Best band ever, if only for turning “. . . Baby One More Time” into the most poignant ballad of 2000; best band ever, if only for making “Killer Queen” live up to its billing. Yes, Travis is the world’s most astute and least finicky cover band — it renders…
The packaging for the rerelease of this 1982 West Berlin concert is designed to distract you from the fact that the show was staged in support of Trans, the album where Neil Young’s obsession for Devo spilled into Kraftwerk and Klaus Naomi territory. But the After the Gold Rush-era portrait…
When Billy Joe Shaver gives directions to his modest house on the outskirts of Waco, Texas, he says to disregard the handwritten sign on his front door. “Please do not disturb I haven’t slept in two days,” it says. “That’s just so some ol’ drunks don’t come by at 5…
It’s a late Friday night at Modified, the tiny art/performance space on Roosevelt Street in downtown Phoenix, and everything is going to hell. Youthful noisemakers Thee Apologies, who come on like a bunch of hyperactive teenagers playing in the basement while their parents are on vacation, are forgetting words and…
Meet Paque, Daisy and Stella, a trio of trend-trawling, Bananarama-obsessed Gen Y’ers from the Phoenix ‘burbs whose lives are dedicated to the quest for fame and celebrity. Never mind that these girls possess zero talent or the aptitude to develop same, they have that need to “make it.” They simply…
Much of the discussion surrounding the growth of DJ culture had focused on the myriad subgenres and styles that have exploded in recent years. From drum ‘n’ bass, house and jungle to techno, trance and acid jazz, it seems that each season brings with it a new prevailing trend. But…
Mogwai had barely made it to Detroit before drummer Martin Bulloch’s heart started skipping. He felt the off-rhythms in his chest that told him his pacemaker was acting up — his body even rejecting it, maybe, as he’d been warned. Nobody wanted to take any chances, so Bulloch made his…
“We are certainly not control freaks, but we do as much of it as we can do ourselves to keep our own expression, our own way,” says the tall, thin and boyishly handsome John Dufilho regarding the Deathray Davies’ fiercely independent spirit. Autonomy is actually built into the very structure…
It’s hard to imagine a more self-effacing guitar hero than Doug Martsch. The leader and driving force of Built to Spill — Boise, Idaho’s greatest claim to musical immortality — Martsch brings to mind Robert Christgau’s old line (in reference to T-Bone Burnett) about being unable to resist a humble…
Jonny Greenwood would prefer not to be here, this I know. Talking on an intercontinental phone call to yet another journalist about how great Radiohead, in which he plays guitar, is and how important Amnesiac, its new record, is in the face of the cultural poverty that’s replaced the 21st-century…
Tiffany Anders has a pedigree that most indie hopefuls would happily die for. Imagine growing up in the Hipsterville Hills of Los Angeles with respected film director Allison Anders (Gas, Food, Lodging) for a mom. A mom who’d drag you along to see bands like Redd Kross or X when…
Why do Euro-electronica acts tease us with sexy albums we can get down to, only to follow them up with moody, dark albums we can’t? Massive Attack did it with Mezzanine, the follow-up to Protection. Portishead did it with its self-titled follow-up to Dummy. Tricky, well, who knows where his…
Okay, this one’s a no-brainer. Australian Rock. What do these words bring to mind? If you say “Radio Birdman,” you need to take off your headphones and look outside. It’s 2001. Ditto “The Birthday Party.” And Nick Cave/Bad Seeds/Dirty Three haven’t lived in Australia for years, so they don’t count…
None of the musical underground’s ever-multiplying genres is so singly identified with one band as post-rock is with Tortoise. Since the mid-’90s, indie hipsters and cutting-edge types have indiscriminately applied the tag to anything vaguely improvisational, proggy and/or instrumental, but post-rock usually boils down to the experimentation of a handful…
As the plane broke cloud cover over Uruguay, 13-year-old Alex Han tightened his grip on the armrests.Sitting in his home two months later, Alex recalls the moment vividly; his body goes stiff, his thin fingers curl into claws and he arches his back slightly as he digs into the soft…
Some say that it really isn’t happening, that Less Pain Forever (a.k.a. Lush Budget Presents the Les Payne Product) isn’t really leaving Arizona, that all this talk about the duo living, recording and touring for perpetuity in a 1983 Chevrolet Southwind RV is just the latest in a series of…
The music industry is a joke. — Drunken Immortals, “Ambush” A&R men . . . bidding wars . . . contracts . . . demo recordings . . . promotional budgets . . . sales expectations . . . units moved . . . points earned per unit . …
While Valley stalwarts Les Payne Product will be saying farewell this week (see Payne-Less) with a show at Nita’s Hideaway, some familiar names will be using the concert bill — which features a handful of top local indie acts including Reuben’s Accomplice and the Slowdown, among others — to debut…
David Byrne’s post-Talking Heads career, like that of his fellow Heads, has been uneven, and decidedly low-profile if not strictly uneventful. But you gotta hand it to the guy: Never once does a Byrne album come off like he’s pandering to the popular taste. You might think he fell flat…
Stiv, Johnny, Joey . . . all gone, shuffled off to punk-rock heaven. Who’s gonna be left to inspire the troops? Billy Joe Armstrong? A wimp! Dexter Holland? A poseur! The lead dork from friggin’ Buck Cherry? Surely you jest! The recent VH1-Spin special on punk’s first quarter-century felt more…
Founded in 1994, the Chicago-based ‘zine Punk Planet, which won the Utne Reader Alternative Press award last year, has covered a music scene that’s inextricably bound to a progressive political stance. The voices in this book — musicians, political organizers, artists and filmmakers — make for some of the most…
At the risk of stealing an intro, let me count it off. How it happened was like this: Five years ago there was this club in Los Angeles called the Underground Cafe. The Underground hosted a once-a-week funk night dubbed “The Breaks,” at which a young hip-hop aficionado named Miles…
