It would be easy to name off the big hip-hop hitters who participated in the production of Pokafase’s self-titled debut album for Artist Direct Records (including Warren G. and Kokane from the Doggystyle All-Stars) and let hype build from there. But the truth is, what makes Poka’s CD so good…
Good band names can be hard to come by. Budding groups have to conjure up something catchy and unique that nails their sound exactly. For instance, there’s San Diego-based indie Tristeza, whose moniker sticks in your brainpan but also describes the emotional makeup behind a bulk of its songs (the…
Zao is a powerhouse of the metalcore scene, following the example of genre icons Earth Crisis, forging a hardcore/metal act unafraid of dabbling in other genres, and becoming known for passionate performances. But where Earth Crisis’ sociopolitical stance is decidedly secular, Zao is faith-based, working the Christian music and Cornerstone…
Black Flag was once accused of being neo-Nazis, and so were the Ramones. But when NYC hardcore pioneers Agnostic Front came along, maybe the alarm-ringers couldn’t be blamed for perceiving racism in the lefty world of punk. After all, the cover of 1984’s Victim in Pain is an archival photo…
Nowheresvilles have always produced more than their fair share of good bands. The alchemy that breeds inspiration from frustration works overtime when the only place open late is Circle K. But while most bands wish themselves out of the dust of their home turf, Throw Rag frolics in it. On…
Recently back from a six-month tour, brothers Mike and Jared Bell of the Lymbyc Systym display their intense musical relationship via jaw-dropping keyboard and percussion performances. Their sound blends electric jazz with elements of electronica and indie rock, and winds up being unique with strong beats and impressive grooves. The…
Many local bands rush to put out a CD as soon as they have enough material. Not Sistrum. The band’s debut CD, Ashes & Whispers, has been nine years in the making. Biding its time through several lineup changes and budget constraints, Sistrum continued to develop songs and tighten the…
The flyaway pages of the calendar bring us to 2005, midway point where some exciting new music has got to emerge to atone for this decade’s stagnant first half. You can take heart that the appearance of Kongos on our local scene is a sign of things finally getting interesting…
Even the briefest essay about Rosanne Cash requires a list of her reckonable accomplishments: the 11 number one singles, the Grammy award, and always, always her royal musical lineage. But if being Johnny Cash’s daughter got her foot in Music City’s door, and while all those hits kept her on…
Punk has grown as a term to encompass an eclectic array of approaches, and its infiltration of guitar-based underground music is now so complete that everything that’s at least midtempo seems to bear some imprint of the style. It’s to the point where calling a band punk is no more…
Perhaps it’s the omnipresent gray skies, but whatever the cause, the Brits are masters of a strain of gloomy romanticism traceable from Bowie to Blancmange to Morrissey. NYC quartet Elefant channels this dark, synth-driven pop sound (which hit its high-water mark during New Wave’s ’80s reign) with supple melodies and…
Y’all rellies ready to get your gurp on? Kill Mill resident DJs Foundation, Dirty Napz, and Ether One are bringing that crazy-ass Z-Man, the verbal innovator, and Awol One, of the Shape Shifters, to town on Tuesday, January 18. It’s a duo not to be missed; Z-Man is one of…
In the popular imagination, Grammy equals fame and fortune, but it’s unlikely most people reading this will know the name of Grammy-winning troubadour and storyteller David Holt. Holt (an O Brother alumnus) plays washboard, banjo, guitar, harmonica, spoons, bones and other instruments, sometimes all at the same time, with a…
Cutthroat Logic is “representin’ Phoenix to tha fullest.” The band’s song “Phire City” may be the best hip-hop shout-out ever to our desert metropolis, with flows like “I’m from where it’s hotter than fuck/And all they bump on the radio is the most commercial rap/Eminem, Puff, or P-Diddy/Whatever the fuck,…
Here’s a band that’s a cluster of contradictions. It’s called Bowling for Soup, but the members are admittedly terrible bowlers and not big fans of soup. It’s a punk band, but it was nominated for the “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group” Grammy in 2003. It’s made up…
1. Arcade Fire, Funeral (Merge) 2. Handsome Boy Modeling School, White People (Elektra) 3. Pinback, Summer in Abaddon (Touch & Go) 4. Tom Waits, Real Gone (Epitaph) 5. Elliott Smith, From a Basement on the Hill (Anti) 6. Joanna Newsom, Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City/Caroline) 7. Kings of Convenience, Riot on…
What? You’ve never chain-smoked three packs of unfiltered cigarettes, gone without seeing daylight for six weeks straight, sauntered around town with a dime-store noir in the back pocket of gasoline-soaked jeans, nodded off in the corner in a heroin stupor, or screeched through the dodgiest part of town in a…
Wes Anderson’s new film is his moodiest, most adult yet: Bill Murray’s Steve Zissou, a washed-up oceanographer-filmmaker plainly modeled after Jacques Cousteau, has a heart of gold, of course, but he also curses and behaves irrationally and commands unpaid interns to make him lattes on stolen espresso machines. The film’s…
Junior Kimbrough was a bluesman from the north Mississippi hill country, far enough from the delta to escape the encroachment of most modern conveniences. It was there, removed from outside influences, that Kimbrough developed his wild-ass, uncontrolled style, with rhythms full of unexpected twists and turns and a primal vocal…
“It’s all downhill from here,” Eryn Young declaims on “The Last Migration,” and the band makes good on its threat with a sinister disc overflowing with bleak melodies and an atmosphere fueled by an unlikely mix of electronica and Americana. This husband-and-wife team occupies a space somewhere between the Handsome…
If you didn’t know otherwise while listening to this spellbinding EP, you might swear it’s a recently unearthed Alan Lomax field recording from the 1930s rather than the product of a contemporary alt-folk singer-songwriter. Seattleite Jurado generates that no-fi vibe through the use of “salvaged” reel-to-reel tape (in all its…
With the recent (but supposedly temporary) closing of the Priceless Inn/Boston’s, home of the weekly Blunt Club hip-hop extravaganza, local heads might be worried about filling their nighttime schedules with enough beats and rhymes to keep them from withdrawal convulsions. For now, fear not — Universatile Music, which has brought…
