Sculpting one’s masterpiece has got to be an awfully self-conscious process, but Tucson-based Valley fave Rich Hopkins strikes the perfect balance on My Lucky Stars, kneading and rubbing contrasts together like a master. It’s musically expansive while devastatingly downcast, lyric-wise; the arrangements are tightly wound like a suspension coil, yet…
Run-D.M.C. created the perfect dramatization of what can happen when rap and heavy metal collide in their landmark 1986 video for “Walk This Way.” The now-classic image of Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler and Joe Perry crashing through the wall of D.M.C.’s rehearsal studio to discover a parallel universe of tough attitude…
The Amor Belhom Duo is the kind of group that people need to see about three times before they’re fully converted.The first time, audiences simply try to find an applicable category for music that wanders from ambient, somnambulant instrumentals to seductive French-pop balladry to noisy avant-punk to hints of Dick…
No one was very surprised when Tenacious D — the duo composed of vocalist/guitarist Jack Black and guitarist/backing vocalist Kyle Gass — finally made it big. It was clear early on that the D had something special, even if the meager audiences that showed up for weekly open-mike appearances at…
Angry Dirty Sanchez used to be the toast of Central High School. The teen punk trio, which consists entirely of 16-year-old Central High sophomores, was so popular with administrators that its weekend all-ages gigs at the Mason Jar and Nile Theater were regularly plugged over the intercom as part of…
According to Nietzsche, “A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play.” Of course, the Übermensch himself couldn’t have predicted youth culture, or that juvenilia would be pored over for things like artistic merit. But if he was right, Bis mastered adulthood…
During a 1993 MTV special on Nirvana, Dave Grohl took a shot at Tori Amos’ melodramatic, piano-ballad version of the band’s breakthrough hit, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Amos had surely intended the cover as a tribute, a way of letting those with refined tastes know that this unwashed Pacific Coast…
Hailed six years ago in Rolling Stone as rock’s Great White Hope, DGeneration and its singer Jesse Malin summoned with aplomb the ghosts of Max’s Kansas City. The unruly quintet bottlenecked the Dictators, Dolls and Ramones and gloriously burped them forth into the faces of an uncaring and Korn-happy public…
By now L.A.’s kings of protopunk, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am rock should need no introduction, although those who think they had the Cowgirls pegged as “just” a Stones/MC5/Dolls descendant might get a surprise or two while listening to this live album. Convening last May to tape a couple of gigs at Van Nuys’…
Between Texola (in the west) and Roland (in the east) run 330 miles of the worst road anywhere in the United States, and they run straight through the heart of Oklahoma. Driving Interstate 40 through the Sooner State is like navigating a bicycle down a flight of concrete steps. Blacktop…
Joe Strummer is having a good day. It’s mid-September, and despite recent world events, the former Clash front man is focused exclusively on the second album by his band the Mescaleros, Global a Go-Go. In late July and early August, they hit London, Manchester, New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco…
Okay, so maybe Afroman isn’t the first guy who comes to mind when you think about September 11, but Ted Koppel could do worse than to have the straight-outta-Palmdale rapper on Nightline to talk about airport security. That’s because Joseph Foreman, Afroman’s laid-back, spliff-smokin’ Clark Kent, used to be airport…
One of the most encouraging developments in pop music over the last few years has been the emergence of a mini-movement of artsy, bohemian, female R&B singers. This club — which includes Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Macy Gray — is fairly disparate, but it’s united by a…
Power-pop fans are sore losers, which is why, facing the ascendancy of Nevermind clones and the fanzine media fixation on the lo-fi underground, they tend to be defensive and arrogant when discussing their passion. The problem is that it’s hard to strictly define power pop — are the whiny brats…
How do you tell whether you like a band that the entire British press, Rolling Stone and your mother say is going to save rock ‘n’ roll and win the war on terrorism? If you’ve heard the hype, you may already know that the Strokes are New Yawkers, barely drinking…
The members of Rocket to Russia are playing a gig in a week, and they just met a few minutes ago. It’s not the kind of timetable most bands follow, but Rocket to Russia is not like most bands. The one-off local supergroup of sorts has gathered on a Wednesday…
“This is where we do it,” Survivalist’s most garrulous MC, Preacha, welcomes you upon your arrival at Fo’ Life Records, the tiny independent record label from west Phoenix that has somehow produced a Top 5 song on Billboard’s Hot Rap Singles chart, Survivalist’s laid-back, catchy “Bounce.” If there were an…
It’s Saturday afternoon during this year’s South by Southwest, and the collection of independent parties known as South by South Congress is in full swing along the main thoroughfare of South Austin, Texas. Musical acts perform at a variety of establishments along the avenue and in the alley behind it.The…
No matter what some delusional musicians might spew forth in their diatribes about “art” versus “commercialism,” few bands would call for a ghostbuster if the specter of success actually paid them a visit. Selling a pittance of records to die-hard fans while gigging at endless clubs is not the apex…
To those who grew up hearing — and watching — the best Brazilian and Afro-Cuban bands on the planet, chances are Ozomatli are L.A.’s most overrated band. When the Ozos go batucada, it seems as if the surdo is being hit with an ax instead of a palo, and when…
When an album opens with a cover of Richard Thompson’s dark and brooding “Keep Your Distance,” you know you’d better fasten your seatbelt: It’s going to be a bumpy ride. On their first official album as a couple, Buddy and Julie Miller take us down love’s lost highway, where trouble’s…
In a 1999 interview, the lead singer and songwriter of the Ben Folds Five said that the next record he’d write would be the Thriller of modern rock, with eight hit songs on it. Now, two years after the trio’s college-rocker, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, Ben Folds has…
