It’s not exactly a mystery why Sony is pushing O. After all, Omarion Grandberry’s got a kiddie-soul pedigree (he was in B2K), an acting background (he played Reggie in Fat Albert, a fact he might want to keep to himself) and the sort of look that appeals to teens raised…
Ripping words from music can be as traumatic as mom and dad getting a divorce. Very rarely are lyrics able to stand unaided by their sonic concomitant. Shit, even naked Dylan stinks. So what possessed Aesop Rock to release an EP accompanied by a ninety-page book collecting all the script…
Artists granted legendary status all too often stagnate and slip into self-parody, as if the mounds of accolades and accoutrements of success were the artistic equivalent of Medusa’s gaze. But the Geto Boys have managed to stay fresh, despite years of internal beefs and well-publicized personal struggles. Behind the bluesy,…
The contrasts between Ozzy Osbourne and Morrissey are multitudinous. A few of the most obvious: Morrissey is rock’s most famous abstainer since Ian MacKaye; Ozzy once inhaled pills and groupies like they were oxygen. Morrissey reads Oscar Wilde; Ozzy has problems with a TelePrompTer. Ozzy munches bats; Morrissey thinks meat…
Blame Green Day for refashioning “punk” as a watered-down pop subspecies that tries to elevate the state of suburban tedium into some kind of political outrage — the kind where the only thing being suppressed is the view beyond the big, scary hedge in a well-manicured front yard. Look no…
During the mid-’90s, Jonathan Fire*Eater was marked for big things that never came to fruition, which is the sort of thing that happens to groups that insist on wedging an asterisk into their names. The better part of a decade later, former Fire*Eaters Paul Maroon, Walter Martin and Matt Barrick,…
Anyone silly enough to believe that music journalism is populated exclusively by deep thinkers will be quickly disabused of the notion after thumbing through the Jucifer clip file. Most articles about the combo mention that it sprang from the same Athens, Georgia, scene that produced R.E.M. — an act that…
The story starts like this: Five years ago, two sisters by the names of Adrienne the Anemone and Bethany the Barracuda decide to mix ornate, goth-shaded pop music with puppetry, sign language and a flair for sheer fantasy. Enlisting the aid of drummer Khattie the Katfish, the Austin-based outfit began…
Side projects often have a way of turning around and influencing the bigger bands that spawned them. The New Amsterdams is a prime example: Singer/guitarist Matt Pryor formed the group in 2000 as a vehicle for his more folky, delicate compositions, ones that didn’t quite fit into the emo-pop framework…
Unless you speak fluent Japanese, you’ll only understand about 5 percent of what Guitar Wolf’s frontman is screaming about — a garbled spew of vitriol peppered with smatterings of thickly accented English: “Baby! Baby! Fire Joe! Fuck you! Go! Go! Time machine! 1-2-3! Rock ‘n’ roll! Yeah!” The rest of…
Whether or not one magic slug from a lone gunman actually caused seven wounds between JFK and former Texas governor John Connally is something for conspiracy theorists to argue about until Bigfoot rides a unicorn to the next Skull and Bones blood ritual. For Pennsylvanian thrash outfit Single Bullet Theory,…
Right before Franz Ferdinand and the Arcade Fire came along and swiped its thunder, British Sea Power was poised to be the world’s foremost purveyor of angle-brandishing indie anthems. But not everyone forgot: The Nightmare Fighters have enthusiastically channeled British Sea’s arty post-punk and Ian Curtis-esque grumble into a promising…
Miami’s DJ Craze is one of the few turntablists to fully embrace dance music as a touring, full-fledged, drum-and-bass DJ. After winning the DMC world championships an unprecedented three times, he retired from competition and turned his attention to the tunes. Recognizing the myriad similarities between drum-and-bass and hip-hop, Craze…
The Snakepit (608 East 13th Avenue) is revamping its Monday nights. DJs Razor FM, Goodfoot and Shapeshifter plan to put new life into the beginning of the week with “Destination Monday,” featuring a mix of tribal and breakbeat. Although the concept was introduced last October, it really came together last…
It didn’t even cross my mind that people might perceive us as a bunch of drunks.” Sarah Rocereta, singer/guitarist of Stoli and the Beers, is far more pissed than she is wasted. It’s Friday night at the Cherry Pit, and her band just tore through a neck-snapping blur of primal…
Right now, Atlantic Records is giving the star treatment to San Diego’s Louis XIV, whose first full-length for the company, The Best Little Secrets Are Kept, hits stores on March 22. But what happens if the disc doesn’t sell 200,000 copies in its first week? Will Atlantic stick by the…
Francois Baptiste’s ability to multi-task rivals that of an air-traffic controller. It’s 6:30 p.m. Thursday, February 17, the first official night of All-Star weekend, and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of his silver Range Rover as we barrel down Speer Boulevard en route to his apartment. Baptiste has one…
Fabric is a very orderly label. The London-based imprint specializes in mix discs helmed by the likes of Doc Martin and Eddie Richards, with each release’s title consisting of the company’s name and digits establishing its place in the catalogue. CD twenty is a benchmark in the firm’s history, and…
Being at the top of the Wedding Present’s thank-you list may not be much of an honor. On Take Fountain, the revived Present’s first release in eight years, that prestigious spot is granted to Sally Murrell — former girlfriend of the band’s leader, David Gedge, and his longtime collaborator in…
On his third full-length, young German troubadour Maximilian Hecker sheds nearly all of the down-tempo, Thievery Corporation filigree of his first two albums, aiming instead for a record held together by spare piano chords, gravity-free vocals, and keyboards that sound like Eno on an ice floe. Think Rufus Wainwright pried…
Green has been attracting plaudits and brickbats ever since his days with the Moldy Peaches, when his repertoire was filled with songs like “Who’s Got the Crack?” His melodies can make the collected works of Raffi seem complex in comparison, yet his lyrics are as alternately dirty and quirky as…
For a band so obsessed with the chillier frontiers of experimental rock, Hood refuses to stay frozen. Cold House, from 2001, was a watermark for the English group, crystallizing its aqueous post-rock into a new, glitteringly austere form of pop. But where House enclosed its digital chisel work in claustrophobic…
