Elliott Yamin

When Elliott Yamin first appeared on American Idol, his snaggle-toothed grin and backwoods appearance recalled that O Brother, Where Art Thou? scene in which Tim Blake Nelson fears his escaped-convict buddies have been transformed into “horny toads!” By placing third in the contest, however, Yamin earned a pricey makeover that’s…

This Just In

Peter Black, the man behind Rockstars Are Dead, has teamed up with Lipgloss’s Michael Trundle to start a new weekly Wednesday residency at DC 10 (940 Lincoln Street) called Riot! The two DJs are shooting for a more diverse and commercial audience than at their previous underground events. Black says…

Sleeper Horse

For a few years there, it seemed that there would be no end to the stream of angsty, but not angry, suburban white-boy punks. How many times did you roll your eyes at all the pre-fab rebellion packaged neatly inside screaming harmonies? Out of that milieu, there were a few…

Live Review: Dylan 66 at the Oriental

Slide Show Bob Dylan is a wierdo among freaks. Even when he was a leader of the ’60s folk scene, he considered himself an outcast, a stranger who was lost, and by his own admission had “no direction home.” So maybe it was fitting that the Bob Dylan tribute show…

Review: Januar @ Walnut Room

Being a native of Littleton, I felt an immediate affinity for Januar while researching their Myspace Music page. Their profile was incredibly straightforward. From: Littleton (who owns up to that?); influences: Jeff Buckley, Mojave 3, Sigur Ros; band name is Icelandic for “January,” and they’re wearing woolly beanies in their…

Maris the Great

I was in the middle of shaving Saturday morning when Sweetie bellowed something in my direction. I couldn’t make out what, exactly, because…well, because I was shaving and concentrating on not cutting myself. “David, come here,” she beckoned again, sounding slightly bemused. “You’ve got to see this.” I could hear…

Girl Talk

Gregg Gillis can’t believe all the attention his musical alter ego is getting. “The past couple months have been particularly ridiculous,” he marvels. “First you’ve got Mike Doyle talking about me in Congress. Two weeks later I’m playing a high-school prom, playing to all these seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. The next…

Propagandhi

There is something very un-punk about the members of Propagandhi. They don’t write optimistic anthems about radical social change, or dress down in the all-black anarchist uniform, or have any illusions about having to make certain compromises in a capitalist society. Yet the Canadian outfit is one of the most…

Joss Stone

Joss Stone needs no introduction. By now you’ve either heard her preternatural voice or seen her barefoot on any number of award shows, or maybe you saw her in Eragon or checked out her Gap ad cameo. With two mega-selling albums, Stone clearly isn’t unknown. Nonetheless, the British chanteuse chose…

The Bad Plus

The title of the latest disc by the Bad Plus is Prog, and it includes a version of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” But that doesn’t mean pianist Ethan Iverson can be called a longtime fan of the artsy genre. Because he grew up listening to jazz, not rock, he was unfamiliar…

Elliott Smith

A lot of posthumous albums seem like vain attempts to make a buck off the name of someone who died prematurely. To that end, Kill Rock Stars should be commended for its decision to wait four years to issue New Moon, a two-disc set of unreleased Elliott Smith songs. Recorded…

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Every music lover has a line beyond which material that had been intriguing becomes self-indulgent. On In Glorious Times, the Museum members don’t just cross this line; they flip back and forth over it like Carly Patterson on angel dust, daring listeners to decide from one moment to the next…

Mothership

Mothership is made up of a group of heady individuals, the type of musicians who are completely comfortable jamming out live on songs such as “Pink Lady Lemonade,” by Acid Mothers Temple. Although tracks like “Serious Coyote” perfectly capture the sweeping, mind-bending, full-on space-rock experience of Mothership’s incendiary live show,…

Hate Camels

Yuksters generally understand that if they set up a joke, they’d better deliver a punchline. But the Hate Camels, who’ll introduce their new disc on Thursday, May 24, at the 15th St. Tavern, with help from Down by Numbers, apparently missed that day of clown college. The first six tracks…

Listen Up

Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare (Domino). The Monkeys’ music sounds pretty much like it did when British journos anointed Alex Turner and company as saviors last year: bright, cheeky and danceable in a brisk (not awe-inspiring) way. With the hype blessedly waning, maybe they can finally be seen as the…

Nekromantix

Here’s a fun project for the kiddies: Take all the Nekromantix albums that are lying around and make a flip-book out of the covers. Then watch the three disembodied heads grimace and squirm like a badly drawn Hanna-Barbera cartoon (as if there was any other kind). Well, actually, you may…

King Kong

Ethan Buckler once played bass for Slint, a Kentucky outfit whose ultra-serious approach to modern rock was rightly beloved by critics. Apparently all those good notices became a drag, though, because shortly after appearing on 1989’s Steve Albini-produced Tweez, he split to form King Kong, a group whose brand of…

Horse the Band

Until recently, aficionados of hard rock and hardcore tended to reject each other’s favorite sounds for reasons that had more to do with lifestyle than music. Fortunately, however, such nonsensical barriers are breaking down. Take today’s KBPI Birthday Bash, which features relatively traditional noisemakers such as HellYeah on the same…