Before we continue, let us ponder some hard questions. What if the Strokes weren’t The Strokes? What if they weren’t that band from New York with the obnoxiously cool haircuts and the obnoxiously uncool tee shirts? What if there was no hype draped around their skinny necks? What if they…
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as the twin-engine Lockheed Electra took off from Lae, New Guinea. It was July 2, 1937, and although international relations were tense, World War II was still many months away. The only enemy the little plane had was the Pacific Ocean itself, vast…
Tired of pop stars and the drama of their daily existences? Sick of snotty Brits and has-been pop tarts adjudicating a glorified karaoke contest? Had enough of self-absorbed metal acts and the (overcompensating) Wagnerian size of their angst? Then come out to see Dysrhythmia, whose cascading tones of surprisingly supple…
What is it about Joe Arpaio? That guy can breathe life into a non-story better than any public relations expert around. More than six weeks after Arpaio made headlines with the news that he’d persuaded Tower Records to pull a rap CD that “takes on” Maricopa County’s sheriff, the story…
Raekwon ranks among the Wu-Tang Clan’s premier lyricists, but he’ll probably never top his 1995 solo debut, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. The self-proclaimed “Chef” disappointed his fan base with his marginal follow-up, Immobilarity, which put the pressure on Raekwon to deliver the goods the third time around. Lex Diamond…
Blake Sennett’s breathy, breakable delivery is as overly dramatic as a LiveJournal entry, and his dear-diary lyrics are even more so. “And if you see me down at the liquor store, please don’t tell my dad,” he moans on “Greeting in Braille,” with the back of his hand presumably draped…
The Von Bondies’ Jason Stollsteimer (or as they call him in the U.K., “Jason Von Bondie”) won’t even mention “his” name. The White Stripes’ Jack White, who produced the Von Bondies’ debut, Lack of Communication, is persona non grata to the scrappy Detroiter. In late December at the Magic Stick…
Jazz fans take note: Here is an affordable, rollicking collection of Los Angeles-based recordings, circa the late ’40s and early ’50s, that permanently eradicates two long-held myths. For one, the two-CD set kills the misconception that everything interesting in the genre at the time was happening in the Big Apple…
We’re talking about the potty-mouthed singer of a band that’s two parts Dead Boys and one part Crazy Horse — accuse him of being a folk singer and he just might slam his glass down on the bar. But The Sauce is a blatant violation of the usual rocker-goes-country equation…
White Line Fever: The Autobiography By Lemmy with Janiss Garza (Citadel Press) Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal By Ian Christe (Harper Entertainment) There was once a musical genre that slew all others. Birthed in the bombed-out, industrial wasteland of central England, the creature was…
On a drag queen night at a downtown Phoenix gay-boy watering hole not long ago, four biological females walked in the door, dressed in leather and fishnets with multicolored hair and studded belts. As they passed the makeshift stage inside Amsterdam, a tall African-American queen in a shrink-wrapped-on dress named…
One of the better missing link neo-’80s bands, Elefant explores the sounds of that decade without being overly derivative, unlike some of the other members of the retro-styled class of 2003. Its debut, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, recorded in 2002 and released in ’03, is still going strong, and the…
In the tradition of guitar virtuosos Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke, Keller Williams is a one-man band, a 10-string prodigy, finger-picking with his right hand and banging out rhythms on his customized rig with his left, while triggering any number of loops and samples electronically. Though based in a loose-limbed…
Sunny Day Real Estate was one of the most influential American bands of the last decade. One of the first to be tagged emo (though it transcended the label), the band spawned a loyal following and many imitators, and may be partly responsible for the emo-pop of Dashboard Confessional or…
A disembodied voice comes out of the smoky darkness of the Emerald Lounge as Soul Trax winds down the last number of its first set. Someone is heckling the band. At first, it seems the heckler is counting off a beat or commenting on one of the musicians’ timing. But…
It’s a bitch trying to get a giant stuffed grizzly across international borders these days. “We have a big bear. He’s been coming onstage with us lately,” Hamilton explains in a British accent thicker than a London phone book. “We’d like to bring our bear, but he’s not allowed through…
Like many Mexicans who are thriving against the odds in the United States, Francisco Gomez cannot believe his good luck. Akwid, the rap duo featuring him and his older brother Sergio, was in the Top 20 of the Billboard Latin album chart for dozens of weeks, and Proyecto Akwid was…
Fans of the last several albums by Radiohead have been equally vocal in their praise of Thom Yorke’s songs and their admiration of the relatively abstruse sounds that have surrounded and sometimes enveloped them. Indeed, by the hyperbolic standards of select Kid A reviews, you’d think folks would be just…
Gerardo Montenegro, who owns a strip mall mom-and-pop death metal shop called Metal Devastation here in Phoenix, says his goal is to approach underground perfection. The storefront sign promises, after all, that his shop specializes in “only real death/black metal” and “extreme and obscure musical art.” In other words, if…
Few of us will ever know the joy of invention, devising something of dual capability that not only fills the needs of the many but gets to touch millions of ladies’ breasts. Paxton Quigley, inventor of the Super-Bra, is one such person. This crafty miss recently designed a brassiere that…
Over the last several months, I’ve noticed an alarming trend. I can’t look at TV or the newsstand without seeing the word “emo.” Major record retailers are advertising albums on MTV pimping them simultaneously as “emo” and “the next big thing.” There’s a recently published book by Andy Greenwald, senior…
What if the Smiths had been our little secret — not a worldwide phenomenon whose appeal crossed cultural barriers with breathless ease, but a closely guarded icon whose worshipers shared in the unique communion of the secret cause? We would feel the ugly satisfaction that comes from being in on…
