Ryan Adams was needled throughout 2005 for releasing three CDs’ worth of songs without seeming to consider whether the tunes met his standards. In interviews, Adams shrugged off such criticism, but lo and behold, he waited more than 18 months — an eternity for him — to release Easy Tiger,…
This Tempe-based indie band’s new release shows that it has two positive points: plenty of enthusiasm and a refreshing willingness to be open and goofy between tracks, à la The Beatles in Let It Be. During one moment, you can hear studio chatter about what one member of the band…
What the Clink? My Machine is Crushed’s debut full-length venture into the world of heavy metal, with producer credit going to none other than Mike Clink of Guns N’ Roses and Metallica fame. And that’s where the impressive points end. While claiming prog rock, the album is a consistent flow…
In the mid-’50s, while Sinatra swung and Elvis and Chuck Berry showed the world how to rock, black Louisianans of Cajun extraction — Clifton Chenier, for one — were plugging in and pumping crackling rhythm and blues into traditional Cajun dance music. The result was tagged “zydeco,” an ebullient and…
And the geeks shall inherit the Earth, indeed. If anyone said that Rush would last 30-plus years in 1975, when robo-tronic drummer Neil Peart joined the Canadian trio (thus transforming it from a derivative bar band into one of the world’s most revered prog icons), they were probably high. But,…
Ever since 50 Cent’s G-Unit mixtape crew earned mainstream recognition with 2003’s platinum-selling Beg for Mercy, members of the group have worked hard to escape Fiddy’s hulking shadow and establish themselves as independent artists. While Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo have certainly capitalized on G-Unit’s success, neither has managed to…
This bill features a pair of bands noteworthy for their rousing style and lively stage presence. Hailing from Chicago’s Irish South Side, The Tossers began in ’93, before Celtic-punk peers Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys. Though long overshadowed by the aforementioned acts, it wasn’t for lack of talent. While more…
Marnie Stern made one of the most intriguing debuts this year with In Advance of the Broken Arm, a cacophonous yet strangely tuneful blast of prog experimentation that verges on indie rock. Stern’s high-pitched, girlish vocals are slathered in guitar pyrotechnics ranging from crazy metal hammer-ons to Sonic Youth-ish squall…
Generally speaking, styles come and go, but idioms last forever. And when four tuff dudes with the right moxie get their greasy mitts around the correct noise-making implements, settle their deadly attentions upon said idiom (you know, ’60s garage rock), and control their own greasy facial spasms long enough to…
Celeb sensations David Beckham and Posh Spice aren’t the only doses of coolness that England’s been hurling across the pond lately. Witness the growth of dubstep, the darkly rhythmic and beyond-bassy EDM (electronic dance music) descendent of UK garage and grime birthed in London’s underground. Championed by such Brit DJs…
It’ll take three days after I walk through the back door to The Great Escape for my own back door to finally get back to normal (from the ravages of drinking — thus the “great escape”). At any rate, I’m pleased as a pig in shit to review this little…
Remember the good, old days (way back in April), when you could sit at the bar with your beer and suck on cancer sticks without freaking the fuck out about getting fined $50? Well, those days aren’t exactly here again, but there are some places in the Valley where you…
Below are four of my favorite “smoking songs” — tunes from throughout the decades that capture the experience of filling one’s lungs with vice. For a more comprehensive list, Google the words “High Times pot songs.” 1. Fraternity of Man, “Don’t Bogart Me” (1968): This song, which begs the listener…
In movies, metal bands and their fans are often portrayed as anti-eggheads — note the knee-high nihilists and simpletons of Airheads, This Is Spinal Tap, and The River’s Edge. Well, dig this, Movie Producers of Hollyweird: Those who play metal have also attended music school. That’s right; the core members…
Country music is where rock ‘n’ roll was circa 1962 B.B. (before Beatles) and 1975-76 — lots ‘n’ lots of photogenic hat-hunks and pop(py)-tarts playing corporate-approved approximations of the real stuff. Dale Watson, an Austin performer flying beneath the Nashville radar, puts the “tree” back in country as an insurgent…
Remember when popular music had a message? With today’s army of vapid pop stars and record company-manufactured boy bands under the guise of “rock bands,” it seems as though artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez have become as extinct as the woolly mammoth. Then suddenly, the clouds of mediocrity…
With musicians, like athletes, it’s always disheartening to watch them hang around long enough to see their abilities break down. Bad Brains fans, long beset by the band’s notorious instability, have every reason to expect that a present-day reunion album can do nothing but tarnish the band’s hallowed legacy. After…
If we were to take Andrew Jackson Jihad’s latest effort at lyrical value alone, we may suggest a suicide hotline for the folk/punk duo comprising Sean Bonnette and Ben Gallaty. Because we begin visualizing disenfranchised youth snorting coke off a tombstone while reading the Jihad’s lyrics, Edgar Allan Poe, or…
The guys in The Heartless are solid musicians, they have amazing energy onstage, and their melodic punk songs are tighter and more crisp than Fritos in a butt crack. So would somebody please send them some good women so they can sing songs about something other than getting screwed over…
With his hipster-clever DJ alias ganked straight from the legendary series of vampire-killing video games, one would think Atlanta mixmaster Le Castle Vania is gonna be hunting down the undead when he visits the Valley on Friday, July 20. In all likelihood, the only nightcrawlers the 24-year-old turntablist will be…
This week, Club Candids decided to hit Mill Avenue and jump into whatever club seemed most promising. Turns out, the old standby Fat Tuesday was totally rockin’ on Saturday, July 14. (Click here for more photos.) Having never been there before, we’d had the impression that it was for the…
After seeing CTS live, I was impressed by the musicianship and the band’s earnest approach to gimmick-less rock songwriting. There’s nothing trailblazing in the tunes here, but fans of artists like the Gin Blossoms and John Mayer will appreciate the deftness with which CTS recycles the rock paradigm — soaring…
