Britt Daniel fans who cut their teeth on “Girls Can Tell” and “Kill the Moonlight” may be shocked to hear how freely Daniel borrows from The Pixies and Nirvana on these first two Spoon releases, back on the streets for the first time since more than a handful of hipsters…
Get these motherfucking emo bands off this motherfucking album. No, really — get these motherfucking emo bands off this motherfucking album. The soundtrack accompanying what’s arguably the year’s most anticipated cheese-horror flick is a giant mess — namely because it’s full of pounding, stuttering dance remixes of songs by new-punk…
Is the world ready for a Dirty South rap single that’s not about ostentatious automotive modifications or garish cosmetic dentistry? Waco’s Strange Fruit Project is banking on it. “Soul Clap” marries funky brass (arranged by Denton funk-rockers Mingo Fishtrap) and jazz guitars to a handclap beat. The deceptively simple beat…
The fourth release from Danish alt-pop stars Mew seems ripe for success in an American market currently embracing Coldplay/Keane epics and its indie flipside of slacker lullabies by The Shins and Rogue Wave. And the Glass Handed Kites opener “Circuitry of the Wolf” comes churning out with stuttered strums, spooky…
Like many of their contemporaries from the bygone dance-rock era, Ratatat’s Mike Stroud and Evan Mast are trying to expand beyond the fizzy, body-moving instrumentals for which they first gained attention. Ratatat’s 2004 self-titled debut gained admirers alongside accusations of cranking out sound-alike tracks, so Classics offers some variety alongside…
Here’s a real-life kind of needle exchange for you: A decade ago, superstar lesbian DJ Irene was shooting up meth and living out of her car in between gigs working the wheels of steel at L.A. dance clubs like Arena. Thankfully, the spiky-haired Sapphic spinstress eventually swapped out the tracks…
Remarkably lovely U.K. trio The Clientele, whose sound primarily falls somewhere between the bright psych-pop of late-’60s Britain and the lush jangle-chime of L.A.’s ’80s Paisley Underground scene, pulls off the rare, swell trick of reminding you of literally dozens of artists — the late Arthur Lee, Dream Syndicate, Mercury…
Pity the poor music journalist charged with the task of describing the enticingly exotic and eccentric music created by DeVotchKa. Over its six years of existence, scribes and screed-slingers (including this one) have used a plethora of hyphen-laced phrases to describe the Denver foursome’s strangely sumptuous sound, including such idioms…
If Gary Numan had to be remembered as a one-hit wonder, well, at least he gets to be remembered as the one who gave the world “Cars,” a paranoid portrait in icy detachment that finds him alone in his car and enjoying it not because he’s doing something twisted like…
Had they been around in the 1800s, Austin-based band Asylum Street Spankers would have been traveling the country in a caravan like a giant band of Gypsies, unloading a plethora of instruments — drums, guitars, standup bass, fiddles, washboards, harmonicas, banjos, ukuleles, Dobros — and rocking every stop with equal…
Sunday afternoons are meant to be spent maxing and relaxing, instead of stressing out about returning to your hellish job for another week of rat-race-style torture. So it’s a good thing that Counter Culture Cafe, 2330 East McDowell Road, has its weekly event HeadSpace, at which you can kick back…
Maybe it was his non-fro or lack of a hyphenated name, but Jon Theodore, longtime drummer for Latin prog rock act The Mars Volta, has left the band. Now, the earthy surnamed and mop-topped shadows of singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and bassist Pablo Hinojos-Gonzalez will fall upon new…
If every dark cloud has a silver lining, then the bright side of the imminent closure of legendary NYC club CBGB is chrome-studded rather than silver. When renowned and long-defunct straight-edge pioneers Gorilla Biscuits threw a one-off reunion to try to keep the ailing club’s doors open, they had such…
Back when rock was a real arena monster, fans used to hold up lighters at rock shows. At shows by local pop punk/hard rock band A Change of Pace, fans hold up their illuminated cell phones. That gesture’s a great metaphor for ACoP’s music — it’s an old sound, punched…
Here’s the problem with riding the ass-end of a wave where everything old is new again: The tide eventually comes in, and what was previously a tight refurbishment seems like trite regurgitation. Take London-based synth-pop rockers Boy Kill Boy — the band has a spacy ’80s sound reminiscent of Simple…
Several undiscovered classics down the road from Geek the Girl, it’s becoming increasingly clear that poor Lisa Germano is doomed to be remembered, if at all, as the chick who played fiddle for John Cougar Mellencamp. But maybe that’s what drives her to create such dark, unsettling pop. While arguably…
The first great tragedy of Sublime was the fatal heroin overdose of singer/guitarist Brad Nowell in 1996. The second great tragedy is the ongoing release of compilations that contain any smidgeon of Sublime — demos, outtakes, bootlegs, live versions, remixes — regardless of how rehashed or half-assed. Not that this…
Poor Ben Harper. No matter where he goes, no matter what new songs he brings, he always gets slapped with either the “poor man’s Lenny Kravitz” or the “thinking man’s Lenny Kravitz” tag (depending on the graciousness of the critic). Of course, that’s probably what Harper deserves for so similarly…
Once upon a time, you had to go to New Orleans to see many of the Crescent City’s jazz fusion bands. Then, a big hurricane named Katrina destroyed the city, and the Big Easy’s bands were forced to embark on fund-raising tours ever after. Such is the case with E.O.E…
There comes a time in every band’s career when an overwhelming sense of fear and dread of failure begins to creep in, especially for groups that have the fortune to make a big splash right out of the starting gate and then face the daunting task of a follow-up. But…
The Phenomenauts could be the most inspired shtick-rock band to hit the scene since the day someone brought a Mexican wrestling mask to a Los Straitjackets practice. Hailed as California’s “Best Live Band” by the East Bay Express, The Phenomenauts’ shtick is simple yet effective. Bearing costumes, props and helmets,…
Had Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (yeah, truncating it, Cher/Madonna-style, was probably a good idea) — the 29-year-old, Colombian-born singer who’s been making albums (mostly sung in Spanish) since she was 15 — broken through in the U.S. at the height of the late ’90s, Ricky Martin-led Latin-pop explosion, she’d be…
