Music

Katrina Leskanich, former lead singer of the ’80s band Katrina and the Waves, whose one hit, “Walking on Sunshine,” became a Top 10 smash in the summer of 1985, knew something was up when she checked her website (www.katrinasweb.com) one day in late August and saw it was suddenly getting…

Rob “Bucket” Hingley has a simple motto: Don’t let the bastards grind you down. It’s fitting for the longtime champion of ska and leader of the genre’s American flagship, the Toasters. Any preconceived notions and prejudices people may harbor against ska, however justified, are thrown out the door the minute…

John Rich likes to tell a story about his preacher dad and Mtley Crüe, a group that embodies rebellious fun for a whole generation of heartland Americans. About four years ago, when Rich — one half of Big & Rich, the funniest and funkiest new rebels in country music –…

Admittedly, we washed our hands of Ryan Adams when his antics became as shamelessly precious as his subtly titled sea-change record, Rock N Roll. When he took time away from headline feuds and Hollywood girlfriends to actually make music, it seemed the earnest well that ran beneath his young career…

First, the good news: The Dandy Warhols have had their fling with disposable synth-pop, rediscovered the Velvet Underground and secured cult status from the rockumentary Dig! for not being assholes quite on par with the “genius” asshole in the Brian Jonestown Massacre. On the downside, Portland’s pleasure-seeking scamps banked enough…

Given that Bob Dylan’s 1997 disc, Time Out of Mind, took the best-album Grammy largely because he nearly died prior to its release, Neil Young’s Prairie Wind, which arrives under virtually identical circumstances, has “winner” written all over it. Still, the blessings here are mixed. Whereas Dylan’s effort was overrated,…

Teetering between corny and classic, Junior Brown bangs out a set of Americana-tinged fare that features his acclaimed double-necked plucking and baritone crooning. Bottling the essence of Tex-Mex, Western swing and even surf music (an instrumental jog through the Johnny Rivers classic “Secret Agent Man”), Junior swerves through a varied…

We’ve been shitting on her for eons, but as recent catastrophes will attest, Mother Nature refuses to be take it any longer. Humankind will have an equally hard time ignoring Divides, the deafening debut by Denver’s Across Tundras. A concept piece chronicling an epic voyage across seasons, the elements and…

Chronophonic rhymer Jon Swift specializes in a hip-hop/R&B hybrid that’s not driven by samples. Instead, he leans on the talents of noteworthy local performers, who help put Fresh Fitted into an enjoyable groove. Yo, Flaco! keyboardist Matt Piazza might be the dominant instrumentalist here, but he gets able assistance from…

David Allan Coe, Penitentiary Blues (Shout! Factory/Hacktone). Out of print for three decades, Penitentiary Blues is the most compelling blues release in recent memory. Written while this country outlaw was cooling his heels in the clink for the eighth time, Blues more than backs up David Allan Coe’s assertion that…

When you consider that Dolly Parton grew up with eleven brothers and sisters on a poor farm in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, it almost makes the tackiness of her theme park, Dollywood, seem forgivable. (There but for the grace of God goes Tammy Faye Bakker.) Of course, there are also Dolly’s…

The average pop-music fan doesn’t know Carl Cox from Wally Cox, but he’s been a DJ-culture celeb for almost two decades. A London native, Cox discovered house music circa 1987 and went on to became a prime spinner in Britain’s influential rave scene. He eventually developed into a salable commodity,…

There’s good reason that article after article describe Coheed and Cambria as “the emo Rush.” With 2003’s In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, the New York quartet straddled two divergent demographics to strike gold, drawing big crowds at the Warped Tour and attracting increasing numbers of classic-rock fans to…

Soulive takes a broad range of influences, from Duke Ellington and Earth Wind & Fire to the Roots and Stevie Wonder, and blends them into a sound that is so thunderously intense live, it’s hard to believe there are only three players in the band. Keyboardist Neil Evans handles the…

When Fugazi’s VW Microbus crashed into Frank Zappa’s Mothership of Invention, the collision sounded a lot like Make Believe. Released last year, the quartet’s debut EP — building on impressive resumés from groundbreaking post-hardcore bands like Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc and Owls — only hinted at the act’s potential…

After U2, Ireland’s most beloved band could well be the Frames, a brooding bunch of Dubliners who specialize in overwrought, overly earnest, arena-sized indie pop that straddles the fence between poignant and monotonous. Far less popular stateside (though frontman Glen Hansard co-starred in Alan Parker’s soul-reviving romp, The Commitments, in…

“Super Bon Bon,” the stand-up bass-driven single from Soul Coughing’s Irresistible Bliss, was an anomaly on the modern-rock airwaves — even on playlists chock-full of one-hit-wonder anomalies. Bandleader Mike Doughty’s hardly melodic, spoken-sung, baritone-squatting-squarely-on-top-of-the-mix vocals resembles no other voice in recorded history. Ditching a project as original as the one…

Ben Gibbard, Death Cab for Cutie’s voice and resident wordsmith, is the best lyricist of the past decade — although the insufferable indie-rock glitterati might argue that the title belongs to Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy, who holds a degree in creative writing. While Meloy’s hyper-literate prose is certainly impressive, the…

If the thought of “piano rock” conjures images of Elton John in his duck suit or Jerry Lee Lewis pounding the ivories with his penny loafers, then you obviously haven’t heard the Dresden Dolls. The Boston-based piano/drums duo of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione whip up a stunningly potent racket,…

Finally, the mystery is solved. For the past month or so, fliers have been circulating around town carrying the cryptic message “Mod Is Dead.” Contrary to popular speculation, the slogan is not an unabashed shot at the now-defunct MOD Productions, the group helmed by Cory Morrison and Michael O’Donnell that…

Anthony Child made his first splash in the techno world as DJ Surgeon with the 1995 release of the Surgeon EP, which was quickly endorsed by techno tastemakers of the time and put Birmingham, England, on the electronic-music map. A decade later, Surgeon himself has become one of techno’s foremost…