In emo rock years, Hot Water Music and Bouncing Souls should be swigging bottles of Centrum Silver. Jersey boys Bouncing Souls formed while its members were still in high school in the late ’80s, playing manic three-chord nuggets dedicated to their favorite teen movies, BMX bikes and tour high jinks–although…
An adherent to the old-school folk method of emoting softly and carrying a big fingerpick, Mason Jennings is distinguishing himself among the immense flock of young male singer-songwriters clamoring to be heard on America’s new folk scene. A high school dropout, Jennings knew in his preteen years that he wanted…
More often than not, when Boston native Melissa Ferrick takes the stage, she does it next to her drummer, Brian Winton. That’s next to, not in front of. And even though Winton doesn’t hold back when playing his full kit, Ferrick’s voice and acoustic guitar prove she deserves the equal…
January 15, Dallas. “Streets of Where I’m From.” I run around my Lake Highlands house grabbing clothes, video games, books, guitar stuff and assorted necessities for my first Old 97’s tour in over two years. Since then, I’ve been a stay-at-home dad. I can’t say I don’t fear the prospect…
Nothing says “I love you” like fork-tongued thrash metal. That’s why, just in time for V-Day, we bring you the romantic saga of Dallas-based Damageplan, the new noise gods on the block formed by guitarist Dimebag Darrell and drummer Vinnie Paul, formerly of Pantera. With Pat Lachman on vocals, Bob…
Trey Johnson didn’t say much when he took the stage at the Sons of Hermann Hall, just launched into the music–catchy roots-rock with a twinge of the high and lonesome. The band was opening for the Old 97’s that night, and though the place was humid and clattering with people…
It could be said that Linda Hollar is good for morale. For 25 days in 1971, Hollar did her duty on the U.S.O. tour of Vietnam, visiting the boys on the battlefield during the Tet holiday. Photographs of smiling grunts, cheering Hollar on as she parades the day’s fashions on…
It’s not the band. They are little more than a bar band with a Texas accent. An extremely skilled one, mind you, but yeah, there it is. It’s not the melodies. There are only so many things you can do within rock ‘n’ roll’s guitar-drums-bass setup, and they’ve all been…
Southern California’s Incubus emerged from the rap-rock pack in 2001 when its hit single “Drive” revealed front man Brandon Boyd to be the kind of guy who might come back to his high school nine years after he graduated to give a motivational speech and award one lucky essay-writing girl…
This CD review probably shouldn’t be anywhere near a newspaper’s music section. If that sounds less than ideal, then you’re not the listener Fantomas anticipated, as their latest effort, Delerium Cordia, is so odd that it’s bound to piss off even the most open-minded listeners. Of course, anybody who buys…
The often-costumed Welshmen of Super Furry Animals–current pop’s premier gang of guitar-strumming, string-arranging, harmony-singing, occasionally techno-pumping Wings fans–have managed a rare feat on their last two albums, 2001’s Rings Around the World and last year’s Phantom Power: dreamy, self-consciously widescreen guitar pop that offers escape into pure sound without sacrificing…
Once, when asked his opinion of power pop, crotchety indie illuminati Steve Albini offered: “I cannot bring myself to use the term ‘power pop.’ Catchy mock-descriptive terms are for dilettantes and journalists. I guess you could say I think this music is for pussies and should be stopped.” Tell us…
Man, Valentine’s Day is some up-chucking, hee-hawing, pony-loving horseshit. Couples stress out over inevitably underwhelming dates, sad souls are doomed to a night of tear-ridden masturbation and even happy folks end up disappointed by crappier V-Days in their future. The pink decorations are sickening, too. Why does anybody bother? Because…
Few things are more frightening than the rising crest of a teenage mob. Some combination of loud music, imbalanced hormones and postadolescent rage flips a dangerous switch: One minute it’s just a bunch of excited kids, and the next minute they’re a mechanism of senseless destruction, a lethal hurricane of…
Last Sunday, like all Sundays, Kirk Franklin went to church. Later, he horsed around with the little ones, got soapy and soggy giving them a bath, watched the Super Bowl in his pajamas with his wife and went to bed. Such is the life of a gospel superstar. Last month,…
Travis was once thought, along with Coldplay, to be the millennium’s heir apparent to Radiohead’s Britpop throne. While Coldplay has managed to carve out its own space on the critical continuum, the response to Travis’ last three records–The Man Who (1999), The Invisible Band (2000) and 12 Memories (2003)–has become…
Like many British bands who find stateside success, The Cure has a reputation in America that eschews its darker facets. The band’s first British top 40 single, the claustrophobic “A Forest,” typified the grinding gloom and skeletal danse macabre of its early-’80s albums Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography. Yet when…
At 14 years old, nothing stirred me like 10,000 Maniacs–the righteousness of their songs, the style and unmistakable alto of Natalie Merchant, like a cool senior girl in funky tights and vintage clothes. Listening to their two-CD boxed set, all I can say is: What was I thinking? Songs about…
The New New York Rock Scene needs the Fiery Furnaces for two reasons: 1) Singer/guitarist Eleanor Friedberger is a woman, and 2) she and her brother Matthew are as uncool as they are cool, which is very. The first fact is important because, despite the plentiful and deserved attention received…
They’re all waiting for her–the soccer moms who find her soothing, the Pottery Barn bohos who think her appealing, the elitist jazzbos who wonder if she isn’t just Roberta Flack with a pedigree and everyone else for whom Norah Jones proves it possible that talent can still trump all else…
As almost every one-hit wonder or label-jilted band can tell you, the vicissitudes of the music industry work in mysterious ways. Just ask the Los Angeles quartet Metric, who found their space-age synthpop tune “Grow Up and Blow Away” featured prominently in a Polaroid commercial even as their Stephen Hague-produced…
If I somehow found myself in the clutches of a malevolent one-eyed despot who refused to let me rejoin my family in his poisonous custom-made dungeon lair unless I decided upon John Mellencamp or the Impossible Shapes as my favorite-ever Indiana-based musical artist, I’d have no problem whatsoever choosing Mellencamp…
