If you find the haughty high jinks of British pop bands — Pulp, Oasis, Blur, et al. — overly bothersome, it stands to reason you’d be annoyed by the pomposity of Brandon Flowers, front man for the Las Vegas-based indie outfit The Killers. But somehow, it’s possible to look past…
Go ahead and schedule some time with a chiropractor, because after Metal Devastation Fest’s intense headbanging session, your neck will be misaligned. The folks from the “most Satanic brutal store” in the Valley have recruited great death- and grind-metal bands to pummel Phoenix on April 8 and 9. The lineup’s…
I have a dream of a day when there are no longer formats, no longer genres. A day when hipsters, geeks, hillbillies, hip-hoppers, punkers and metalheads all see shows together, thanks to the continued miscegenation of musical styles. And if there’s evidence of progress toward that day, it’s the music…
With some 25 years of hindsight, the work of X sounds more and more like folk music “turned up to 11,” to plagiarize a phrase. These musicians may have been extreme in their attitude and energy, but their intelligent lyrics and acidic humor marked them as populists as well as…
When Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack put an ad in the NME for a bass player in 2000, the two Brits listed their influences as Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Joy Division, and DJ Shadow. That does a good job of describing Bloc Party’s subsequent sound, although it doesn’t hurt to…
If you think the theme of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll has been played out, a single listen to Gogol Bordello will restore your faith in the power of music to jolt you out of complacency. Gogol’s lead singer, songwriter and chief maniac, Eugene Hutz, and his cohorts continue…
1. Beck, Guero (Geffen) 2. The Decemberists, Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars) 3. Bloc Party, Silent Alarm (Atlantic) 4. Yo La Tengo, Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs: 1985-2003 (Matador) 5. Prefuse 73, Surrounded by Silence (Warp Records) 6. The Kills, No Wow (RCA/Rough Trade) 7. Nick Cave…
If soul is the teacher and punk is the preacher, the BellRays are working a double shift. Combining Detroit’s twin musical heritages, Motown and garage rock, the Riverside, California, foursome specializes in a unique brand of primal, big-lunged gospel fury — one that showcases the woefully underrated and formidable pipes…
Punk is urban folk, born of suburban mediocrity and conformity. But the onetime vehicle for protest is now just another marketing niche for songs about girls. Springing into that vacuum is MDC. Along with the Dead Kennedys and Suicidal Tendencies, the band helped forge the American hardcore movement, mixing raw,…
Zombies, mummies and vampires populate local trio Calabrese’s first full-length, 13 Halloweens, the follow-up to the three brothers’ much-hyped EP Midnight Spookshow. Some Spookshow tracks are revisited here, but these 13 horror-rock songs (hence the title), in the vein of the Misfits and the Ramones, show a fleshed-out, slickly produced,…
Moby sold millions of copies of his 1999 sample-savvy dance mosaic record Play, with virtually no radio airplay. “The Iggy Pop of electronica,” as Penthouse dubbed the eccentric artist, licensed all of the songs off the album for television advertising. And people were actually going, “Wow! Who does that Bailey’s…
Beck Hansen’s finest year was unquestionably 1994, when Los Angeles’ most talented high school dropout served up three great records — an indie-folk trawl (One Foot in the Grave); the multigenre, major-label mash-up that made his name (Mellow Gold); and a whacked, lo-fi sampler of just about every style of…
This Thursday, April 7, local artist and impresario Dumperfoo moves his long-running Blunt Club hip-hop night to a new location, Hollywood Alley, 2610 West Baseline Road in Mesa (northeast corner of Price and Baseline roads). Along with the usual bag of tricks — live art, b-boys and b-girls, resident DJs…
“Atmosphere finally made a good record . . . yeah, right, that shit almost sounds convincing,” Minneapolis-based MC Slug, head of the Rhymesayers collective and label, raps on “Trying to Find a Balance,” off Atmosphere’s 2003 Seven’s Travels LP. Actually Atmosphere’s put out a shitload of good records, the most…
Killswitch Engage’s music pulls no punches. It’s fast, heavy and doesn’t let up. Yet somehow this Massachusetts band was tapped to headline the Taste of Chaos tour with My Chemical Romance and The Used, two hardcore punk-rock bands that share Killswitch’s tendency to have fun on stage. Case in point:…
The greatest cult bands of recent decades — The Pogues, The Replacements, The Pixies — have been musical universes unto themselves. By that standard, Leatherface fits right in, even if the British band’s fan base is closer in size to a cult-of-a-cult. Sprouting around 1990 from melodic hardcore, Dickensian-named bandleader…
Sure, they’ve become an arena band, at least in their native U.K., but Welsh trio Stereophonics have needed a serious kick in the ass for a while now. It’s been extremely frustrating to watch the promise of their vibrant 1997 debut album, Word Gets Around, steadily dissipate via a string…
For the better part of the ’70s, TP Orchestre Poly-Rythmo (“TP” for tout puissant, or “all powerful”) served as the house band for the tiny African nation of Benin, acting both as self-contained funk band and session musicians for homeless vocalists. The group’s stateside profile is slight — an oversight…
1. Prefuse 73, Surrounded by Silence (Warp Records) 2. The Evens, The Evens (Dischord) 3. Pigeon John, Sings the Blues (Red Urban Records) 4. Queens of the Stone Age, Lullabies to Paralyze (Interscope) 5. Adolescents, Complete Demos 1980-1986 (Frontier Records) 6. Sole, Live From Rome (Anticon) 7. Enon, Lost Marbles…
Dateline Duluth, Minnesota — On Tuesday, a Minnesota district court judge threw out a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by 37-year-old Duluth native Brian Swerzyk against the indie rock trio Low and its label, Sub Pop Records. Swerzyk had claimed breach of contract and severe emotional distress after purchasing the band’s 2005…
Backstage at some nameless arena, the freakishly masked thrash-metal terrorists of Slipknot conduct their traditional pre-concert confab: “We really rocked the hizzle last night,” says frontman Corey Taylor (a.k.a. No. 8). “Although y’all are bummed that the crowds aren’t what they used to be, the single Duality from our newest…
While U2 without the hubris sounds like not only a bad idea, but a self-canceling one, The Devlins — preceding bands like Travis and Coldplay — have been exploring that gas planet for nearly a decade. And as it turns out, there’s life there after all, particularly in love songs…
