In Lisa Cholodenko’s new film Laurel Canyon, Frances McDormand plays a graying record producer holed up in her boho-funky L.A. hideaway with an unnamed English rock band trying to create mellow radio gold that doesn’t stint on genuine emotion. If you discount the fact that they’ll never get played on…
It’s nearly impossible to believe now, but there was a time when the music this man made felt urgent, necessary even. As front man of beleaguered British stargazers the Verve, singer/cheekbone-booster Richard Ashcroft piloted the group to musical I-won’t-say-riches that made more ephemeral baubles by Blur and Suede seem like…
Two chances this week to lose yourself in the music, the moment; you own them, you better never let them go. The big name, of course, is Sigur Rós, the much-heralded Icelandic troupe of teary tone poets who sing in their own language, eschew pesky album titles and favor long-ass…
Those hip-hop enthusiasts (or heads, as they’re often known) left invigorated but not entirely satisfied by the Roots and Cody Chesnutt’s joint appearance at Gypsy Team Room earlier this month should make their way to the same venue Tuesday night for performances by Common and Talib Kweli. Like a more…
I’ve been going back and forth on One Bedroom, the new album from Chicago’s the Sea and Cake, for weeks now. On one hand it’s the sleekest collection of digitally enhanced pop songs I’ll probably hear this year (unless Liz Phair really makes a go at Avril Lavigne on her…
Dallas benefits annually from a surfeit of bands hitting town before or after their appearances at Austin’s South by Southwest music-biz bacchanal. On Saturday night, unfortunately, you’ll have to choose between two busy bills happening simultaneously. Head to Gypsy Tea Room if you’re partial to down-and-dirty neo-garage noise: New Zealand’s…
More SXSW overflow, this time from young people convinced that guitars can do more right now than remind old people of their Mitch Ryder records. Like remind them of their Joy Division ones instead! The three Los Angelenos in Moving Units, at Trees on Friday, do more than that, actually:…
Gaz Coombes, Mick Quinn and Danny Goffey, I’m quickly learning, are three supremely unflappable dudes. We’re sitting in a cozy office inside the Universal Music Group’s gigantor Manhattan headquarters last month while the snow shoots down in angry spasms of white, gathered to talk about Life on Other Planets, the…
Too old and jaded for the Sunny Day Real Estate reunion Wednesday night at Trees? Don’t fret: The Scene Creamers, the latest band from elaborately attired D.C. agitators Ian Svenonius and Michelle Mae, will be at Rubber Gloves on Friday night, holding it down for indie rockers who prefer clever…
Nothing to do Wednesday night? Patient enough for a post-punk marathon that’ll likely stretch into early Thursday? Then eat dinner early and head to Trees for a five-band bill with more to offer than most. California’s the Jealous Sound kicks things off, touring in advance of a new album it…
Only seen the Roots once, and, frankly, they bored me: too much jam, not enough bread, especially considering their reputation as the saviors of live hip-hop. (Then again, the show was at a House of Blues, where drinks cost more than a house, and they played for what must have…
If you don’t get it the first time, say it again. Calexico. Still not there? Calexico. Have a friend say it out loud for you, a syllable at a time (that’s what it took for me). Calexico. Get it? One part California, one part Mexico: Calexico! Joey Burns leans back…
When Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine in a well-publicized bout of musical and personal differences in October 2000, his bandmates Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford didn’t waste any time recruiting former Soundgarden belter Chris Cornell and forming the outfit they’ve unfortunately named Audioslave. They…
Looking for crisp, tuneful pop-punk action that doubles as a statement of your support for the ol’ stars and bars? Look no further than the self-titled major-label debut by the All-American Rejects, a band of Oklahoma-based music nerds with heads full of alt-rock guitar fuzz, second-string Weezer choruses and enough…
Plenty of post-emo hand-wringing in town this week, beginning Thursday night at Rubber Gloves in Denton with an appearance by Chicago brainiacs Milemarker, on tour in support of a recent Jade Tree EP, Satanic Versus. The band, led in part by bassist Al Burian, author of the terrific Burn Collector…
It didn’t take me long to give into “The Game of Love,” the single from that newish Santana album that Michelle Branch sings–maybe four or five times on the radio, then one or two on the CD as I checked the liner notes to see if they actually gave a…
If The Fine Art of Self Destruction sounds like the title of a Ryan Adams record, there’s a reason: He produced it. Jesse Malin used to front D-list glam-punks D Generation, but Fine Art is his solo bow as the kind of hard-living, hard-loving alt-country hunk Adams has reminded us…
Lo-fi indie-pop gets a startling makeover in the able hands of Phil Elvrum, the young Washington state producer-musician who fronts the loose aggregate of crunchy creative types known as the Microphones. Over a series of albums and singles, Elvrum has methodically disassembled the idea of the shaggy-haired dude with a…
The soundtrack to the new Laurence Fishburne motorcycle fiasco Biker Boyz skews toward those hip-hop loyalists enticed by big-screen Ruff Ryders iconography–typical Jadakiss bluster; a tasty Redman joint; Mowett & Loon’s awful, Toto-sampling “Tru Rider”–but it also takes a cue from Kid Rock (who turns up in the movie) in…
“Try, try, try,” Billy Corgan moaned shortly before his Smashing Pumpkins turned to mush. If history is any indication, he was most likely imploring the Little Mermaid’s dad to turn him into a dolphin, but he might well have been talking to his future self: “Billy, when the Pumpkins break…
Though he’s fallen so deeply in love with his own voice that he’s now unable to distinguish between pining and whining–seen the live video for “Clocks,” where he does a little ill-advised scatting over that glittering groove?–Coldplay front man Chris Martin has emerged as the New British Guitar-Pop Thing’s de…
Aren’t Papa Roaches supposed to survive damn near anything the world can throw at them, up to and including all-out nuclear war? When these vociferous nü-metallurgists crawled out from beneath their Northern California rock in 2000 with their major-label debut, Infest, it looked as though that scene had produced its…
