Sure, most concept albums are dreary, but that’s only because the ideas behind them are usually pretentious and overwrought. Selections From 52 Songs, in contrast, is based on a notion that’s as simple as it is elegant. Potts, a computer-age instrumentalist, decided that he would write and record one song…
Mtley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx has toured the world, headlined stadiums, written anthems and sold millions of albums. He’s shagged everything within reach, and he’s died twice. Now he has a new band, the Brides of Destruction, and he’s finally set to achieve one of his lifetime goals: playing the…
When it comes to sensitive singer-songwriters, I generally subscribe to the thinking of cult obscurity Tonio K., who in 1979 wrote, “Yes, I wish I was as mellow/As, for instance, Jackson Browne/But ‘Fountain of Sorrow’ my ass, motherfucker/I hope you wind up in the ground.” Nonetheless, there’s still a place…
The Shins (above) make the kind of ’60s pop rock that never existed, a brand of revisionist guitar glee that sounds like Crowded House just got its MFA. The band’s Phil Ek-produced sophomore release, Chutes Too Narrow, is a guitar-driven party record, peppered with surprises like “Gone for Good,” a…
What’s the sound of one hand clapping? Probably something really close to that of a guy jacking off. Likewise, one-man bands tend to embody the more masturbatory traits to which musicians are prone: self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-congratulation and lots of other annoying qualities prefixed by the word “self.” Eric Crespo (below),…
Listing all of the side projects associated with Chicago’s Tortoise would take up the lion’s share of this modest blurb, otherwise intended to sing the praises of a high-conceit art band that somehow found a way to make an instrumental stroll sound pretty dang engaging. How is it possible for…
Bob Dylan should be pissed. Forty years after he launched his iconic career, people still can’t get his name right. For example, producer Robert Metzgar’s bio refers to him as “Bob Dillon.” If you were a musician with nowhere near the track record of Dylan, would you take career advice…
Remember Nelson? Of course you do. You know, the Teen Beat twins, Matthew and Gunnar, whose “(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection” played endlessly during the summer of 1990. Well, they’re back — or, rather, they’re still here. You’d think they would have been swept under the rug with…
Karma involves the cosmic principle of rewards and punishments for acts performed in this life or a previous incarnation (think of Abu Ghraib prison hostess Lynndie England coming back as a rat terrier that gets kicked a lot). Karmageddon 2004, slated for Saturday, May 22, at the Aztlan Theater, will…
Ah, dawg, we can’t leave yet,” says DJ Chonz, nodding toward the front door. “The cops have this place surrounded. There’s something going down.” With his ballcap tilted to the side and a smirk that never leaves his face, Chonz looks like a mischief maker. But he’s not kidding: In…
Saul Williams has a tip for the Department of Homeland Security. “If I was an FBI or a CIA agent, I’d be stationed at a poetry reading,” says Williams from his monastic loft in Los Angeles. “That’s where young people are empowering themselves. They’re not marching on Washington. They’re finding…
These days, mash-ups of Jay-Z’s The Black Album are becoming as common as massive egos on reality shows. Not to mention that the whole DJ mash-up phenomenon is getting to be as played out as trucker hats at Old Navy. But regardless of the impending irrelevance of the novelty blends,…
When asked by performers how to succeed in the music business, reviewers (who invariably know nothing about how to succeed in the music business) frequently offer this cavalier response: “Make good music.” If it were that simple, the Beta Band, out of Edinburgh, Scotland, would be huge. Steve Mason, John…
“Second verse, same as the first!” When Joey Ramone, innocently enough, heisted this line from Herman’s Hermits, little did he know that it would one day become a battle cry. Since then, untold scores of punk and indie acts have clung fanatically to a simple, profoundly imbecilic idea: making every…
Listening to the collaborative efforts of MC/producers MF Doom (formerly Zevlove X of KMD) and Madlib is like watching Alien and Predator go head to head, then turn and come after you. The essence of a gritty, dark club in a damp and moldy basement resonates throughout; the disc’s tone…
Ms. Rie knows a little something about marketing. Before releasing her self-titled debut album, she introduced herself to industry pros via Mile Hi Mixtapes, a promotional disc on which she interspersed examples of her work with cuts from the likes of Scarface and B2K. It’s doubtful that talent scouts listened…
It’s hard to imagine that until 1893, regular Coloradans could gather in a public square, spread out a picnic lunch and actually watch condemned outlaws swing. Frontier justice, partner, garglin’ on the end of a rope. Yet for the four modern-day members of Horsethief, this self-titled five-song EP serves less…
Jeff Suthers is checking his trunks for chunks. Seriously — listening to him talk, it sounds like my man needs to change his drawers. Rest assured, though, that Suthers isn’t suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, and I’m pretty sure nobody slipped a laxative into his Ho Hos. Actually, there’s a…
Most British bands don’t bother to cross the pond without new product to plug, yet here comes Liverpool’s own Clinic months prior to the appearance of its forthcoming album, set for stateside release later this year. Thus far, advance recordings of the new material haven’t been made available to the…
After being stabbed by an angry chorus girl in Helena, Arkansas, in the mid-1940s, Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins gave up playing slide guitar because the tendons in his left arm were severed during the incident. Thankfully he could still tickle the ivories, and soon he distinguished himself as the Mississippi…
There are a few things in life that are unmistakable: the saccharine sting of cotton candy, the gluey musk of sex and the voice of Calvin Johnson. Since 1983, when he formed Olympia, Washington’s legendary Beat Happening, Johnson has stood markedly apart from the flocks of cutesy, whining indie-pop singers…
San Diego’s Cattle Decapitation has a straightforward view of its fellow humans: We’re scum. Following in the footsteps of gore-core godfathers Carcass and Napalm Death, and capitalizing on a creative relationship with fellow SoCal blasters the Locust, Cattle Decapitation makes a peculiar brand of death metal that is obsessed with…
