What happens when a bunch of bona fide band geeks go on vacation? For members of Drum Corps International, the answer often involves a lot of cramming into confined spaces, public airing of bodily functions, plenty of communal nudity and a whole lot of marching around in funny hats. Each…

After years of quietly making music with impeccable underground cred, it would seem that Marc Bianchi and his longtime partner/sometime bandmate, Keely, have created a monster with their musical project, her space holiday. Last year, they released a second album, Manic Expressive, which received accolades from the music press on…

Can the music be called Brit pop if the musicians in question take more influences from the Mississippi Delta than from their Liverpool-area origins? Lacking a better term, Gomez describes its music as “psychedelic blues.” And while there’s no easy way to explain the trippy country-blues-electronica-folk-rock genre melt that defines…

The Athens, Georgia-based duo Jucifer an alt-metal combo comprising Amber Valentine on guitar and her boyfriend, Ed Livengood, on drums mixes up a lethal cocktail of punk, heavy metal and plain ol buzz-saw rawk, redefining Southern gothic. The couple self-released a debut album in 1998 titled Calling All Cars on…

It’s a buyer’s market for jam-band fans as the ranks of musicians with heroic endurance have swelled in the years since the Grateful Dead went belly-up and Phish went on permanent hiatus. Everyone from Les Claypool to that kid down the street is in a group these days. The challenge…

Back home in Austin, Bob Schneider is King of the World. Sandra Bullock’s hunky, erstwhile paramour has escorted many a University of Texas freshman through the process of growing older, wiser and more worldly. Sometimes wisdom has had very little do with it: Schneider’s past projects include the funky, frat-boy-friendly…

There are certain words that commonly creep into descriptions of Mark Eitzel: “brilliant,” “tortured,” “honest” and “poetic” are among the often-used adjectives. These may all be fitting descriptions, but isn’t everyone a little brilliant, a tiny bit tortured and even honest sometimes? It’s more accurate to describe Eitzel by explaining…

Living as a person of faith involves a constant process of balancing belief and doubt. Sometimes the kinds of doubts that eat away at faith find their way into song — such as U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” — and inspire listeners who are doing their…

Martin Sexton is the central character in one of those bootstrapping success stories Americans love. The performer, who began his career by busking on Boston street corners, has built a supportive fan base of thousands across the nation while remaining independent of the machine that perpetuates mediocre talents better suited…

“Just when you thought it was over, it happens again.” So sings Eliot Zizic on Auditory Crash Course, the debut EP from Denver’s DeNunzio. Truer words were never spoken — especially for this young group, made up of three members of the late, lamented local staple Acrobat Down. Zizic, Jason…

Sara Hickman didn’t set out to be a crusading-mommy musician and ever-smiling feminist icon. That’s just how the cards have fallen over the course of her career. In addition to being a devoted wife and the mother of two young girls, Hickman has her own record label, Sleeveless, and manages…

Given the pedigree of Le Tigre’s three players, it’s not surprising that they’re poised as she-roes for feminists of generations X and Y. Kathleen Hanna, unofficial leader of the riot-grrrl movement spawned in the Pacific Northwest in the early ’90s, formed Le Tigre in 1999 after the dissolution of garage…

In Jack Kerouac’s book Tristessa, the eponymous junkie heroine reflects the Buddhist tenet “Life is suffering.” San Diego’s Tristeza (Saturday, February 16, at the 15th Street Tavern, with Pinkku and VU) doesn’t take the suffering trip, but, like Kerouac, the combo does meditate upon the meaning of life with its…

W.C. Clark is one of those blues artists who is totally happy playing to faithful patrons in small clubs. In Austin, his hometown, he can regularly be found at modest East Side venues such as the Victory Grill and Charlie Playhouse. After roughly fifty years on the Austin blues circuit,…

Not so much a jam band as a pulsating mass of sexy Latin-flavored beats, the San Diego-based B-Side Players embrace a multi-culti groove and make it theirs, urging you with horns and congas to dance, damn it, dance! Reggae it ain’t, and you shouldn’t buy your ticket expecting to hear…

The year 2001 produced its share of catastrophes: major terrorist campaigns in D.C. and New York, a widespread anthrax scare — and J. Lo’s solo debut. Fortunately, there’s plenty worth remembering about the first official year of the new millennium, as artists of every genre proved that music still matters,…

There’s a reason that Sound Tribe Sector 9 has a following in towns like San Francisco and Boulder. While some bands rock for a cause, like forgiveness of Third World debt, and many rock just because, Sound Tribe is among a select handful that rock for healing — though healing…

Oscar-nominated Alfre Woodard chooses to call herself an actor rather than an actress, because “actresses worry about eyelashes and cellulite, and women who are actors worry about the characters we are playing.” Adapting that comparison for a discussion of female musicians, let’s say that a pop diva is more concerned…

It’s probably safe to say that no one really predicted a second generation of pleasant lo-fi bands that emulate heroes such as Elliott Smith and Built to Spill. You start a band in hopes of becoming the next Beatles or Rolling Stones, not the next Death Cab for Cutie. And…

At first blush, DJ Swamp holds all the intrigue of a nicely edited movie preview. The man smashes records during his sets and rubs the shards on his chest! He sometimes scratches his tongue with a stylus! He even sets himself on fire when he’s really into it! How much…

It’s a Scottish supah-group, y’all, and the only thing you should really be scared about is whether anyone will ever be able to top this record. Gary Lightbody of twee-poppers Snow Patrol birthed the idea of a giant Scottish musical collaboration while drinking at a Lou Barlow show in Glasgow…

Jason Pierce doesn’t know how to read. Music, that is. Incredible, then, that he’s been able to build a musical career that’s spanned more than a decade, first as singer/guitarist for ’80s-era psychedelic-rock icons Spacemen 3 and later as a founding member and the mastermind behind Spiritualized, the darlings of…