“This is where we do it,” Survivalist’s most garrulous MC, Preacha, welcomes you upon your arrival at Fo’ Life Records, the tiny independent record label from west Phoenix that has somehow produced a Top 5 song on Billboard’s Hot Rap Singles chart, Survivalist’s laid-back, catchy “Bounce.” If there were an…
It’s Saturday afternoon during this year’s South by Southwest, and the collection of independent parties known as South by South Congress is in full swing along the main thoroughfare of South Austin, Texas. Musical acts perform at a variety of establishments along the avenue and in the alley behind it.The…
No matter what some delusional musicians might spew forth in their diatribes about “art” versus “commercialism,” few bands would call for a ghostbuster if the specter of success actually paid them a visit. Selling a pittance of records to die-hard fans while gigging at endless clubs is not the apex…
To those who grew up hearing — and watching — the best Brazilian and Afro-Cuban bands on the planet, chances are Ozomatli are L.A.’s most overrated band. When the Ozos go batucada, it seems as if the surdo is being hit with an ax instead of a palo, and when…
When an album opens with a cover of Richard Thompson’s dark and brooding “Keep Your Distance,” you know you’d better fasten your seatbelt: It’s going to be a bumpy ride. On their first official album as a couple, Buddy and Julie Miller take us down love’s lost highway, where trouble’s…
In a 1999 interview, the lead singer and songwriter of the Ben Folds Five said that the next record he’d write would be the Thriller of modern rock, with eight hit songs on it. Now, two years after the trio’s college-rocker, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, Ben Folds has…
“We paid attention to bringing rock ‘n’ roll back to rock ‘n’ roll, which is a three-minute song with not a bunch of extended guitar leads — what punk rock was about — and we tried to give our side of that and make our contribution.” John Doe, bassist and…
Arizona has an X connection and his name is Michael Hyatt. Known around Tucson as a 14-year veteran deejay at KXCI-FM (he’s also the station’s underwriting director) and nationally for his work compiling Rounder Records’ five-volume series of train and railroad songs, Hyatt’s rock photography recently put him on the…
By most people’s estimations, Tim Wiles, a.k.a. Überzone, would never fit the stereotype of a dance music producer. He doesn’t drink or do drugs, and he operates his homegrown breakbeat production enterprise like the thriving business it is. He’s even a practicing Christian. But the way Wiles sees it from…
When Johnny Cash speaks to you in your dreams, you’d better pay heed. That’s exactly what Mark Stuart did after several nocturnal visits from the Man in Black, who spoke to the San Diego musician about, well, stuff, and also about playing country music.”Yeah, they were weird dreams. Don’t ask…
Roots Manuva named his first album, 1999’s promising Brand New Second Hand, after a song on Peter Tosh’s landmark effort Legalize It. While Manuva isn’t the first artist to use roots reggae as a hip-hop touchstone, his point of reference is a little left of center, or more accurately a…
The last time we checked in with the lusty psychedelic scene of the Twin Cities, there were such bands as . . . er, uhh . . . well, Prince, and Soul Asylum, and of course those space-rockin’ Replacements . . . whew. In any event, better late than never…
Fitting that consummate Englishman Nick Lowe has signed with Yep Roc Records of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as The Convincer continues his trend of making Southern-sounding records. Lowe’s material is set against a moving panorama of Dixie styles, from Muscle Shoals soul to gospel to honky-tonk, with perhaps Geraint Watkins’…
Denise Sullivan opens Rip It Up! Rock ‘n’ Roll Rulebreakers with a simple anecdote. When she received her first record player at age 6, she took a copy of the Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow into her bedroom and “closed the door for the next 12 years.” “I only ever remember…
Perhaps no Sub Pop signing in recent years has undergone a diamond-in-the-rough maturation process as memorable and rewarding as Seattle’s Murder City Devils. Over the course of three long-players, the six-piece (originally a quintet) indulged amped-up Stones-styled R&B, classic mid-’70s proto-punk, metallic-fringed biker rock and full-blown horror-shockadelica — frequently, all…
The New Metal ethos is primal scream therapy. That brawny fella in Drowning Pool yowls, “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor!” — he’s the victim of a harrowing, suburban, latchkey childhood. The problem is, you just can’t trust a maniac who brings his shrink along, and no defense lawyer in…
A name like “Boilermaker” prods the mad cows of journalistic comparison (he said, inscrutably); as soon as you’ve registered it, you start flipping through the mental file folder marked “Alcohol, metaphors regarding.” But consider the drink in question, that sickly-shaky shot wrapped in the comforting banality of domestic beer. The…
Michael Azerrad’s new book, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, will come as a shock to those who believe the terms of VH1’s Bands on the Run are harsh, that its aspiring rock stars are roughing it, that life on the road is…
Great songs: Every record should have one, the kind of anthem that makes you immediately want to roll down the car windows and sing along or jump up and down in your bedroom while riffing madly on your air guitar — or at least cue up again over and over…
Sooner or later, someone’s going to get around to making Mary J. Blige: The Movie. For years, it looked like that film would come from 40 Acres and a Mule — or some other likeminded outfit — any minute, but in recent years, as Blige has gone from the angry…
Dear Eugene Foley, J.D., Ph.D., CEO – Bodyguard Records, Thanks for the free CD. We of the scribbling profession always appreciate good, ill-gotten loot — it certainly takes the edge off the feeling that you should be creating something yourself rather than snarkily assessing the fruits of others. Matt Cheplic…
A restless, fastidious reporter who writes so vividly he might veer into glossolalia, Nick Tosches is a distinctive explicator of American mongrel music. His goal is complex and philosophical, be the topic Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, or Emmett Miller, the subject of his latest book, Where Dead Voices Gather…
