Those who think that pop-music junkies represent music fandom’s lowest common denominator should read the comments left on iTunes about “Girlfriend,” Avril Lavigne’s cheerleader chant from hell. “The avril i looked up to was her own person, and proud of it. She wasn’t afraid to act like herself, and rebel…
Former Pantera pounder Vinnie Paul hasn’t made much noise of late, and for good reason: His brother and bandmate, Dimebag Darrell Abbott, was murdered on stage in late 2004. Hellyeah marks Paul’s return, and his stick work is as fierce as ever. If only this would-be supergroup were as consistently…
Standing Still is an apt title for the latest from Synthetic Elements, which celebrates the disc’s release on Saturday, April 28, at the Marquis Theater, with Animo, Saving Verona, Aloft in the Sundry and Ras Steady. There’s nothing new in the band’s sound, but the players channel old styles so…
Why does anyone play music? To feel better, to feel worse, to feel something? There are no answers, no reasonable explanations, but foolish people, beyond their better judgment, keep falling for that rock-and-roll devil anyway. Which, for the rest of us spectators, is great, because we need those breathless impulses…
Dntel, Dumb Luck (Sub Pop). Postal Service alum Jimmy Tamborello, joined by a gaggle of indie all-stars, daubs simple melodies with electronic smears and other studio-derived tomfoolery. The results can be either audacious or irritating — and at times during the title track, both descriptors apply. In the end, though,…
Although singer-songwriter Conor Oberst, whose band shares this bill with Oakley Hall and McCarthy Trenching, has been called a genius repeatedly in recent years, that designation felt premature. He’s certainly made interesting CDs, but his early efforts were more about establishing promise than fulfilling it. Likewise, his twin 2005 releases,…
On Harbor, Joel Harrison’s latest effort, it’s evident that the guitarist’s compositional scope reaches as wide as his technical prowess. He takes a song and turns it into a journey, changing moods and vibes as he leads the listener on cross-continent treks from India to Africa to Asia, incorporating hints…
In the 1990s, DJ Shadow (aka Josh Davis) revolutionized turntablism and distinguished himself as the illest sample-slinger in the West. His subsequent contributions to film scores and supergroup projects cemented his reputation as the dark lord of ambient breakbeats and trippy electronica. Unfortunately, key parts of his musical identity got…
Contorted, distorted, six-string mayhem was the hallmark of Jennifer Herrema’s previous group, the influential Royal Trux. Deconstructing guitar rock and putting it back together in oddly fascinating ways, Trux played with such a devil-may-care attitude that it didn’t matter if its evocation of classic rock’s excesses seemed like some kind…
Wherever this dynamic duo plays, jaws drop in awe and butts shake in delight. Though the Mexican metalheads known as Rodrigo y Gabriela first grabbed America’s attention with fiery acoustic covers of Metallica and Led Zeppelin, theirs is no novelty act. Veterans of Mexico’s fertile death-metal scene, Rodrigo Sanchez and…
One of the things that truly sucks about going to a concert, especially on Colfax, is trying to find parking. Hell, you spend half the show just looking for a space. Thankfully, the fine folks over at Rockbar (3015 East Colfax) feel our pain and have come up with a…
There probably aren’t too many people who remember Autonomous Collective, a poppy post-rock act that daringly explored a wide range of sounds with admirable dexterity. When that band eventually morphed into the Archive, the players solidified their sound into a compelling amalgamation of indie rock, progressive song structures and jazzy…
Virgil Dickerson has always suspected that people have been stealing his music. Now he has irrefutable proof. When we spoke last month, the head of Suburban Home Records had no quanitfiable evidence to support his claims that illegal downloads were taking a toll on the label’s bottom line. Still, he…
The crowd that gathered on April 22 for the Decemberists’ gig at the Fillmore Auditorium was dominated by college agers who looked as if they’d decided to take a break from writing a paper for their semiotics class or post-grad couples looking for a little intellectual stimulation in advance of…
The profile of Sean Lennon in the April 19 edition of Westword offers a glimpse into the life of a talented singer-songwriter still figuring out how to engage a public that prefers to view him in the context of his famous parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, rather than as…
They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating/And from what I’ve seen I believe ’em/Now the old boy may be barely breathing/But the heart of rock and roll is still beating. When Huey Lewis sang these words in the mid-’80s — around the time that dinosaurs still…
There’s a funny thing about the traditional music of Appalachia: The songs almost always tell tales of some poor soul crossing paths with Death in some ghastly fashion. If they’re not murdered over love, they’re murdered over jealousy, or they commit suicide because of unrequited love, or they fall down…
Folkloric Feel, the 2004 debut by Canada’s Apostle of Hustle, drew critical praise for its use of Cuban musical elements. So naturally, the outfit’s captivating new disc, National Anthem of Nowhere, is being discussed in similar terms, even though its influences are quite different. As a result, head Hustler Andrew…
Earlier this month, NME quoted 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards as saying, “The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father…. He was cremated, and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow.” Within days, Richards issued an explanation, insisting that his comments were just…
Eight years separated the release of singer-songwriter Sean Lennon’s first CD from his second. Why such a long gap? “I think it had more to do with finding the part of myself that was ready to deal with the sort of public fiasco of releasing music and less to do…
Leave it to Trent Reznor — a musician who probably doesn’t even need to hype his art at this point — to trump every other viral marketer with the Internet-heavy promotional campaign for Year Zero. (It’s a concept record; think the Big Brother mentality of George Orwell’s 1984 combined with…
On the surface, Grinderman, which teams Nick Cave with three current Bad Seeds, seems merely an excuse for Cave to release another new album; after all, The Abattoir Blues Tour, an elaborate (and absorbing) double-CD/double-DVD live set, just hit stores two weeks ago. Nevertheless, the quartet more than earns its…
