They used to call us nü-metal,” System of a Down singer/guitarist Daron Malakian told the ecstatic crowd at his band’s April 27 Ogden Theatre gig. “Now they call us prog rock. I think they’ll call us anything that’s popular.” Then, after a pause and the subtlest of grins, he announced,…
I spent nearly three hours underneath the Colfax viaduct last weekend, sweating and pacing back and forth in the parking lot like a caged gorilla. As Lou Reed would say, I was waiting for the man. More than nine months had passed since I’d last tasted, and I’d been fiending…
“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” wrote celebrated technophobe Henry David Thoreau in 1845, “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” The poor guy would have dropped a load if he’d lived to see Myspace.com. Recently sold…
In a recent New York Times article that disputes the age-old link between creativity and depression, author Peter D. Kramer claims that it is “depression — and not resistance to it or recovery from it — that diminishes the self.” Devoted acolytes of Nine Inch Nails majordomo Trent Reznor would…
All hail Quincy Jones! Never has such cool walked the Earth than the man known as “Q.” And now we praise him even more as the producer of Thriller, so we can praise that great album without mentioning Michael Jackson. Certainly, you would think that with two child-molestation charges (and…
If one-tenth of the what-a-wingnut tales are true, Rivers Cuomo is guaranteed a conviction in the court of strange rock-star behavior. He has practiced so much self-imposed isolationism (including a well-publicized two-year diet of celibacy) that you could name a desert island after the guy. Witness his abandonment of rock…
The headline on the Franz Ferdinand feature in the July 30 NME reads: “Our New Album? It’s Like Nothing You’ve Ever Heard!” Well, no. In truth, Better sounds like plenty you’ve heard, either during the early ’80s or in the year-plus since Franz’s debut hit these shores. Strangely, though, familiarity…
Keeping up with Sinéad O’Connor’s existential contortions is a bit like chasing dandelion fuzz in a hurricane. Artistically, this latest proclamation of Rastafarianism at least does her a good musical turn, even if it contributes to her reputation as someone who picks religions by plucking “God loves me/God loves me…
A lo-fi hobbyist whose delicate, drowsy songs caught Sup Pop’s attention three years ago, Sam Beam, aka Iron and Wine, enlists Calexico’s core duo to revitalize seven home demos for a stopgap EP that plays to the strengths of everyone involved. And while each tune is available online in its…
Behold the latest entry in the “let’s-give-our-disc-a-name-that-makes-it-easy-for-critics-to-bash-us” sweepstakes: Searching for a Former Clarity. The third album by Against Me!, however, fails spectacularly to live down to its title. Even sharper and more focused than 2003’s As the Eternal Cowboy, these fourteen songs plumb the band’s seemingly bottomless well of passion,…
Multi-instrumentalists Flitz Alan (Shawn Palmer) and Micah A. Lundy make up this fun and unassuming duo that strums, stomps and harmonizes its way through a dozen upbeat variations of acoustic Americana. Along with bluegrass-inflected numbers about the joys of drinking corn and the burdens of conquering fear (“Honey,” “Chickens Will…
Dead Heaven Cowboys will either strike you as auspiciously prescient — shrewdly anticipating the resurgence of a dormant, bygone genre — or loathsomely nostalgic. But when you consider that vocalist Chris Chamberlayne once led the legendary sleaze merchants known as Dogs of Pleasure, his current band seems much more like…
Institute, Distort Yourself (Interscope). Don’t hate the members of such lauded post-hardcore acts as Orange 9mm, Iceburn and Chamberlain for hiring themselves out to Bush’s Gavin Rossdale. Thank them for clocking in, deliberately sabotaging his comeback bid with the blandest riffs imaginable, and then laughing at their boss’s rock-star ass…
If the name of its new CD, Telescopic Eyes Glance the Future Sick, makes John Wilkes Booze sound none too enamored of tomorrow, there’s an easy explanation: The Indiana-based group is obsessed with history. Formed in 2001 by singer Seth Mahern — nephew of Paul Mahern, leader of the legendary…
If the Rosebuds’ 2003 debut, The Rosebuds Make Out, overflowed with pop songs of innocence, then their 2005 followup, Birds Make Good Neighbors, is brimming with songs of experience (apologies to William Blake). Opening with the dour “Hold Hands and Fight,” the record takes a noticeably dark turn from the…
M.I.A.’s (aka Maya Arulpragasam) politically charged music — a heady mix of hypnotic beats and vocals that ricochet between flirtatious and relentless — is fueled by vivid memories of the violence she witnessed as child. The daughter of a Sri Lankan revolutionary, she escaped her ravaged homeland for a new…
MDC has stood for many things: Millions of Dead Cops, Millions of Damn Christians, Multi-Death Corporation. But attached to a staunchly leftist hardcore group that’s sold over half a million records, the initials could just as easily mean Milking Defiance for Cash. Unlike scores of punk sellouts, though, singer Dave…
There’s a right way and a wrong way to add violin to a rock band, but if you put Oakland’s Heavenly States to the test, they’d surely pass. For one thing, violinist Genevieve Gagon mixes things up with piano and synthesizer on many of the group’s songs, but the fact…
The eye-twitching, cheek-blushing auditory images created by the New Pornographers could never be poly-bagged, hidden behind the counter and credited to anyone with the surname of Flynt. Band grandpappy A.C. Newman knows how to craft a tune birthed in the familiar sounds of yesteryear yet soaked in originality, his sing-songy…
Attempts to revive veteran artists’ careers via superstar duets are as predictable as claims that embattled bureaucrats resigned to spend more time with their families. Bring ‘Em In, the new Buddy Guy offering, certainly fits the pattern, and it’ll have plenty of competition. After all, Carlos Santana, among the bigger…
With enough sex appeal to make even John Waters salivate, Phoenix’s Les Hell on Heels secured an unprecedented three-record deal on Bomp! Records, one of the nation’s oldest surviving indie labels (it was founded in 1974 by the late Greg Shaw). The band’s self-titled debut, engineered by Jack Endino (Nirvana,…
Much has happened in the five years since Earlimart released its sophomore effort, the raucous Kingdom of Champions, which drew comparisons to the Pixies and X. Three years later, songwriter/guitarist Aaron Espinoza, bassist/keyboardist Ariana Murray and drummer David Latter took a sharp left turn, reinventing themselves as the properly medicated…
