Saliva’s rote fusion of rap metal, grunge, and alt rock should’ve died before the turn of the century, but it never has. Amazingly enough, the more generic and obsolete the Memphis band sounds, the more records it sells: “Ladies and Gentleman,” the first single off Blood Stained Love Story, recently…
For two decades, Walter Salas-Humera and his Silos have been one of the leading lights of Americana music. Sadly underappreciated, the New York-based Silos have released more than a dozen efforts that merge country, folk, and indie rock in increasingly fascinating ways. The band’s high-water mark was Cuba from 1987,…
Think about how many reality-TV-show marriages have ended in divorce — and then think about how many groups created in the artificial light of television (The Monkees, The New Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Archies, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, The Bugaloos, Cyanide, Josie…
Until some impresario rounds up a troupe of working prostitutes to personally give each audience member a hand job, you’re not going to get a better wet-dream marketing triumph than The Pussycat Dolls. Originally a neoburlesque dance troupe in L.A. that quickly franchised in Sin City, the whole PCD enterprise…
Having a musical legend you call dad can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you don’t have to go on American Idol to get the industry’s attention. On the other hand, you kind of have to spend your whole life selling records in the old man’s…
Mommy and Daddy? We’ve been really good lately, so can we go on a field trip with our bestest buddies to the Kindergarten Rave on Saturday, February 24? Don’t worry, there’ll be supervision from growned-ups, like our two special hippy-hoppy friends, Grand Buffet from Pittsburgh (who’ll be performing), and we’ll…
Dense with vivid, lively chirp patterns, Gui Boratto’s debut full-length offers authentic dance-floor splendor. The Brazilian producer’s use of summery melodies on the diverse Chromophobia makes for many pleasant moments, as he sometimes warms wobbly, gritty android movements with surging synths (“Terminal”) or lights the way with splintering trance (“The…
Thursday 22 Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night (hip-hop, rock, dance) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (various) Blue Note: DJ Soloman, & Fredj (acid jazz, house) Bobby C’s: Willie B (old school R&B) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cat Eye: Punk Rock Thursdays (rock, punk) Cherry Lounge: DJs Tranzl8tr, & Earth (rock, ’80s, hip-hop)…
1. The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (Sub Pop) 2. Bloc Party, Weekend in the City (Vice Records) 3. John Mayer, The Village Sessions (Sony BMG) 4. Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High (Island Records) 5. Dear and the Headlights, Small Steps, Heavy Hooves (Equal Vision Records) 6. Lucinda Williams,…
If getting obliterated only two nights a week just isn’t enough to fill whatever emotional void you’ve got going on, Club Candids has found the perfect place to make an early-week pit stop to fill your empty vessel with the glorious numbing power of booze. And you don’t have to…
Occasionally I receive CD’s from local bands that need some constructive criticism, to put it politely. Today I’ve got two for you… The first, and least offensive, is Captain Squeegee and the Soap Suds, which other than earning an honorary doctorate in dumb-band-naming, really need to figure out what the…
Impossible Ones vs. the World Finally, the Impossible Ones are releasing the album that I wrote about what seems ages ago… and the band already has a video finished for the first single, “Bats in the Belfry.” See if you can catch any lip- or instrumental-synching, they didn’t film this…
Carolina Cracker, sans salsa I’ve got good news for people who like southern flavored rap music: Carolina Cracker and his homeboy from Minnesota, Melk Money, are back in town and scheming imminent appearances at local venues. I wrote about Cracker here (halfway down) back in last May, read the piece…
his t-shirt demonstrates the breadth of his linguistics I received the following missive the other day from Marshall “Fucking” Beck, from local metal band Rebirth. Beck and my paper — Michele Laudig in particular — have had some beef in the past year, mostly because he encouraged his fans to…
Sweet Bleeders album Bzzzz. Shit’s gotten a little vitriolic up in this bitch lately, so I’m going to (temporarily) tell you about something worth listening to… I’ve been listening to the grand, expansive latest album from Sweet Bleeders, one of multi-instrumentalist and pop genius Robin Vining’s multiple projects (others include…
Thursday 15 Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night (hip-hop, rock, dance) Bikini Lounge: Scratchy Rekkid Night with DJ Shane Kennedy (various) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cat Eye: Punk Rock Thursdays (punk) The Door: Pink Thursdays with DJ Astonish (hip-hop, Motown, Top 40) Dos Gringos – Scottsdale: DJs Benjamin Cutswell & Kid Vicious (rock,…
A man — let’s call him White Rock Man — slouches in the back of a bus, idling at the side of a steep stretch of road. As the engine cools, the bus sits between two cities and a pair of gigs: last evening in Sacramento and tonight at the…
As my girlfriend CooKie and I approach the entrance of the new Mondrian (pronounced mon-dree-on, best with a pretentious French accent) on a recent Tuesday night, I get an urge to run away. This is so not my scene. I usually hang out in rock clubs, dive bars, strip clubs,…
Club Candids had so much fun gallivanting among the potholes and dirt mounds of downtown Phoenix last week that we decided to hit up the ‘hood again for the Brickhouse Theatre 2007 Industry Party on Saturday, February 10. The show was the venue’s clever ploy to bring some butts through…
Matt Hales (better known as Aqualung) made a bit of a ruckus when his debut, Strange and Beautiful, dropped in the U.S. in 2005. A selection of lush, dreamy pop from his first two UK releases, it introduced a voice to be reckoned with — but it’s with his latest…
The first glimpse we get of John Lennon in action on The U.S. vs. John Lennon DVD (Lions Gate) is a rare live performance of “Attica State” at a rally held to protest the 10-year sentencing of John Sinclair, a fellow radical, for offering an undercover cop two joints. Now,…
Is there such a thing as “fate” in musical collaborations? There is if you’re former sElf frontman Matt Mahaffey and former God Lives Underwater guru Jeff Turzo. The pair came together after each found himself watching videos of the other’s band on MTV’s 120 Minutes — the station had confused…
