Spiritualized

“I think I’ll drink myself into a coma/And I’ll take every way out I can find/But morphine, codeine, whiskey they won’t alter/The way I feel now death is not around.” Those lines, from Spiritualized’s latest, Songs in A & E, pretty well sum up the two topics England’s most heralded…

Phantom Planet

Few of those who attended Phantom Planet’s June gig at the Fillmore in support of Panic at the Disco probably expected much from the band. The combo’s known — if it’s known at all — as the group that once featured Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman on drums (he left the…

Black Tide

Black Tide, appearing with Bleeding Through and Bullet for My Valentine, is almost literally a baby band: Guitarist/singer Gabriel Garcia doesn’t even qualify for a driver’s license yet, and none of his bandmates has reached legal drinking age. Still, they’re old enough to know better than to venture too far…

Chrome/Helios Creed

Chrome was one of the most influential experimental bands, presaging the harsh, angular, mechanistic songwriting that would become industrial music. The act’s paranoid vision of a dystopian world expressed itself in sounds that recalled the late-’60s psychedelic rock of the 13th Floor Elevators shot through with a dark, sinister electricity…

Blitzen Trapper

For a buzz band, Blitzen Trapper is extremely modest. Instead of trying to overwhelm listeners with their awesomeness, singer-songwriter Eric Earley and crew create casually adventurous tracks that draw from American music in ways that seem both familiar and fresh. “Sleepy Time in the Western World” opens the album with…

CSS

No one really knows what to do with CSS. Not Sub Pop, not Apple, and certainly not proponents of, uh, “nu-rave.” I guess we’re supposed to dance, guiltily. “Let’s Reggae All Night” has a nice locked-in squelch to it, but I wish the line I heard as “Let’s break the…

Lindsey Buckingham’s new album rocks — weirdly

Lindsey Buckingham is the creative force behind Fleetwood Mac, a group that remains a big concert draw and a steady seller when it comes to albums new and old. Indeed, Rumours, released in 1977, is among the most popular long-players ever released, with worldwide sales in excess of thirty million…

Alejandro Escovedo has a whole new lease on life

Alejandro Escovedo has made a career out of taking chances. He started in punk with the Nuns, joined cowpunks Rank & File, and formed the country-oriented True Believers with his brothers before going solo. Even after being diagnosed with hepatitis C, Escovedo’s rock-and-roll lifestyle helped define his music. That is,…

John Digweed at Beta

John Digweed will always hold a special place in my heart. It was Digweed who catalyzed my transformation from an electronic-music dilettante to a full-blown dance-scene aficionado, by way of his first Global Underground mix and seeing him at one of the first half-dozen raves I attended. It was his…

Mini Reviews

The Clash, Live at Shea Stadium (Legacy Recordings). Not many groups can best the Who. Yet that is exactly what happened when the Clash opened for the group in 1993. Wielding socially relevant songs like “The Hammer of Thor,” the band turns in a protesting performance that has not been…

The Chain Gang of 1974 debuts new video

The Chain Gang of 1974, who’s getting ready to embark on a massive two-month long tour supporting 3OH!3, debuted its new video for “We At the Disco.” The retro-leaning clip features departing drummer Adam Halferty and a cardboard robot toting around a vintage jambox interspersed with full on Missy Elliott…

More Swayback photos and live on 101.5 this afternoon

Fresh off of an energetic performance at Monolith this past weekend, the Swayback dudes sent over some more photos of their time in LA with Andy Johns, which we’ve posted after the jump. And if you’ll be anywhere near the radio in the next hour or so, be sure to…

Dan Craig gets play on One Tree Hill

This past Monday, Dan Craig joined the ranks of Reed Foehl, the Trampolines, Redline Defiance, Angie Stevens and a handful of other local acts who’ve had their music licensed to various shows on the small screen. Craig’s song, “Further to Fall” appeared on the latest episode of One Tree Hill…

The lost Lindsey Buckingham interview

Lindsey Buckingham in 1992. Lindsey Buckingham, the once and future Fleetwood Mac frontman and solo artist par excellence, gets the profile treatment in the September 18 edition of Westword prior to his September 24 appearance at the Ellie Caulkin Opera House — and he’s also the subject of an absorbing…

This Just In 9/18-9/24

AC/DC rocks the Pepsi Center November 25. There were a lot of things shaking this past week in local concert announcements. Some of the bigger shows include AC/DC’s show in support of the band’s forthcoming album, Black Ice (due October 20), on November 25 show at the Pepsi Center, DeVotchKa’s…

Ten Cent Redemption calls it quits

Four years after forming, Ten Cent Redemption has come to a rest. According to frontman Rhett Lee, who formed the band shortly after the demise of Carolyn’s Mother, his previous outfit, Ten Cent had simply run its course. “I just haven’t been feeling it, and we’ve become so busy with…

Monolith Festival Live Blog, Day 2

Tokyo Police Club started a solid run on the main stage. (Photo by Chad Fahnestock). And it’s gone. Just like that, the gale-force winds of indie rock have come and gone, whipping Red Rocks into a frenzy all day Saturday and Sunday. Missed it? Can’t remember it? Read our Day…

Monolith Day 2: The Pictures

Monolith has come and come and gone, like a ship in the night, if that ship was wearing really skinny jeans and neon sunglasses. For dozens of photos from both days, cruise to the slide show page on westword.com. And for more photos and reviews, captured on the scene by…

Monolith Day 1: The Pictures

Day 1 of Monolith is gone, a distant, hazy memory. Maybe you didn’t go; maybe you just don’t remember what happened. Either way, we’ve got you covered with two slide shows: The bands, and the fans. And stay tuned all day for live reviews and photos of Day 2, which…

Monolith Festival Live Blog, Day 1

Midnight has finally come. For 11 hours straight on Saturday, Backbeat Online had Red Rocks surrounded, an army of writers, photographers, and other assorted hooligans braving a piss-reeking media tent to bring you live coverage of Monolith Festival. Day 1 of the fest starred Devotchka, Vampire Weekend … pretty much…