In space, no one can hear you scream, so you might as well chill the fuck out. That’s been the modus operandi of London’s Laika, named after the Russian dog that rode Sputnik II into orbit in 1957. Since the early ’90s, the band has offered a seductive and cosmic…
It’s no secret that nostalgia is a powerful reason rock ‘n’ roll has so much influence on its fans — you remember the hand-me-down, 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra you were riding in, who was driving and what you were smoking the first time you heard Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” You always will…
On the one hand, Drums and Tuba is just your average Austin power trio, logging 200 or so dates a year on the road. Typically, there’s guitar, there’s drums and . . . um, here’s where the analogy starts to fall apart. Instead of a bass, there’s a tuba, and…
There’s the dark, molten pit filled with mutilated carcasses from which metal first sprang — and then there are the hip-hop scratches, funky haircuts and whining about mommy. About time someone said it: Thank God for Slayer! The veteran thinking man’s speed-metalers remain true to the former, steadfast in their…
is 3, at. Come Out Swingin’
When an infamous public life disintegrates, does anybody care to hear the moan? Was it always expected to be this way, especially as the life in question has been kept running along for our collective amusement? Following the travails of Russell Jones since the rapper who’ll forever be remembered as…
Hating British trance DJ Paul Oakenfold is like hating Wal-Mart — it’s not that fun. Like the Arkansas-headquartered superstore, Oakenfold is officially the biggest and most successful at what he does, namely playing clubs all over the world, selling mix CDs, and producing remixes for top-shelf pop artists. In fact,…
Atllas is the phantom of the Phoenix hip-hop scene. Even when you can’t see him, he’s there, like a graffiti bomber taunting a train in the yard on successive nights. “I don’t sleep,” the crazily determined rapper says. “I get to work at 6:30 in the morning. I was out…
After the exhilarating one-two punch of last year’s Stereo/Mono, you might’ve expected a knockout single disc of Paul Westerberg, all killer and no filler, a disc that gave jaw-dropping ballads and inspired throwaways equal time and maybe revealed something about the cigar-chomping Minneapolitan you didn’t already know. What you’ve got…
As it must, the Strokes’ second LP registers as something of a disappointment. After all, Room on Fire sounds like the Strokes’ debut — and once they remade the world in their own prickly, swivel-hipped image, nothing that sounds vaguely similar to 2001’s Is This It could ever best its…
Anyone who has followed the trajectory of Van Morrison’s career knows he began as a brooding but brilliant Belfast singer, blending R&B with Irish mysticism, punk rage and a little narcissism, creating a pulsating groove that has never been duplicated. That was then. Forty years later, what mostly remains is…
Yes, the rumors are true — Spiritualized leader Jason Pierce has sworn off rock ‘n’ roll excess. But we’re not talking about a 30-day stint in rehab followed by an allegiance to yoga. Rather, there’ll be no more symphony conductors on speed. Big gospel choirs, begone! Fiddling with massive overdubs…
Sascha Konietzko is one daft businessman. The enigmatic leader of the industrial rock band KMFDM, Konietzko hires a rotating group of musicians to fill out his lineup. When his group became a little too cocky a few years back, he ditched them and founded MDFMK. “KMFDM was always my project…
“What Would Jerry Do?” The bumper sticker on the old Toyota Celica, parked outside the Sail Inn, the friendly little Tempe bar that’s quietly become a haven for the local jam-band scene, can’t say it any better. If there’s a guiding principle behind the Saturday night event, the finals in…
In the early 1990s, it was hard to find a Valley band that didn’t know, and somehow benefit from knowing, Julie Hurm-Tessitore. A local music “it” girl, she was connected to the local scene to a ridiculous degree. Hurm-Tessitore worked for Evening Star Productions, promoter Danny Zelisko’s baby in pre-Clear…
One of the more under-reported aspects of Hitler’s march through Europe in the 1930s and ’40s is the destructive effect it had on culture — art, science, literature and music. Wherever their regime spread, the Nazis took pains to erase the societal contributions of Jews, and a generation of vital…
First, it was closing. Then it wasn’t. And now no one is sure what will happen. For 15 years, seven days a week, Long Wong’s on Mill has been a rock ‘n’ roll institution. But these are confusing times. Two weeks ago, the club’s owners told me Wong’s was dead,…
When The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins adds a few extra trills to the last refrain from the band’s debut album Permission to Land’s “Love on the Rocks With No Ice,” you feel like the demented partygoer who takes a few hits of nitrous just to keep up with the acid he’s…
Because he is (or, like, was) a Fugee, seems to genuinely believe in the future of our children and once cut a joint with multimedia titan The Rock, there’s a tendency to forgive Wyclef Jean for the more ill-advised extremes of his apparent mission to make music appealing to all…
Heavy metal’s historical moment continues to stretch itself magnificently, having increasingly more fun in the process. Take Dimension Zero, a band from Sweden with credential-heavy pedigree (In Flames, Marduk) and a John Wayne-like commitment to holding down the fort. Neither wildly excessive nor ready for radio, This Is Hell flails…
There was no shortage of angry political punk back in 1984, thanks to Black Flag’s countless, often premature offspring in the U.S. and bands like the Exploited and Discharge in the U.K. It’s no wonder, then, that New Model Army singer Justin Sullivan saw fit to call himself Slade the…
Rapper Obie Trice peppers his conversations with “dude,” using it in every possible way (and then some). While most would gush, the Detroit native and 8 Mile actor even uses the surfer slang to describe working with his idols Eminem and Dr. Dre on his debut album, Cheers. “Eminem was…
