when a…
The wind howled, the rain began to slice through the air like wet daggers, and every terrifying bolt threatened instantaneous incineration. Wide-eyed and screaming, fans ran for their lives as though aliens were attacking, but Peter Bjorn and John and a few brave souls held fast against the brutal maelstrom,…
The first time I laid ears and eyes on Los Angeles quartet War Tapes, I thought to myself, “Now this is a band that’s going somewhere!” Ultra-chic and unabashedly dramatic, their debut disc, The Continental Divide, has all the ingredients for success: • A brooding, pathos-splashing baritone vocalist who croons…
Florida emo/screamo-pop quintet Red Jumpsuit Apparatus may be one of the quietest success stories in recent years, having jumped from the pack of Warped Tour forgettables to platinum-selling stars — via 2006’s Don’t You Fake It and the recently released Lonely Road — without a ton of fanfare. Frontman and…
Outside of jazz circles — and people who actually pay attention to the Grammys, where she’s been a perennial nominee and/or winner for well over a decade — Canadian-born singer/pianist Diana Krall’s name usually rings a bell because she’s the wife of Elvis Costello. The pair married in 2003, and…
Outside of jazz circles — and people who actually pay attention to the Grammys, where she’s been a perennial nominee and/or winner for well over a decade — Canadian-born singer/pianist Diana Krall’s name usually rings a bell because she’s the wife of Elvis Costello. The pair married in 2003, and…
