In the video for his new single “Whatever It Takes,” Ron Sexsmith makes his way through a sea of delicately disco-dancing young people; a couple of times he even gets close to shaking a leg himself, presumably moved to motion by the song’s gorgeous soul-pop sparkle. Singer/songwriterdom needs more of…
Although some would have you believe our local music scene is deader than Tony Randall, consider that two new bands have migrated here: Tramps and Thieves (from Detroit and Minneapolis) and After Any Accident (from Blacksburg, Virginia), an intense power trio that blends the smarty muso sound of math rock…
Marques Wyatt made a pilgrimage to New York City in 1984 that not only changed his life, but changed West Coast dance music; Wyatt returned with the roots of the soulful, spiritual house music that would define his legacy. Now, the creative force behind L.A.’s legendary monthly party DEEP, born…
Like pop homunculi, the Kinks obsessives who have crowded up indie scenes for nigh half a decade are missing something essential in the souls. Their chirpy lilts and out-of-place Britishisms exist in a habitat largely bereft of weight, wit or variance. New Pornographers honcho A.C. Newman (a.k.a. Carl) has transcended…
The early word on RJD2’s Since We Last Spoke is that it’s something of a disappointment, especially coming on the heels of the robust, near-heroic Dead Ringer. True, it is willfully introspective and less frenetic than that auspicious debut; there are no headline-grabbing raps by his old crew, MHz, or…
No British rapper has a bigger hurdle to overcome than the Streets’ Mike Skinner. His second full-length, A Grand Don’t Come for Free, comes two years after the critical and fan favorite Original Pirate Material, an album the “British Eminem” used to turn the world on its collective ear, with…
69 Love Songs, the Magnetic Fields’ three-disc adventure in pop-music dilettantism, was the point where the antiquated past (jazz, blues, standards, chamber music) crashed into the space-age future (synth-pop). Five years after 69, on his band’s seventh disc, MF front man Stephin Merritt has ditched synthesizers completely — an unfortunate…
As a co-founder of the fiercely lauded sketch comedy program Mr. Show, David Cross may be the only comedian working today who has the cult stature and intensity to not seem out of place on the indie rock label Sub Pop. It’s Not Funny, his second album, has all of…
We used to be a British colony. We threw ’em out, they got over it, and more than two centuries later, Tony Blair stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Dubya, bragging about the two countries’ “special relationship.” The U.S. and the U.K. have had a long and productive cultural conversation. Nowhere is this…
Sure, William Shatner’s done T.J. Hooker, VH1’s One-Hit Wonders, and those damn Priceline commercials, but he’ll always be Captain Kirk to us. And speaking of one-hit wonders, the Los Angeles glam-industro-metal outfit Orgy is always gonna be the band that did “that New Order song.” Coming out of the box…
J.J. Cale moves to the beat of his own drummer, and invariably it’s a blues shuffle, the laid-back snare snap mirroring his laconic vocal delivery. Just as Cale takes his time musically, the ethos extends to his career. It was more than a dozen years between the young Tulsa native’s…
Every copy of Let’s Get to Second should come in a Land o’ Lakes box; Chomsky’s national debut practically drips with butter. Vocal doubling reaches levels that would make Elliott Smith roll in his grave, and the beefy mix sometimes drowns out lead guitar and synthesizer parts. Those changes may…
Top 10 sellers at Stinkweeds (1250 East Apache Boulevard, Tempe) for May 16 through 22: 1. Morrissey, You Are the Quarry (Attack) 2. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Love Bad News (Sony) 3. The Good Life, Lovers Need Lawyers (Saddle Creek) 4. Mirah, C’Mon Miracle (K Records) 5…
A CD not to think about but to groove on and on and on. King of the stoned age Josh Homme, kickin’ it behind the drum kit on this side project’s side project, wouldn’t have it any other way. If his Queens of the Stone Age exists for the pothead…
Sorry, candy kids, but time is almost up for frolicking at Freedom in Tempe. The dance club institution is saying goodnight after its final blowout on Sunday, May 30, featuring the biggest DJ in the world, Paul Oakenfold. Oakey was there to play the first night of Freedom’s current incarnation,…
Right now in England, forming a band to play self-consciously epic guitar rock in the key of U2 is about as original as learning three chords on a beat-up Stratocaster in a Brooklyn loft space is here. So give it up for the guys in Sussex’s Keane: They formed a…
The sheer bombast and spectacle of mainstream dancehall nearly eclipses a smaller but equally vibrant scene overseas: Conscious dancehall, a less chest-thumping branch more focused on ganja than on gats, combines dancehall’s verbal gymnastics with roots reggae-style rhythms. The conscious scene in Birmingham, England, has gotten a boost of late…
U.S. Maple’s music is like Frank Gehry architecture, Stan Brakhage cinema, or Andy Kaufman humor — you either get it or you don’t. Usually, those who get the Chicago math-rock/no-wave quartet’s live avant-noise deconstructions undergo epiphanies on a par with Chilean peasants who just saw the neighbor’s porcelain Virgin Mary…
When Greg Cartwright, a garage-rock revival vet from way back before Rolling Stone caught wind and broke out the champagne, rinsed off his customary gravel with 2001’s folk-influenced Reigning Sound debut, he revealed himself a breezy, literate songwriter. Two albums later, we find Cartwright back under the burqa. Too Much…
Of all the lame-assed rock-band reunions we’ve weathered over the past decade, perhaps the Pixies’ hurts the least. This band of Boston oddballs made four and a half albums and played about a zillion live shows — and still we know less about them than we do about Ashton Kutcher’s…
The gritty, woozy sound that defined the Wu-Tang Clan’s mid-’90s dominance still pounds in the eardrums of the Hip-Hop Nation. It’s the reason Ghostface Killah’s last album, 2001’s pop-friendly Bulletproof Wallets, was so poorly received by the street that it “went wood.” And it’s why his new single, “Run” –…
Did you know that Tijuana rhymes with marijuana? Of course you did — you’ve heard Cypress Hill before. The Hill’s 1991 self-titled debut was a hip-hop landmark that altered the genre’s very structure. Within months of its release, everyone from House of Pain to Ice Cube was imitating the East…
