Music

A couple of years ago, The Hush Sound was just another boy-girl emo band from Chicago. The four kids, all barely out of their teens, did the usual bump-and-grind with the industry: They released a couple of albums, they made videos, they toured, they almost broke up. All of this…

This year did not exactly begin on a high note for Mike Conte. In January, his band, Early Man, split from Matador, its label of three years, following a somewhat disappointing run. The breakup, for those who pay attention to these types of things, shouldn’t come as much of a…

Considering the fact that 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of a year that produced countless musical milestones, it’s surprising how little has been made of it so far. While pundits were quick to offer retrospectives of 1967, the year that ushered in Sgt. Pepper, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Cream—plus…

Oberst has the tendency to be heavy-handed with metaphor and with language in general, often reading like a hipper, more literate version of a 16-year-old’s poetry journal. His newest effort, recorded in a rural Mexican locale dubbed Valle Místico, doesn’t shy away from that kind of grating poetic license. Here,…

Last year, Florida quintet Black Kids released a free four-song EP of electro-tinged dance songs addressing themes of incest and gender ambiguity. The girls went wild—well, the bloggers did anyway—and somehow the group got signed to Columbia. Black Kids’ full-length debut, Partie Traumatic, contains the entire EP and six more…

Like corrupt politicians and David Hasselhoff, gangsta rap isn’t going away—but the played-out quality of T.O.S. suggests that it’s headed for an extended stretch on the down-low. Five years ago, the smashing aggressiveness of “Straight Outta Southside” would have offset its lack of originality. Now, though, redundant imagery of the…

Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy was once seen as the last great Southern hope. He had the hood respect of T.I. and garnered the admiration of practically every drug dealer in North America with his rap sheet and his lyrical references to his drug dealing days. It’s not that he’s overly…

In early April, Bruce Corbitt awoke from a late sleep to find a voicemail awaiting him. It was a stranger, a woman who had seen his band, Texas Metal Alliance, perform a gig earlier in the year. She said she worked for the local branch of national concert booking conglomerate…

…or so this video that Weezer just uploaded to Youtube would seem to imply. Watch it and see if you, too, can decipher the routing of the band’s tour, which is set to start September 23. OK, hear that? Right at the 1:35 mark? It’s, like, totally this. (Yay!) –Pete…

The guys in Sydney Confirm (from left to right: Gian Carlos, Preston Deanda and Sean Humphrey) bring sleaze with ease. (Angela Berg) Sydney Confirm is a double-headed beast. Fresh off an Observer Music Award nomination for Best Electronic/Experimental Act and staying busy flaunting their DJ skills at Fallout Lounge’s buzzing…

I know I didn’t buy the Pantera drummer’s old kitchen appliance. And I also know it’s no longer listed for auction. So the real question is: Who did buy it? And did they even care that it was Vinnie Paul’s? –Pete Freedman…