From the Oxford Encyclopedia of Indie Rock Mythology, page 1,174: Sebadoh (seh’-blargh-chwynugllwgg): Founded in Massachusetts in 1986 by Tascam test engineer Lou Barlow and circus magician Eric Gaffney. Both shared songwriting duties: Gaffney’s songs sounded like the neighbors being chain-sawed; Barlow’s songs sounded like kittens softly weeping. After being asked…
Former Phoenician homeboy DJ Z-Trip’s long-awaited debut CD, tentatively titled Shifting Gears, may not be dropping until spring of next year, but that doesn’t mean he’s being quiet in the meantime. Z-Trip hits town with the Projekt Revolution tour this Wednesday, September 1, once again along for the ride with…
“I use speech to bust rhymes through a concrete wall,” raps Boston MC/producer Insight on “Evolve,” the first single from The Blast Radius. Insight’s music is meant to hit like shrapnel, dousing the ears in horn stabs, rumbling bass, and careening effects. It bears a remarkable similarity to DJ Premier’s…
“We were a fine drinking band, and most of our best work was done in the pub,” says Rod Stewart in the liner notes to the phenomenal new Faces four-CD boxed set, Five Guys Walk Into a Bar. It’s true — in their day (1969-1975), the raucous British quintet was…
Plenty of scribes have unloaded on The Printz, and it’s easy to see why. This compilation of two EPs is often a mess, with Aussie provocateur Chris Colonna and one-named helpers such as Pia and Surya gleefully engaging in unnatural acts of rock, hip-hop and plenty more, without the slightest…
“Repeated use of it [marihuana] has led to mental weakness, dullness and an insanity either of a violent sort in which the victim is pursued by terrible sense-illusions, with insomnia and acute mania, or of an imbecile-lethargic kind, resulting in incurable dementia. . . . Children of addicts are said…
The funk-jazz outfit Galactic is celebrating its 10-year anniversary at the same time it is saying farewell to a major part of its act. Citing health concerns, Theryl “The Houseman” DeClouet will no longer be a permanent member of Galactic. “He can’t really hang with our touring level,” says bassist…
Linkin Park has been able to pull off what many acts have been unable to do this summer — sell tickets to its festival-style show. For its Projekt Revolution Tour, the rap-rock band pulled together a lineup worthy of an old-school Lollapalooza show, with the token rap act, novelty group,…
Luddites, fear not — Mouse on Mars has not come to alienate you. On this, their eighth full-length, the Mice instead demonstrate a keen interest in nesting within more traditional song structures. And while no one’s going to be mistaking Mouse on Mars for, say, Harry Nilsson anytime soon, Radical…
Erin Moran, a.k.a. A Girl Called Eddy, must have one heck of a record collection. This set echoes everything that made pop music exciting 40 years ago; think Burt Bacharach composing for the Velvet Underground or Ennio Morricone writing saloon songs for Nancy Sinatra. Moran’s voice, halfway between Marianne Faithfull’s…
Top 10 selling CDs at Zia Record Exchange (3851 East Thunderbird Road) for the week of August 8 through 14: 1. Taking Back Sunday, Where You Want to Be (Victory) 2. Authority Zero, Andiamo (Lava) 3. Various Artists, Rock Against Bush Vol. 2 (Fat Wreck Chords) 4. Velvet Revolver, Contraband…
When the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia died in 1995, patchouli-scented fans tapped the Dave Matthews Band to fill his shoes. Since then, DMB’s career has waxed and waned. Besides a summer playing stadiums, the South African native and his band haven’t lived up to their full potential. One-night stands are…
Where would we be without VH1? How could we possibly live without being hipped to the celebrity trend of “butt facials,” watching vegan reality-show contestants spar with Ted “Kill It and Grill It” Nugent in the backwoods of Michigan, or getting a snarky rehash of ’90s pop culture (sorry, but…
Looking for a good time this weekend? For a smorgasbord of eclectic dance ferocity, check out the impressively titled diverCITY (City Sounds: Let the Music Move You) party happening on Friday, August 20, at the Clubhouse in Tempe. DJs Seduce, Phill, Jonny Ocean, and Melissa Laine will be throwing down…
Marah is a jangly, soulful, gritty, streetwise roots-rock outfit from Philadelphia with a number of friends in high places, some of them better for business than others. Bruce Springsteen loves ’em — he’s given them a big boost by appearing on their albums and inviting them to open gianormous stadium…
Sure, any group can record 10 unhappy tracks in a row and call it an album, but it takes truly accomplished visionaries to make 10 miserable songs into a riveting audiomovie you’d stay to watch the credits for. To the guppies, misery isn’t just a mood, it’s an expansive landscape…
And so we come to last call at the House of GBV, and it’s hard not to get a bit misty. For whatever indifference or disappointment greeted anything he’d made since Under the Bushes, over the years, Bob Pollard had become a bit like The Dude — we took comfort…
What comes to mind when you think of Salt Lake City, Utah? Luxurious homes, looming Mormon tabernacles, men with multiple wives and a dozen little kids, all laughing and running across manicured green lawns toward their SUVs? The Salt Lake City stigma may stick to uncomfortable places, but take a…
These Swedish Jennie bombs came to American attention in 2002 as the female counterpart to the Hives, whose front man Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist dates lead Hotnight Maria Andersson. On their kick-ass third album, the Saharas get away from that easy comparison, sharpening the hooks in their wily garage-pop tunes and…
Boasting a pair of members from metalcore/noise rock pioneers Today Is the Day, Atlanta’s Mastodon follows a similar path, breaking the death-metal mold with unusual time signatures and breaks, passages of rich melody, and a kitchen sink of eclectic sonic textures, couched in an intermittently sludgy, brutal attack worthy of…
The very essence of wacky irreverence, Camper Van Beethoven created music like sonic Unabombers, lobbing folk-inflected conundrums into the marketplace. Whether penning a polka-punk tune like “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” naming its second album II & III, or rerecording Fleetwood Mac’s entire Tusk album while snowbound together in a cabin,…
Xiu Xiu’s emotionally charged synth-pop finds comfort in ’80s music and late-20th-century composers, and finds inspiration in art-rock “do this or die” ideals. On its latest LP, Fabulous Muscles, the San Jose, California-based band pushes keyboards, guitars, violins and drum sets to their physical limits to create sweeping melodies with…
