The Postal Service is the long-distance collaboration between Death Cab for Cutie front man Benjamin Gibbard and electronic-music producer Jimmy Tamborello, who sometimes records under the name Dntel. The pair met when Gibbard contributed vocals to “(This Is) the Dream of Evan and Chan,” a tune from Dntel’s Life is…
Openly flouting the normally dependable rules of physics and the universe, the stocky, short-of-hair Minnesotan known as Har Mar Superstar has somehow transcended the indie-rock in-joke situation his first Kill Rock Stars disc virtually guaranteed; his current album, You Can Feel Me, arrives via a new Warner Bros. imprint called…
A month ago (Scene, Heard, February 27–see, told you), we broke the news about Curtain Club buying Club Clearview and what that meant for the local music community. If you don’t remember, we’ll quote ourselves: “Curtain taking over Clearview is good news, because 1) we had heard from very reliable…
This is, more than likely, the biggest crowd that has ever seen Radiant* in Deep Ellum. The place is beyond packed, and there’s a line streaming out the front door onto the sidewalk. They probably won’t all make it inside before the group is finished. The members of the band–singer-guitarist…
In its April issue, Spin ran its list of the “40 best artists making music right now.” While we agreed with some of the picks, we feel it’s never a bad idea to play devil’s advocate. 1. Eminem They say: Hip-hop’s hottest MC is also America’s favorite soccer dad–he can…
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…
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…
The reaction to Steve Malkmus’ eponymous 2001 debut was astonishingly consistent. “Whew,” sighed hardcore Pavement fans: Malkmus was a little poppier, a little more straightforward than any Pavement recording, but it still sounded like Pavement. Non-fans seemed likewise relieved: The wordplay made actual sense, and you could even hum along…
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…
With her car wheels on Lucinda Williams’ gravel road following Steve Earle to Guitar Town, Kathleen Edwards’ debut has a backseat full of drinking songs, but not in an I’ve-got-friends-in-low-places way. More like: She’s the friend in a low place, at the bottom of a bottle, in a dirty hotel…
Robert Randolph may be the most original artist to erupt from contemporary music since Jimi Hendrix shouldered a white Stratocaster and played left-handed electric rock-and-roll lightning. Randolph’s instrument and style of choice are decidedly different from Hendrix’s; he plays the pedal steel, a guitar long associated with the mournful weep…
These Los Angelenos and their collective obsession with rejiggering folky guitar music–they’re worse than a gang of Seattlites with the collected works of Foghat! I mean, aren’t there better things to do in permanent 75-degree weather than sit inside and glumly strum old acoustic guitars? Apparently not, as we’ll get…
At the end of the beginning, “Little Danny” Lanois got it right. After all his beat-down poetry, after his self-congratulatory accolades, after a welcoming speech in which he kept referring to himself in the third person, the producer of U2 and Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan hit it square in…
Usually, at around noon on the Sunday following the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, we vow never to go again. Usually very quietly, since we can’t speak. Our clothes smell like sweat, liquor and smoke (or: any member of The D4, a rawk-rock!-ROCK highlight of the 2003…
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…
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…
Never been too worried about dying at a concert, though we’ve had some close calls. Been knocked to the floor in a pit. Had someone’s wallet chain snag on my nose, also in a pit. Fell into some broken glass, been punched in the face and burned by cigarettes too…
He always said it wouldn’t happen, because it couldn’t happen. Joe Jackson, you see, has never been a nostalgist fond of looking back, because there was always the risk of tripping over an abandoned corpse. The future lay dead ahead, beckoning with the promise of unmade music and unheard magic…
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…
“Noooooooo!!!!” Dirtbombs front man Mick Collins hasn’t even heard the whole question, but he’s heard enough: the words “Detroit,” “garage rock” and “scene” in close enough proximity to each other to trigger this scream. “God, noooooooo!!!” Except, out of the mouth of the Dirtbombs’ big-voiced, barrel-chested front man, it’s more…
Says “Featuring Kim Pendleton” on the all-chips-on-the-table cover, and advertising the cameo’s a pretty safe bet; the appearance of the Vibrolux singer, who’s all smoke and no mirrors, promises and delivers something special inside the jewel case. Of course, this ain’t no George-n-Tammy retrofit, no Gram-n-Emmy revival, no John-n-Exene redux…
Hard to fathom that DJ Muggs has already racked up 15 years solid in the game. Kid first appeared back in 1987 on the Colors soundtrack with a Philadelphia-based group named 7A3, then moved forward to build a serious rep for himself as the producer and DJ for L.A.’s stoned…
