Metal-core must be a harsh mistress; otherwise, you’d think that more bands in the genre would at least try to inject a shred of originality or imagination into their music. If Orange County’s Scars of Tomorrow don’t necessarily succeed in escaping from the thud-chunk-growl straitjacket, at least they try —…
Hmm, what’s this little story . . . Tilly and the Wall? Let’s have a read: “So the three girls and two boys from Omaha, Nebraska, decided in 2001 to form a band. They called it Tilly and the Wall. But they couldn’t find a drummer! “‘Whatever shall we do?’…
After 10 years at the helm of minimalist indie-mopers Carissa’s Wierd [sic], Pacific Northwesterners Ben Bridwell and Matt Brooke decided, upon that group’s disintegration in 2004, to let their inner Crazy Horses run free on their next musical venture. And so they dubbed their new band, appropriately enough, Band of…
It’s always good to see our local needle-sharers hitting the road with outta-town acts, but it’s even cooler when they breeze into town and get a li’l bit of a homecoming crowd out to hype them up. DJ Element, one of the ‘Nix’s best known turntable talents, has been out…
Phoenix MC and record label founder Arhythmatik knows that the basement of ASU’s Memorial Union is more than an open venue with strangely acute acoustics. He sees the cellar stage as a mecca of hip-hop culture, and on the last Friday of every month, he shares his vision with hip-hop…
1. Ice Cube, Laugh Now Cry Later (Lench Mob) 2. Busta Rhymes, Big Bang (Aftermath) 3. Yung Joc, New Joc City (Bad Boy) 4. Nelly Furtado, Loose (Geffen) 5. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium (Warner Bros./Wea) 6. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Downtown) 7. Keane, Under the Iron Sea (Interscope)…
If you think you know a singer-songwriter and want to be sure before you buy him a beer, check these qualifiers courtesy of Wikipedia: must “write, compose and sing their own material,” “appear primarily at house concerts, coffee houses, folk clubs and festivals,” and be “better known for their meaningful…
The good folks at the Anti label sure know how to pick ’em. But while labelmate and fellow flame-haired vixen Neko Case gets all the attention from horndog rock writers the world over (“She can sing and I’d do ‘er!”), the enigmatic, sometimes disturbingly intense Jolie Holland threatens to slip…
Comets on Fire guitarist Ben Chasny’s Six Organs of Admittance solo project has never been breezy or light; it’s more of a forum to explore experimental, psychedelic textures. Even still, his second Drag City album, The Sun Awakens, manages to take his trademark Robbie Basho-inspired acoustic plucks and manic free…
Though somewhat overlooked over the years because of similar yet much-hyped scenes to its south — primarily in New York City and Washington, D.C. — Boston hardcore boasts a solid history of no-bullshit, no-holds-barred thrash-punk and some killer hometown heroes, including Gang Green, SSD, and Impact Unit (Mighty Mighty Bosstones…
Kinda jammy, kinda classic-rock and kinda alt-country, Steel Train has nevertheless found itself lumped in with its more age-appropriate post-punk and emo counterparts. Sure, the band’s on Drive-Thru Records and sings about, like, feelings and stuff, but it also contemplates the relationships between fathers and sons, sympathizes with alley cats,…
Vader may be the biggest-selling death-metal band ever to crawl out of Poland — and the first behind-the-Iron Curtain band to sign a Western record deal — but that’s obviously not saying much. Vader does, however, deserve some small recognition, if only for tenacity. From their 1990 demo, Morbid Reich,…
Be Your Own Pet doesn’t play punk rock like your random lipstick-wearing MTV pinups, or your pop-punk-happy jokesters, or even your serious-as-cancer anarchists. This Nashville, Tennessee, trio kicks out the raucously inebriated jams in the spirit of ’77 with style. Only a year or two removed from high school, singer…
What with all the Brian Jonestown mass o’ curs barking around MySpace these days, getting all aflutter about a new “psych-rock” band is a task. Mainly ’cause most of these swirlers make it sound like a task, twisting the reverb button to “obvious” and pretending they’re not jam bands. Enter…
Since its early days as a duet comprising Bob Weir and self-styled acoustic bassist Rob Wasserman, Ratdog has experienced its share of musical evolution and personnel shuffling. Counting late Chuck Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson and members of San Francisco’s jazz-based Charlie Hunter Trio among its alumni, the group morphed from…
To say that DJs Senbad and Pete “Supermix” Salaz have been around the block in the ‘Nix is a freakin’ understatement. Salaz just celebrated his 20th year DJing, after starting out with local legend Eddie Amador back in 1986. The self-proclaimed “house music souldier” and partner Senbad have been rocking…
The lousy CD cover to Knives in the Attic’s 5 song EP, Death Pop, does it a great disservice. Sure, the blood-spattered, knifed teddy bear doodle fits the angst/death-obsessed lyrics, but it comes off amateurish. And this is a band that should be in the midst of a bidding war,…
This furious five-piece came kicking out of Denton, Texas, five years ago as a rock-’em-sock-’em reaction to their burg’s then-burgeoning prog-emo scene (see At the Drive-In). Despite some Fugazi guitar chops similar to their Denton peers, the Gamblers’ preference was to rock out like the MC5. Endless touring and label-hopping…
If you thought that The Stills were initially lumped into the same scene as Interpol and the Walkmen because of timing rather than musical similarities, the quintet cements that notion on Without Feathers. More Radiohead than Rapture, Feathers finds the Montreal band more interested in creating expansive soundscapes than in…
Many notable artists shuffle off this mortal coil, only to endure the usual posthumous “previously unheard release” cash-in attempts. The superlative Personal File is far from that. File is a collection of voice-and-guitar-alone performances from 1973 to 1976 and the early ’80s found in storage at the House of Cash…
With a fearsome wheezing and creaking, the highly anticipated second installment of Ann Arbor, Michigan, producer Dabrye’s trilogy, Two/Three, sounds more like an infernal machine than the feel-good hit of the summer. Dabrye builds on the bleak, industrial sound scrapes of producers like the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA by adding somber…
“Thank you to members of the media for coming today. As press secretary for country-pop superstars Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood, I’d like to clear up two points of confusion before taking questions regarding the pair’s U.S. summer tour. First: In seeking to annul her four-month marriage to Chesney last…
