It’s not exactly like unraveling there’s no Santa Claus, but it’s not unlike it, either. When a friend tells you about a three-day festival of stoner rock and doom metal and mentions that the organizer is a guy by the name of Ancient Rob, your thoughts naturally gravitate toward the…
Don’t even mention the words “dead horse” to Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke — he gets pissed. Making it perfectly clear that the current incarnation of the iconic Southern rock band that brought us “Free Bird” is no knockoff, Medlocke vehemently issues a challenge to any naysayers. “For anyone who…
Considering the haunted after-hours vibe he kept returning to on last year’s critically acclaimed Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet, it may seem strange to find John Doe reissuing the far more raucous For the Rest of Us, a little-heard EP from 1998, as For the Best of Us, its outtakes only…
Corey Parks is like a bad-ass biker broad wielding a fierce four-string. The trashy, inked-up bassist has always struck an intimidating figure onstage, whether she was stomping around in shredded fishnets and cowboy boots in Die Hunns next to punk pariah husband Duane Peters (U.S. Bombs) or literally spewing fire…
Even when Primal Scream didn’t match the creative heights reached by Screamadelica’s rave-worthy bliss-outs or the electro-punk of XTRMNTR, they never lacked self-confidence. After all, they coaxed (and kept) My Bloody Valentine’s reclusive Kevin Shields out of hibernation, and had the courage to embrace sinewy darkwave long before it was…
Olesi: Fragments of an Earth, completely produced and sung by Georgia Anne Muldrow, may be the most idiosyncratic soul album released this year. Most of the songs last less than three minutes, living up to the title’s promise as “fragments” and random thoughts. Muldrow manipulates her voice, double-tracking it and…
This is a collaboration between blues noise guitarist/singer Jon Spencer and Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, another band that knows a thing or two about laying down a primal blues squall. The legendary Jim Dickson produced, but the music has the sloppy, uncontained feel of a…
No doubt about it, The HorrorPops are headed for Hades. Not because the fearsome foursome of Holland-born hipster hellcats committed any mass murders (that we know of), but simply because we’re certain they’ve somehow sold their souls to Satan. How else would you explain the devilish fervor in which punky…
Is Mary J. Blige still the reigning queen of hip-hop soul? It was looking iffy a few years ago, when she released her lukewarm Love & Life, an awkward attempt to reconcile her usual gritty themes of abusive relationships and ghetto drama with an increasingly happy personal life — newly…
Although Missouri native Will Johnson splits his time among Undertow Orchestra, South San Gabriel, and solo projects, he’s best known as the leader of Denton, Texas’ Centro-Matic, a band that wraps Johnson’s sometimes fragile (and sometimes raucous) songs in a gauze of country feedback and big-sky rock ‘n’ roll. For…
Henry Rollins’ personal multimedia campaign, based on his ripped abs and smart ass, has made him the closest thing to a mainstream celebrity American punk rock has produced. But that extra-caffeinated personality obscures some genuine musical accomplishments. It was his fury that stoked Black Flag into the band that punk…
Long before he became known as the “Sultan of Sickness,” the drum ‘n’ bass devotee known as Dylan began his career spinning records over the pirate radio airwaves in his native London. Since those quasi-legal days, this dope DJ has risen to international fame and fortune, with his mixes covering…
The cloaking of A Lazarus Taxon in immaculate, arty, black-and-white photographs of car accidents seems antithetical to this boxed set’s methodically crafted contents: 15 years’ worth of hard-to-track-down Tortoise droppings confined to three discs and a single DVD. An indeed-geek drinking game could be built around the Chicago post-rockers’ persistent…
When we heard Rakim (of Eric B. and Rakim fame) was coming to town, we bopped our collective heads while listening to his last release, 1999’s The Master, and also cocked our heads in confusion. What’s the dude doing going on an album tour for the first time since 1999?…
Thursday 31Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with DJ Jeremy (goth, industrial) Baja Tilly’s: DJs Richy Rich and Big Latin (reggaeton, hip-hop) The Biz: DJ Red (hip-hop, dance) Bunkhouse Lounge: DJ Doom (dance) Cash Inn: DJ Kat (country) Chilly Bombers: DJ Statik (hip-hop, dance) Club Central: DJs Ernie G. (hip-hop, R&B)…
Phoenix is a tough town for bands — the city doesn’t have a sound of its own (please don’t count Gin Blossoms-style jangle rock), and you can count on one hand the number of bands that have made it outside of our desert metropolis. That wasn’t always the case, though…
Malibu “psych-folk-rock” band Simon Dawes and math-rock mavens Don Caballero might be on to something: Give your band a solo-sounding name, play full-bodied songs, and watch people scratch their heads trying to figure out who you’re named after. (We’ll give ’em both away: Don Caballero takes its name from a…
Do hairstyles influence musical styles? They do if you’re Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, whose various ‘dos (and don’ts, in the case of her late ’80s mullet) mirror her musical phases. Year of the Spiky Red Mullet (1988): Like the mullet, Etheridge’s music was often found in divey bars with…
If you asked Black Label Society guitarist/singer Zakk Wylde if he were a beer, what kind would he be, he’d probably heroically spout out the names of some hearty stout or high-octane Indian Pale Ale. Sadly, as evidenced on Black Label Society: The European Invasion — Doom Troopin’ Live, a…
Most casual music fans have that one person in their life they turn to before they buy new music, a guru who keeps up with the trends, reads the mags, goes to the shows, surfs the ‘Net, and has taste that aligns with theirs. It could be a friend, a…
Scott H. Biram bills himself as “the Dirty Old One Man Band,” and he lives up to the moniker by cranking his Gibson through a fuzzy old amp, blowing primordial blues harp with the aid of a harmonica rack, and providing relentless rhythms with an amplified homemade foot stomp board…
The Derailers’ Honky-Tonk Checklist: Songs about women — check. Song about beer — check. Song about guns — check. Song about a pickup truck — miss. Three out of four ain’t bad, and neither is Soldiers of Love, the sixth album from The Derailers. It’s good for what it is,…
