In 2002, while holding court in his office overlooking NYC’s Madison Square Park, David Barker — a friendly young Englishman editing a series of chapbooks on contemporary American fiction — decided it might be nice to produce a set of books fixated not on individual novels, but on individual albums…
Oasis Don’t Believe the Truth Source: eBay Price: $3.75 + $1.50 S&H Thriftin’ ain’t just about sticking it to the man; it’s about giving second chances to artists you’d given up on because there’s a considerable discount involved. Most Yanks wrote these unibrows off after the overstuffed Be Here Now…
Everybody Rise! demonstrates that as surely as a band can lose its mojo — usually when the recording budget is high, along with the burden of expectation — it can find it again. Free from the snooty art class that Sub Pop has become, the Makers return to the winking…
Gogol Bordello, New York’s only Ukrainian Gypsy punk band, has a planetary musical vision. The band’s strong Ukrainian roots — evidenced by the furious accordion work of Yuri Lemeshev and the mad fiddling of Sergey Rjabtzev — are augmented by morsels of reggae, flamenco, Balkan wedding music, heavy metal guitar…
You could almost touch the hesitation when people finally got an earful of Electric Version, the New Pornographers’ 2003 follow-up to their instantly canonized debut. An “It’s-Good-But” record if ever there was one, Version was easy to defend but difficult to love, a record that demanded a little more than…
Fans expecting more crushing feedback, pile-driver drumming and arty, late-’90s-style British bluster will be shocked by the quiet, introspective vibe BRMC displays on its third outing. There’s plenty of overdubbing — Autoharp, congas, piano, organ, drums and electric-guitar noise — but the mix has an unplugged feel that leaves the…
Every Time I Die isn’t a hardcore band — at least, it isn’t anymore. On Gutter Phenomenon, the Buffalo band adopts a much more straightforward rock sound in tracks like the heavy “Tusk and Temper.” ETID exemplifies hardcore’s roots in punk rock as well, keeping things high-speed and gritty (the…
With most new bands trying to hit platinum their first time out, you rarely see acts develop over the course of several albums anymore — either you’re huge or you’re gone. This sad fact is yet another reason to enjoy the twists and turns of the White Stripes, who have…
When Tucson’s The Bled recorded their first full-length for Fiddler Records, Pass the Flask, vocalist James Muñoz had just replaced the band’s former singer and had mere days to familiarize himself with the songs. Nonetheless, Pass the Flask was a masterpiece of screaming, growling heaviness, a blend of mathematical metal,…
Screw the Crüe — for our money, the single most iconic moment of the ’80s sleaze-metal era is that scene in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years in which belligerent W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes floats in a swimming pool in full stage leather, swearing and dumping…
Born in Chicago, Bad Boy Bill grew up on hip-hop as well as dance music. There in the hotbed of house, he listened to Farley Jackmaster Funk of WBMX’s Hot Mix Five, the area’s legendary DJ team. Funk had one of the first house singles to chart (a cover of…
All hail the mighty compact disc! That piece of technology that let you listen to OK Computer without having to sit through “Fitter Happier.” While we know that no audio format lives forever — someday the CD will ascend to take its place next to hallowed eight-track cassettes — that…
Want to get more out of Ozzfest than watching Ozzy stumble around on stage? If so, the place to be is the second stage, where you’ll find the bands that still play small clubs and sleep in their vans. Most of these bands have the dedication to become huge, but…
Thursday 18 Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (hip-hop, dance) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with AKA (gothic, industrial) Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night (dance) AZ 88: DJ P-Body (jazz fusion, funk) Barcelona: DJ Rob (dance) Dos Gringos — Scottsdale: Block Party with DJ Sterling (all genres) Draft House: DJ Dave outta NYC…
What do Willie Nelson and Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips have in common? Besides resin-caked brainstems, both legends have handpicked the same unknown singer-songwriter as an opening act: Travis Graves, otherwise known as Mt. Egypt. And while his upcoming sophomore disc, Perspectives, is already sparking up a buzz on…
In the seminal 1997 film The Apostle, Robert Duvall plays E.F., a charismatic Pentecostal preacher who travels across the South, hitting the radio waves and filling tents with his fiery brand of syncopated hallelujah preaching and stomping, wild-eyed histrionics, inspiring hand-clapping, ass-shaking and great wailing incantations. Pocketbooks open and the…
The two girls are all over each other on the big purple couch, writhing, eyes locked in a passionate lip-synch to No Doubt’s “Underneath It All.” A crowd’s in the doorway, giggling as the girls lose their shirts and bottoms, and end up rolling around together in nothing but their…
These days, anyone with a Live365 account and a stack of CDs can run his own radio station on the Internet. The hard part is getting people to know about your quirky little station. That’s where we come in. Every few weeks, Streaming Consciousness will search what’s being streamed, uploaded…
It’s hard to believe that the Fleshtones have been at it for 30 years. Beachhead sounds as youthful, snotty and out of control as anything they’ve ever cut, brimming over with joyous garage-band enthusiasm. They kick things off with “Bigger and Better,” in which they shout: “It’s nothing new, it’s…
It was inevitable that part of the fallout of the post-punk/punk-funk riot that recently wrapped its icy fingers around indie rock would be voracious crate-diggers starting to work back through history, excavating any overlooked band that roughly approximated the bass-bulging and jittery riffing taking up hourlong blocks on MTV2. One…
Brazilian chanteuse Lilian Vieira went to study voice in Rotterdam, where she met drummer Stefan Kruger and keyboard wiz Stefan Schmid. And although their collaboration is based in Holland, the sound is pure Brazil. The trio is continually finding unique ways to blend electronic beats with samba, afoxé and other…
While you wait for the next Coldplay album, Nashville’s Blue Merle should fill in nicely. It’s eerie how much singer Lucas Reynolds’ tenor sounds just like the voice of Coldplay leader Chris Martin. Named after a Led Zeppelin lyric (not the Australian sheepdog), this foursome somewhat distinguishes itself by using…
