San Francisco’s world renowned Kronos Quartet has charted an impressive course around the globe, commissioning more than 600 works — and releasing more than 40 records — with composers from China, Russia, Vietnam, and Iraq since its inception more than 30 years ago. Founding member David Harrington cites an unusual…
Dixie Chicks Grammy-winning-song collaborator Dan Wilson released his first solo album this year, the Rick Rubin-produced Free Life. The Semisonic songwriter and former Trip Shakespearean still lives in Minneapolis, still shops at the Electric Fetus, and plans on holing up and writing songs for the next few months. He recently…
As two different Radiohead releases this month prove, rock boxed sets aren’t becoming any more sensible. The “discbox” version of the band’s new release, In Rainbows, is stuffed with extras. They range from useful (music), through aimless (booklets and artwork), to mystifyingly redundant (the album on CD, 12-inch vinyl, and…
The Fiery Furnaces — the frequently conceptual Brooklyn indie/art rock band with siblings Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger at its creative core — is typically branded with such adjectives as “difficult,” “challenging,” “dizzying,” and “unpredictable.” They’re also pretty damn prolific, averaging an album a year since 2003. The group’s latest is…
Jerry Riopelle is an old-school cat, which means that the singer/songwriter’s been making records longer than almost anybody else in the Valley. As a staff writer and producer for Phil Spector’s Philles Records in Los Angeles, Riopelle wrote his first top 20 hit (“Home of the Brave,” recorded by Bonnie…
Normally, I’m not a big fan of Christmas albums. I get stacks of them every year, and less than half of them actually make it into my CD player (really, I don’t need to hear Josh Groban’s take on “Little Drummer Boy” or James Taylor doing the umpteenth-thousandth cover of “Jingle Bells”).
But this year, I received A Taste of Christmas Pudding, an annual holiday compilation that features Phoenix artists doing their renditions of Christmas classics. There are two things that make this album stand apart from the seasonal stacks of wax for me. One is the sheer diversity of musical styles on the compilation. We open with a heavy metal cover of the creepiest Christmas song ever, “Carol of the Bells” by Karnage, before gliding into the soulful acoustic sounds of Haven James doing “Please Come Home for Christmas.” Ultimately, the 12-track CD wraps up with a raucous rendition of “Feliz Navida” by Kraised, with some garage-country (“Blue Christmas” by Juicy Newt), some funk (“Funky Desert Land” by Isle of Essence), and some frat boy rap-rock (“The Night Before Christmas” by Zoom & the Sporty Forties) in-between.
How does music engage and touch us so deeply? Why is its presence so intrinsic to what we do? It’s everywhere, from stereos and headphones to movie soundtracks and commercials. Even our voices possess a unique musicality. It’s hardly essential to life, yet music’s been a part of every human…
Every year around the office, it’s the same old pickle: What do you buy for the Secret Santa gift exchange? You don’t want to go super-cheap, because somehow everyone always figures out you were the jackass who bought the stupid Bush-isms desk calendar, but you also don’t want to spend…
How is it that two of 2007’s top sellers — Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears — sold more than a million records in the U.S. without touring the U.S. this year? It’s because pity has become the new indispensable promotional tool. See how your faves have already maxed out the…
Music DVDs are typically used as stopgaps between CD releases or to drum up support for some other project an artist is promoting. Most amount to little more than music-video compilations, hastily shot concert films, or the latest chapters in continuing sagas about horny midgets and one very crowded closet…
Out of Sync, the new memoir from former ‘N Sync member, failed cosmonaut and gay American Lance Bass, came out on October 23. (It’s surprisingly good.) Over the phone from New York – where he’s living while starring in the Broadway musical Hairspray as Corny Collins — and speaking in a slight Southern twang, he was very congenial. We talked about his critical words for Justin Timberlake in the book (he felt “completely betrayed” when JT broke up the band for a solo career), coming out, and dating the actress who played Topanga in Boy Meets World.
Every obit, blog post, and newscast will not fail to mention his despicable treatment of his ex-wife Tina Turner — so consider it mentioned.
What those voices will not tell you is what you can only hear and feel in the urgency and ambition of his music. From his rock & roll-christening fuzzed guitar on “Rocket 88” to his psychedelic gospel funk; from his unvarnished tremolo on uncountable electric blues singles to the black-power groove of the instrumentals he recorded with another St. Louis master, Oliver Sain; from his transformation of rhythm & blues into rock into soul (and then back again), to his electrification of the wildest stage spectacles that pop music had ever seen, Ike Turner deserves the appellation visionary — and can hold his own with touchstone figures such as Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry and Miles Davis.
Because kids in 2007 aren’t buying CDs like kids of yesteryear did, retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target are threatening to scale back their shelf space to stock only new releases from artists with proven sales. Not a big deal if you buy CDs on Amazon or iTunes, but…
After more than a year of nonstop touring behind their latest album, Sacrament, Virginia thrashers Lamb of God are out on the road for one last leg before taking a much-needed break in 2008. But before the band closes the book on Sacrament, we caught up with ultra-friendly powerhouse drummer…
One lament you’d never expect to hear about the local punk scene is that there’s no sense of community. Punk, by its very nature, champions apathy, an I-could-give-a-shit belief system and do-it-yourself work ethic. But truth be told, punk’s nihilistic front just ensures that you’re not listening to music made…
James Mulhern, guitarist/vocalist of local indie band What Laura Says Thinks and Feels, speaks of his first concert experience with pride. It was a Bon Jovi show, Mulhern was in the ninth row, and it was “pretty badass.” The rest of the band has no qualms about listing the “skin…
Greg Pritchard is a consummate multi-tasker. On an early November afternoon, the Minnesota-bred musician is conducting a telephone interview with a reporter from an Oakland coffeehouse while sipping java and using his “mobile dubbing station” to make cassette copies of Shards, a release that his psychedelic prog-thrash band, Clipd Beaks,…
Chief among the reasons Deftones is one of the most compelling hard-rock acts of the past 15 years is Chino Moreno’s gripping vocals, which often act as a moody, atmospheric foil to the band’s raging guitar riffs. But with Team Sleep — Moreno’s long-running side project — pretty much everything…
Not long ago, a three-CD, 50-track collection of America-themed songs that’s titled, appropriately enough, Song of America, arrived in stores. What’s so special about that? Well, aside from the fact that it features freak folker Devendra Banhart (“Little Boxes”) and Springsteen acolytes Marah (“John Brown’s Body”) alongside the likes of soul diva Bettye LaVette (“Streets of Philadelphia”) and Chevy rocker John Mellencamp (“This Land is Your Land”), the set was executive produced, oddly enough, by Clinton-era Attorney General Janet Reno (no, “Burning Down the House” isn’t on there, but thanks for playing). Apparently, she and her niece’s husband, a record producer, conceived the idea a few years ago, and even made a trip to the 2005 Grammys to get artists to sign on to the project. “I just hope that people will have the opportunity to hear [Song of America] and to see what songs can do to inspire and to motivate and to give people a sense of themselves,” Reno recently told NPR.
If the massive rainstorms that’ve been plaguing the Valley today have given you second thoughts about checking out The Locust’s scheduled gig tonight at The Sets in Tempe, it’s kind of a good thing, since we just got word that the show (which was being put on by local concert powerhouse Lucky Man) has been axed.
There’s little dispute that Judas Priest singer Rob Halford is the Metal God. Since 1974, Judas Priest has sold more than 9 million albums in the U.S. alone, not to mention the success of Halford’s other bands, Halford and Fight. The British-born Phoenix resident is named as a vocal influence by everybody from original Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno to Arch Enemy singer Angela Gossow, and is also credited with introducing the leather-and-spikes look to the genre. And at 56 years-old, Halford continues to churn out his beloved heavy metal music. We recently caught up with Halford to discuss the new Fight DVD (War of Words), the upcoming new Judas Priest album, and how he feels about being one of the few openly gay men in metal.
Woe betide the “next big thing” who gets squeezed through the music industry hit machine, only to find their visions are all misshapen and the expectations are impossible to meet.
Once upon a time, an artist whose debut album charted at #10 on the Billboard charts and sold 119,000 copies the week of its release would be considered a success. Not so for American idol winner and Phoenix resident Jordin Sparks, whose self-titled debut is being flagged as a failure by music pundits because she didn’t debut at #1 like previous Idol winners Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard.
