Music

Motet drummer and principal composer Dave Watts might be among the most studied timekeepers on the planet. Given to using terms like “African diaspora” when describing his rhythmic influences, Watts isn’t simply smacking the cans in standard time, as evidenced by his musical output. Drawing upon a lifelong passion for…

Chris Ward is multi-faceted, to say the very least. Getting his start at Cartoon Network, Ward was among the team of weirdos that resurrected an obscure Hanna-Barbera cartoon titled Sealab 2020 and turned it into the more risqué Sealab 2021. During his stint with that show, Ward worked as an…

Boston’s Godsmack has a well-earned reputation for darkness. But prior to a show in Dallas, the outfit’s drummer, Shannon Larkin, sounds as cheerful as a member of Up With People. “I’m extremely grateful to be in this business, on this label, in this band — and just glad to be…

The music industry has a lot in common with the average automobile plant. Lots can go wrong, but when everything’s operating at peak efficiency, it’s still capable of turning out impressive products. Like, for instance, B’Day, a sleek new model that displays all the benefits of custom manufacture. Granted, Beyoncé…

Gnawing your way through a new Mars Volta record is always something of a chore at first. The band — anchored by instrumentalist/composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and lyricist/vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala — turns out huge mind-fucks as songs, mixing prog-metal, psychedelia and swaggering Latin flavors into massive, album-long narratives whose intent is…

As more and more labels dust off long-gone, commercially failed but artistically significant bands, it’s refreshing to see Sub Pop fight the sad irony of post-mortem acclaim by anthologizing a band that’s alive and kicking hard with years of neglected gems under its belt. Oregon’s Dead Moon is a garage…

Towers of London would be the most original rock band to ever come out of England — if this was 1975. Sadly for Towers, it’s not. The London mates, with their ultra-party-coiffed manes, come off as third-generation wannabes so devoid of pure inspiration that even their influences look asinine. The…

At first blush, gogoLab seems like pure shtick — an opportunity for keyboardist Eric Moon, bassist Bijoux Barbosa and drummer Brian McRae to don suits, shades and skinny ties and live out their spy-music fantasies. Turns out, though, these guys are talented enough to transcend their own gimmickry. The disc’s…

Rockabilly is an especially specific genre. Despite technological advances in hair goop in the past fifty years or so, the style hasn’t deviated too much from slicked-up pompadours and thumping slap-bass lines (even psychobilly counterparts remain true to the general approach). Take stylized guitar riffs and bop ’em out with…

Danity Kane, Danity Kane (Bad Boy). The Diddy-assembled vocal quintet that emerged from the dopey yet addictive MTV series Making the Band 3 is custom-made for those who feel the Pussycat Dolls’ music is a bit too raw and spontaneous. “Show Stopper” and the rest of these vacuum-sealed ditties proudly…

Although these Brits have earned a footnote in pop-music annals, the reference pertains to someone else: Phil Spector. Several years back, the reclusive Wall of Sound architect was looking for a group to help him break a lengthy layoff, and he settled on Starsailor, a James Walsh-led combo with a…

Inspired by the 1982 cult film Wild Style, DJ Krush became one of Japan’s first turntablists. Equally adept at breakbeats, trip-hop, blissed-out electronic explorations and straightahead hip-hop, Krush has been a pioneering force in the DJ scene since his days with the Krush Posse, a crew hailed as one of…

American performance artist Chris Burden once noted that the dwindling fan base of most bands can be attributed to changing tastes or reactionary disinterest. Xiu Xiu, however, has had the unfortunate problem of often losing fans to suicide. (Oh, how very Goethe.) The San Jose-based act sits on a bummer…

Early practitioners don’t always reap the rewards enjoyed by those who follow, as the industrialists of Nitzer Ebb understand. Drummer Bon Harris and singer Douglas McCarthy began making music with the assistance of keyboardist David Gooday back in 1982, long before most people knew what to call their dark electronic…

A hit single nearly killed Nada Surf. Too arch for its own good, the 1995 MTV favorite “Popular” doomed the New York trio to novelty status. Throughout the ’90s, the threesome continued to meld the rich guitar textures of shoegaze, grunge’s warm fuzz and sunny ’60s pop — along with…

There are guitarists, and then there are “certified guitar players.” Steve Vai, for example, is not a CGP, whereas Tommy Emmanuel is. Even though Emmanuel has recorded with Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and toured with Shania Twain, you’re probably more familiar with Vai. Don’t feel bad, though, if the name…

Few would suspect that a band like the Human League — which prided itself on using no rock instruments on its first three albums — was inspired by the first wave of British glam and punk rock. Nonetheless, that’s exactly how the Sheffield-based act came into being: witnessing the evolution…

Listening to the up-tempo early-’70s garage reverb of Deadboy and the Elephantmen, it’s hard to reconcile that lead vocalist/guitarist Dax Riggs is the same metal dude who once fronted the influential Southern-fried sludge outfit Acid Bath. Riggs’s musical ardor has developed substantially beyond the swampy drone of his past endeavors;…

Guitarist Dave Beegle has been shredding in these parts for so long that it’s easy to take him for granted. But he’s a talented player more than capable of holding his own among the acts participating in the Denver Guitar Festival, which takes place on Saturday, September 23, at the…

For most people, fishing is a quiet, contemplative pastime — but not when Sharon Jones is involved. The fifty-year-old lead singer of the Dap-Kings, a rhythm-and-blues revival group good enough to be compared with its inspirations, Jones likes to be in charge whether she’s entertaining audiences or drifting in a…

“You a faggot?” demanded a mouth-breathing redneck of diminutive Photo Atlas frontman Alan Andrews. “What?” Andrews responded, flashing a look of complete bewilderment. “Your hair and the way you were dancing,” Hoss continued. “You’re a faggot, right? You like to suck dick?” Watching this exchange unfold in the gymnasium of…