Ever since last year’s macrocomputer concept album EEVIAC, Man or Astro-Man? has been working off no known template. That is, if all you know about MOAM? is the surf revival stuff from its first albums on Estrus, you’ve missed out on some pretty important shifts in attitude. A Spectrum of…
From the opening white noise and chimes of Home Is Where You Hang Yourself’s title track, you’re immersed in a world where stuffed animals sit in smoke-filled rooms, one-eyed bunnies stare into empty shot glasses, and threadbare teddy bears mumble to themselves, all of them just wishing for a hug…
Tin Hat Trio blew up with the power and exuberance of a firestorm on last year’s recording debut Memory Is an Elephant. With an unlikely instrumental core of violin or viola (Carla Kihlstedt), accordion (Rob Burger) and acoustic six-string (Mark Orton), the Bay Area combo innovated genre-defying chamber music that…
You’ve heard it before. If it’s not the oldest cliché in the business, it’s the best-known: “We’re big in Europe.” “Big in Europe” — a phrase so ancient that it’s become a sort of all-purpose joke even to people outside the music industry — means you’re skirting the issue of…
Merle Haggard is contemplating quitting country music, and it’s your fault. The 63-year-old Haggard isn’t ready to walk away just yet. In fact, he’s about to embark on a two-month national tour to promote his biggest recording in more than a decade. Yet Haggard, if anything, is a realist. A…
Weezer has not released any new material in five years, yet its July show at Boston’s in Tempe sold out before most people heard the date had even been announced. A few weeks earlier, the group’s surprise appearance during the local leg of the Vans Warped Tour had folks freaking…
“Novel” is a word rarely used to describe bands in the Valley music scene. And while, strictly speaking, The Weaker Sex is not a “novelty act,” it boasts a membership that’s already raising curious eyebrows around town. Led by longtime local rockabilly kitten Ruth Wilson, The Weaker Sex is an…
“Secure in my role of ‘band member,’ one-fifth of the roots-rock band the Picketts for the past 10 years,” writes Christy McWilson in her Hightone Records bio, “I always thought I’d step out in front of a firing squad before I’d step out on my own as a ‘solo artist.’…
Child Is the Father to Man, Blood, Sweat & Tears and The Chambers Brothers’ Time Has Come Today (Sony Legacy)
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue occupies a lofty place in the eyes and ears of most jazz lizards. Many believe — make that know — it to be the greatest record of all time. But the 1959 album’s exalted status reaches far beyond goatee-sporting, cappuccino-sipping, finger-popping white hipsters. The famous…
In 1988, Penelope Spheeris released the amusing rock documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap is an almost perfect parody of Spheeris’ film, and Christopher Guest’s Nigel Tufnel is a perfect parody of Ozzy Osbourne’s persona in it. The only…
While the New Amsterdams are a Get Up Kids offshoot, the band doesn’t belong to the same dreaded indie subgenre as its emo-core parent. Instead, songwriter Matthew Pryor’s side project has plenty in common with that harbinger to all things sad-core, Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers album. Never You Mind evokes…
The people on Sally Taylor’s new independently released Apt. 6S fall in love or don’t, get drunk, move away, shoot pool, hang out in smoke-filled bars, call each other long distance to catch up and abandon each other on wedding days. In short, the usual run of random occurrences that…
Curt Kirkwood has a new project. The least surprising thing about this venture is that it’s based in Austin. And there’s more to it than the fact that his new bandmates are from there. And it’s not, as drummer Shandon Sahm quips, “because Texas has barbecues and death penalties.” Phoenix…
You’d never think of using words like “violent,” “aggressive” or, especially, “badass” to describe ’70s prog rock. That is, unless you saw the 1998 film Buffalo 66. In the movie’s pivotal climax, actor Vincent Gallo shoots a man in a nightclub to the pulverizing instrumental portion of Yes’ “Heart of…
You’ve heard the sound of drum ‘n’ bass. So has your grandma. She probably just doesn’t realize that as she’s glued to the TV, her Chihuahua on her lap, the music playing as the fancy new Ford Focus rounds the corner of the oceanfront highway during that cookie-cutter car commercial…
God only knows what anyone loafing around Arlington, Virginia-based Inner Ear Studios thought upon hearing playbacks of Jets to Brazil’s just-released second album, Four Cornered Night. Recording home to bands such as Fugazi, Bluetip, the defunct Jawbox (whose former front man, J. Robbins, has produced both Jets to Brazil discs)…
“We didn’t expect to sell out the [Madison Square] Garden; we didn’t expect to do it in two hours,” says Bruce Dickinson, the erudite front man for long-in-the-tooth sorcery ‘n’ riff masters Iron Maiden. The Maiden, it seems, is back, and, according to Dickinson, is in rare form and at…
With new stuff on the way from Chicken, Truckers on Speed, the Pistoleros, the Piersons and Big Blue Couch, the remainder of this year offers no shortage of highly anticipated local roots and rock releases. Before the aforementioned fall/winter platters hit, we’ll get a couple of offerings from Dave Insley…
Pig Latin (Triple X)and Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys Night Tide (Hightone Records)
As embarrassingly primitive as it may seem, rock ‘n’ roll is foremost an expression of rebellion against firmly held parental values. The primary distinction between pop and rock is that parents may tap their feet to the former but must, by God, detest the undiluted medium and message of the…
“We are revolutionaries, y’nuh,” says Bob Marley, early in Rhino’s video recollection of the creation of Catch a Fire. True in a double sense: The Wailers were emphatically political where most reggae bands of the day were not, and they were the first to aggressively construct a crossover album with…
