“[The Liars have] contempt for their audience . . . nothing that resembles forethought or emotion. Unlistenable” Grade: F Spin Magazine, March 2004 ” . . . a record you fear listening to” Grade: One Star (Poor) Rolling Stone, March 2004 Did the Liars pee on some rock critics’ corn…
“I wish a tomato would carry me away.” Perhaps these lyrics aren’t the truest universal to be found on the brazen and amazing new album by Reubens Accomplice, The Bull, The Balloon and The Family, but they’re the ones that best encapsulate the frustration guitarists Jeff Bufano and Chris Corak…
A group of young, slightly geeky, self-hating emo kids from Long Island, Bayside pours its little hearts out on its debut record, Sirens and Condolences (Victory), turning high-school prom tragedies into magnificent rock songs. These kids worship at the altar of exalted emo-punk forefathers Jawbreaker, whose frontman, Blake Schwarzenbach, sang…
Louie Vega’s musical journey to maturity has been an extensive tour of self-discovery through collaboration and experimentation. Vega broke as a teenage DJ in the Bronx Latin freestyle scene of the ’80s (notably remixing the classic 1987 hit “Silent Morning” by Noel) and has been a dominant figure in house…
Forget about beer. Not even an hour after finishing their Wednesday gig — on the opening night of the South by Southwest music festival — the members of Phoenix rock band Blanche Davidian are standing by the bar at the Elysium in downtown Austin, doing shots of Robitussin. Make that…
As the shelf life of pop confections shortens and our flash-cut attention span for artistic growth and progression shrinks, so has the number of acts able to break out of genre pigeonholes to establish an identity of their own. It’s too late for emo’s stragglers who have seemingly been swallowed…
Hip-hop has always been populated by eccentrics — Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav, with his nasal voice, oversize clock necklaces and unfortunate crack habit; Wu-Tang’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard, a.k.a. Big Baby Jesus, a.k.a. Dirt McGirt, whose hoarse rhymes rarely go a verse without mentioning pussy; and then there’s Kool Keith, a.k.a…
By day, local lad Jon Rauhouse is a mild-mannered pedal steel player who works with a wide number of interesting alt-country fringe stars, in the studio and on the road. But when he’s turned loose in the cosmic lounge, Rauhouse turns into a kind of everyman of pop and country,…
Before we continue, let us ponder some hard questions. What if the Strokes weren’t The Strokes? What if they weren’t that band from New York with the obnoxiously cool haircuts and the obnoxiously uncool tee shirts? What if there was no hype draped around their skinny necks? What if they…
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as the twin-engine Lockheed Electra took off from Lae, New Guinea. It was July 2, 1937, and although international relations were tense, World War II was still many months away. The only enemy the little plane had was the Pacific Ocean itself, vast…
Tired of pop stars and the drama of their daily existences? Sick of snotty Brits and has-been pop tarts adjudicating a glorified karaoke contest? Had enough of self-absorbed metal acts and the (overcompensating) Wagnerian size of their angst? Then come out to see Dysrhythmia, whose cascading tones of surprisingly supple…
What is it about Joe Arpaio? That guy can breathe life into a non-story better than any public relations expert around. More than six weeks after Arpaio made headlines with the news that he’d persuaded Tower Records to pull a rap CD that “takes on” Maricopa County’s sheriff, the story…
Raekwon ranks among the Wu-Tang Clan’s premier lyricists, but he’ll probably never top his 1995 solo debut, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. The self-proclaimed “Chef” disappointed his fan base with his marginal follow-up, Immobilarity, which put the pressure on Raekwon to deliver the goods the third time around. Lex Diamond…
Blake Sennett’s breathy, breakable delivery is as overly dramatic as a LiveJournal entry, and his dear-diary lyrics are even more so. “And if you see me down at the liquor store, please don’t tell my dad,” he moans on “Greeting in Braille,” with the back of his hand presumably draped…
The Von Bondies’ Jason Stollsteimer (or as they call him in the U.K., “Jason Von Bondie”) won’t even mention “his” name. The White Stripes’ Jack White, who produced the Von Bondies’ debut, Lack of Communication, is persona non grata to the scrappy Detroiter. In late December at the Magic Stick…
Jazz fans take note: Here is an affordable, rollicking collection of Los Angeles-based recordings, circa the late ’40s and early ’50s, that permanently eradicates two long-held myths. For one, the two-CD set kills the misconception that everything interesting in the genre at the time was happening in the Big Apple…
We’re talking about the potty-mouthed singer of a band that’s two parts Dead Boys and one part Crazy Horse — accuse him of being a folk singer and he just might slam his glass down on the bar. But The Sauce is a blatant violation of the usual rocker-goes-country equation…
White Line Fever: The Autobiography By Lemmy with Janiss Garza (Citadel Press) Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal By Ian Christe (Harper Entertainment) There was once a musical genre that slew all others. Birthed in the bombed-out, industrial wasteland of central England, the creature was…
On a drag queen night at a downtown Phoenix gay-boy watering hole not long ago, four biological females walked in the door, dressed in leather and fishnets with multicolored hair and studded belts. As they passed the makeshift stage inside Amsterdam, a tall African-American queen in a shrink-wrapped-on dress named…
One of the better missing link neo-’80s bands, Elefant explores the sounds of that decade without being overly derivative, unlike some of the other members of the retro-styled class of 2003. Its debut, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, recorded in 2002 and released in ’03, is still going strong, and the…
In the tradition of guitar virtuosos Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke, Keller Williams is a one-man band, a 10-string prodigy, finger-picking with his right hand and banging out rhythms on his customized rig with his left, while triggering any number of loops and samples electronically. Though based in a loose-limbed…
Sunny Day Real Estate was one of the most influential American bands of the last decade. One of the first to be tagged emo (though it transcended the label), the band spawned a loyal following and many imitators, and may be partly responsible for the emo-pop of Dashboard Confessional or…
