Music

Attending an Aimee Mann show is no different than flipping a coin. Some nights she’s on — clouds part, angels sing and souls are saved — and others, well, you’re left scratching your head as to why you didn’t just order Thai takeout instead. Let’s hope the recent release of…

I’ve seen the future of hippie music, and it’s called Sound Tribe Sector 9. Moreover, this phrase isn’t nearly as much of a backhanded insult as it initially appears. Sure, the Atlanta-based quintet is beloved by the I-swear-hemp-underwear-doesn’t-itch crowd, which helps explain why the group has seemingly performed in Colorado…

Every roots-reggae outfit has paid homage to R&B legend Curtis Mayfield — including the Meditations, a harmony trio that spun out of rocksteady act the Linkers. Formed in 1973 by Channel One Studio duo Ansel Cridland (a former racetrack jockey) and Danny Clarke, the Meditations likewise boast fellow Kingstonian and…

Duncan Sheik emerged in the mid-’90s as the hyper-sensitive balladeer responsible for the inescapable, saccharine-drenched lite-rock staple “Barely Breathing,” which contained the shmaltzy refrain “I only taste the saline when I kiss away your tears.” Sheik was Howie Day before Howie Day. After that, by all conventional wisdom, Sheik should…

It’d be a lot more fun to write this item if Aerosmith had flat-out gone to hell. Then there’d be no reason not to note that Steven Tyler is more of a fashion disaster than Paris Hilton these days. (Enough with the scarves, dude. They make people think you’re about…

Disturbed is underrated — it’s that simple. Five years ago, the band’s first album, The Sickness, mixed electronic beats and synth textures with crunching guitars. Abetted by a frontman who seemed to let his inner orangutan out at all the right moments, the act was more KMFDM than Korn, but…

Forty-something Illinois songwriter Ike Reilly owns a fascinating backstory. He kicked around the Chicago bar-band circuit in the ’80s and early ’90s before falling out of the music scene and working as a hotel doorman and a gravedigger. He was rediscovered in his late thirties, signed to (and then dropped…

Few musical acts receive universal praise for any aspect of their work, but Shinedown — generally not hailed as anything other than “good enough” — is rarely rivaled when it comes to its live shows, impassioned affairs that leave audiences chanting and swaying like drunken monks. The Florida-based crew is…

A good fight on film is a beautiful thing. It takes a precise cinematic scope with slow-motion camera sweeps and perfect corn syrup blood to really give that jab to the jaw just the right crunch. But, like real estate, it’s also all about location. Where would Tyler Durden be…

DJ Swamp’s showmanship sets him apart from his peers, to say the very least. Known as the Sid Vicious of hip-hop DJs, when the L.A.-based turntablist isn’t breathing fire or setting his hands ablaze while mixing, he’s breaking his own records and carving up his chest with the shards ’til…

“I must confess that over my career, I’ve actually downplayed the importance of DJs,” says Peter Hook. “It’s such a different art form. Then all of a sudden you try it, and you think, ‘Good God, these guys do work.’ I used to be very cynical and very blasé about…

When they’re making music together under the Tegan and Sara banner, identical twins Tegan and Sara Quin are halves of a whole. But they’re also individuals — and according to Tegan, plenty of people have difficulty reconciling this apparent contradiction. “A lot of times, they treat you as one entity,”…

Dave Wakeling speaks in a soft British accent. He uses words like “magpie” and compares getting compliments to scoring a goal in football (that’s soccer to us Yanks). Even in a tiff, the English Beat alum is as cordial as afternoon tea. Take, for example, the clash that currently divides…

“You know the rose girl that goes around selling roses in bars and restaurants?” asks French-born, Arizona-based songwriter Marianne Dissard. “That’s what I used to do in downtown Tucson. Tucson is not like Paris. There aren’t a lot of people on the sidewalk. You’re isolated. So that job was a…

The Strokes are the Chipotle of modern rock. Sure, there’s better, more authentic stuff out there, but when it comes down to it, all the basic ingredients are done just right and delivered in one tight, delicious package. Likewise, there are bands that are less affected in their posturing and…

Throughout her career, Mary J. Blige has transformed her misery into listeners’ bliss. But even though her life is happier than it was during the bad old days, her current work benefits from sorrowful experience. On The Breakthrough, her triumphs mean more because they were so hard won. Celebrities have…

Once you get past the sophomoric band name and the junior-high-level double entendres, Morningwood is pretty darned irresistible. The New York group’s oft-delayed full-length debut whirls in a hormone-charged haze of fizzy new-wave cheerleading chants, punkish dance beats and vocalist Chantal Claret’s little-girl-lost coos and snarls. Gil Norton’s production touch…

Mark my words: In the coming year, no fewer than three independent-label punk bands — at least one Nordic — will record sloppy versions of “Automatic,” Resolve’s amazing closing track. Moreover, the pressing substance of Resolve will inspire approximately 163 kids to clear boxes of wrapping paper out of the…

It doesn’t matter if Be Mine, Valentine is described as emo, screamo or even Zima, for that matter. By any name, this six-track, twelve-minute-long EP is an assault on the senses — the kind of disc that packs a wallop and leaves a mark. Drop Dead, Gorgeous’s size partly accounts…

Some of the best music ever made came from hardcore kids who woke up one day with an itch to twist punk rock into something weird. Granted, the four men of Big Timber — members of groups such as Bailer, Pariah Caste, Murder Scene Clean Up Team and Call Sign…

Dabrye, Additional Productions Vol. 1 (Ghostly International). Glitch-hop darling Dabrye remixes obscure tracks from Trans Am, Nomo and Ill Suono, slathering on his signature touch of fluttering, saw-toothed synth tones. While the remixes are fresh, the original “Nite Eats Day” (money mix featuring Beans) brings world-music flavor with a crazy…