If rock bands were required to inventory their ingredients in descending order of prominence, like on a bag of Sun Chips, most would list vocals first, then guitar, then bass and drums. Math-metal godfathers Don Caballero’s list of ingredients would be noticeably inverted. Most of their songs are composed on…
An Evening With Larry Hagman? Just one measly evening? The Hag Man could spend a whole entire night regaling you with stories about Barbara Eden’s navel or cataloging the many fabulous cowboy hats he donned as J.R. Ewing. One single, solitary evening barely scratches the surface. You could spend a…
After having rocked the capacity crowd at yet another civic center/sports arena, Nickelback front man Chad Kroeger and Hoobastank singer Douglas Robb retire to a dressing room. They stand in front of a large mirror while wiping off eye makeup. KROEGER: Man, that song about how you were a prick…
Dentonite Mike Dillon has injected his wildly ornate percussive stylings into a host of talented and eccentric pseudo-jam bands over the years–Ten Hands, Billy Goat, Critters Buggin and Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade, just to name a few. Manhandling everything from bongos to marimbas since he was a wee lad of…
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific is obviously the product of a simpler time. Without the contemporary detachments of kitsch, camp or irony, the story takes place in the midst of World War II, carefully addressing the issue of interracial romance while never straying too far from the love story at…
San Francisco’s Birdmonster dabbles in a brand of guitar rock that owes as much to the dirty-denim styles of Tom Petty and Bryan Adams as it does to surly Brits such as Joy Division and the Buzzcocks. Relentless, driving guitars hurl headlong over precision percussion and curling bass runs. Singer…
Santa Cruz’s Comets on Fire unleash an unholy fret-blazing fury that is best experienced through big, clunky headphones. Ear buds cannot properly handle the sheer magnitude of their riffage. Don’t believe me? Try it. Your brain will explode, and your face will melt off like the bad guys at the…
Dave Matthews Band appeals to a wide, albeit similarly hued, audience: white college students. I know. I used to be one. But it is a variety of white college students–from stoned Ultimate Frisbee enthusiasts and well-manicured sorority sisters to bare-footed, bushy granola chicks and circle-jerking frat guys–that have always been…
Conjuring up new adventures for fictional characters and literary figures through fan fiction and cosplay (dressing as anime, movie or videogame characters) is a popular leisure pursuit for many different breeds of social misanthrope, from spazmotrons to dweebazoids. In this vein, Shakespearean Death Match is kinda like fantasy football for…
Over the years, public relations firms and political consultants have become more daring in their methods and shrewder with their strategies; selling their candidate’s policies and platforms to the Great Unwashed Masses with such flippant ease you’d think they were marketing a new flavor of tartar-control mouthwash. (Wow, this tax…
A movie adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas could have been an unmitigated disaster in the hands of your average Hollywood filmmaker. As one of modern cinema’s most mischievous mavericks, Terry Gilliam has a well-earned reputation for turning disastrous productions into dazzling visual masterpieces, even…
This weekend’s Body, Mind & Spirit Expo appears harmless enough, but make no mistake—this is no NBC-5/Telemundo Health Fit Expo. Despite being billed as focusing on “natural health, personal growth, [and] metaphysics,” a closer examination of the event and its exhibitors reveals a deeper, darker truth. Vibrational medicine? Past-life readings?…
In the upper echelon of finely coiffed, candy-throated troubadours there are but a few true legends who continue to foster rabid and loyal fan bases. Neil Diamond was able to elude being pigeonholed as a Fat Elvis apostle, winning over scores of fans by mixing a little bit of singer-songwriter…
The evening’s theme was fitting, as it was easy to get lost digging through the bands and DJs at the latest installation of the Lost Generation concert series. Local blues-noisers Jack With One Eye rattled any recollection of whereabouts with a barrage of fuzz and crunch. During a particularly memorable…
The first indication that something is horribly wrong with Mass Hysteria’s particular brand of sketch comedy is the fact that they bill their show as “comedy sketch.” Second, jokes about online dating and spam e-mails are no longer so much pieces of fresh observational humor as they are case studies…
Even when confined to sepia tones and shades of black and white, a certain amount of colorful vibrancy exists in the photography of Marcel Gautherot. His lens captured a Brazil both ripe with promise and rooted in rich culture. In the late ’50s, Gautherot’s camera recorded construction of the newly…
Hardin Sweaty and the Ready to Go? The Dallas band’s name generates a knee-jerk grimace, but two songs into their concerts, most grimaces curl skyward. Riffs that mercilessly slap your face coupled with an enthusiasm usually reserved for hyperactive 6-year-olds produce a sound that justifies and emboldens such a ridiculous…
Connoisseurs of commercial hip-hop, pseudo-soul and top-40 R&B have a full dance card this weekend. On Friday night, Def Jam Records’ Ne-Yo will take a break from working with the likes of Beyoncé and Britney Spears to bathe in an ocean of shiny shirts and fluorescent bleached teeth at Purgatory…
It was either founding father Benjamin Franklin or WWE megastar Jimmy “Superfly” Snooka who said, “Every single time I smash an opponent’s face into the turnbuckle I get a mean boner.” Actually neither of those guys said that. I just made it up. But both men would probably be appalled…
If musical success was determined by how many superhero movie soundtracks your band has contributed to, Taking Back Sunday would be bigger than both God and the Beatles. The Long Island-based emo outfit appeared on the soundtracks for such cinematic masterworks as Spiderman 2, Fantastic 4 and Electra. And because…
No one knows the brutal sting of being curb-kicked by your record label like Dallas musicians, so it is with open and empathetic arms that we receive Sam Means and Nate Ruess, known to their previous overlords at Elektra Records as The Format. Lullabies, their 2003 major label debut, was…
Alas, the detestable bird-faced harpies of CBS’s Tuesday Night Book Club will no longer grace the airwaves. Not to worry. Local book clubs are popping up all over the country and now that television and popular culture have deemed reading fashionable, otherwise functionally illiterate, self-obsessed shrews have yet another public…
