Van Morrison first made a name for himself at the helm of The Angry Young Them, as an Irish Eric Burdon blowing harp and spitting out the blues with a gritty authority that said he’d kick your ass if he were any taller. The liner notes in that first album…
It’s been 50 years since James Brown’s first professional recording, “Please Please Please,” became the first million-seller in one of American music’s most inspiring careers. But while the yearning desperation of his early ballads proved the kid could more than hold his own against the other soul greats, it was…
Wayne “The Train” Hancock likes to swing. Every night, he gathers up his three-piece barnstormers and travels the highways, serving up his mixture of hillbilly swing, rockabilly, and hardcore Hank Sr. honky-tonk, the sort of stuff that sends people to two-step programs at Hillbillies Anonymous. “I don’t get it,” Hancock…
As with any hyped-up, talked-about newcomer on a monolithic mega-label like Sony, you have to ask yourself some good, hard questions about Matthew “Matisyahu” Miller. Specifically, will attendance at his live performance be for the music, or for the sheer spectacle of seeing a fully bearded Hasidic Jew strutting and…
Conservative Christianity and post-hardcore scree may seem like the most disparate of extremes, but the post-metal sextet Asperity has that juxtaposition beat. Asperity is tight and professional, and 5/6ths of its members are only juniors in high school. With an average age of 17, the Peoria-based “nü Christian” pummelcore band…
“I’m rich and famous/With a million-dollar contract/But it’s not around,” Monstrous guitarist/singer Led Gethway brags disingenuously over the luscious, distorto-scour psych of “Rich & Famous.” Too old to be Hanson’s grunge-punk successors but less slickly presented and pointedly generic than, say, Silverchair, Led Gethway and his brothers Ken and Alex…
When the old Sail Inn closed its doors late last year, Tempe scenesters shed plenty of collective tears as one of their favorite hangouts went kaput. Now the drinking den has been reborn as Trax, a “casual but trendy” nightspot with a posh interior, 14-foot video wall, and lineup of…
Even when Primal Scream didn’t match the creative heights reached by Screamadelica’s rave-worthy bliss-outs or the electro-punk of XTRMNTR, they never lacked self-confidence. After all, they coaxed (and kept) My Bloody Valentine’s reclusive Kevin Shields out of hibernation, and had the courage to embrace sinewy darkwave long before it was…
Olesi: Fragments of an Earth, completely produced and sung by Georgia Anne Muldrow, may be the most idiosyncratic soul album released this year. Most of the songs last less than three minutes, living up to the title’s promise as “fragments” and random thoughts. Muldrow manipulates her voice, double-tracking it and…
This is a collaboration between blues noise guitarist/singer Jon Spencer and Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, another band that knows a thing or two about laying down a primal blues squall. The legendary Jim Dickson produced, but the music has the sloppy, uncontained feel of a…
No doubt about it, The HorrorPops are headed for Hades. Not because the fearsome foursome of Holland-born hipster hellcats committed any mass murders (that we know of), but simply because we’re certain they’ve somehow sold their souls to Satan. How else would you explain the devilish fervor in which punky…
Is Mary J. Blige still the reigning queen of hip-hop soul? It was looking iffy a few years ago, when she released her lukewarm Love & Life, an awkward attempt to reconcile her usual gritty themes of abusive relationships and ghetto drama with an increasingly happy personal life — newly…
Although Missouri native Will Johnson splits his time among Undertow Orchestra, South San Gabriel, and solo projects, he’s best known as the leader of Denton, Texas’ Centro-Matic, a band that wraps Johnson’s sometimes fragile (and sometimes raucous) songs in a gauze of country feedback and big-sky rock ‘n’ roll. For…
Henry Rollins’ personal multimedia campaign, based on his ripped abs and smart ass, has made him the closest thing to a mainstream celebrity American punk rock has produced. But that extra-caffeinated personality obscures some genuine musical accomplishments. It was his fury that stoked Black Flag into the band that punk…
Long before he became known as the “Sultan of Sickness,” the drum ‘n’ bass devotee known as Dylan began his career spinning records over the pirate radio airwaves in his native London. Since those quasi-legal days, this dope DJ has risen to international fame and fortune, with his mixes covering…
The cloaking of A Lazarus Taxon in immaculate, arty, black-and-white photographs of car accidents seems antithetical to this boxed set’s methodically crafted contents: 15 years’ worth of hard-to-track-down Tortoise droppings confined to three discs and a single DVD. An indeed-geek drinking game could be built around the Chicago post-rockers’ persistent…
When we heard Rakim (of Eric B. and Rakim fame) was coming to town, we bopped our collective heads while listening to his last release, 1999’s The Master, and also cocked our heads in confusion. What’s the dude doing going on an album tour for the first time since 1999?…
Scott H. Biram bills himself as “the Dirty Old One Man Band,” and he lives up to the moniker by cranking his Gibson through a fuzzy old amp, blowing primordial blues harp with the aid of a harmonica rack, and providing relentless rhythms with an amplified homemade foot stomp board…
The Derailers’ Honky-Tonk Checklist: Songs about women — check. Song about beer — check. Song about guns — check. Song about a pickup truck — miss. Three out of four ain’t bad, and neither is Soldiers of Love, the sixth album from The Derailers. It’s good for what it is,…
It’s probably fair to say that every rock band secretly pines for a breakout record, and local dub-punks Authority Zero are no exception. AZ has just finished its self-titled third LP (due out in October), an album guitarist Bill Marcks says will be to its last record, Andiamo, what AFI’s…
San Diego foursome Pistolita is just beginning to stand on its own feet, but its roster of experience speaks volumes more than its members’ ages. Not only is the piano-driven rock band the very first signing to powerhouse booking agent Andrew Ellis’ Montalban Hotel label, but it’s already toured with…
It would be difficult to imagine two artists who better embody the spirit of authentic Americana than John Fogerty and Willie Nelson. Each has established an indelible imprint, from the relentless refrains that framed Fogerty’s Creedence Clearwater Revival hits to the rugged, backwoods drawl Nelson navigated. Likewise, their careers paralleled…
