Music

Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville is a personal document as poignant in 2008 as it was when it debuted in 1993. The record gave voice to the complicated tug-of-war that women can get into with the dudes who prefer giving booty calls rather than bouquets. I’ve yet to hear such…

While the G-funk hip-hop genre garnered headlines in the early ’90s, influential crews began percolating along the West Coast, such as Los Angeles’ Freestyle Fellowship and what would become the Hieroglyphics crew in Oakland. Captained by Ice Cube’s cousin Del tha Funkee Homosapien—who got his start writing for Cube’s band,…

Having just turned 60, legendary singer/songwriter/producer/video director/computer programmer Todd Rundgren might want to slow things down, perhaps even think about retirement. Yet the mercurial artist doesn’t want to hear anything of the sort, preferring instead to confound expectations as he has done consistently over his four decades as a performer…

Did music really use to be less complicated, or does it just seem that way? Maybe it’s just that life used to be less complicated, and music is simply a mirror of its times. Or something like that. Whatever the case, Two Men With the Blues was recorded live at…

True to guitarist Evan Mast’s side career as a graphic designer, Ratatat’s instrumental pop owes as much to the Photoshop ethic as it does to ProTools. At times, this Brooklyn duo shoots its wad in the songs’ layouts, as if simply choosing which genres to mix and match is a…

The blueprint to Albert Hammond Jr.’s music is rife with red flags: the affinity for ’70s pop clichés; the certain cellophane sheen; the saccharine lyrics; the Bono-quality Spanish. And, of course, the ever-looming specter of his “other” band, which is especially hard to avoid when your songs are chock-full of…

A large mural of the Virgin Mary is being illuminated by intermittent splashes of blue light, and against the wall to the right is an animated image of a mother running through a bizarre forest, clutching her baby. A slow, pondering snippet of melody weaves its way around the dimly…

The term “indie” barely describes the Alaskan combo Portugal. The Man. While maintaining ties with soul, blues and folk, the band’s experimental bent is both its calling card and, occasionally, its curse. Using drum machines and synth loops to set the rhythm, frontman John Gourley and the rest of this…

A crew of digital-age composers, the Republic Tigers pass around song files like intraband demos, loading them onto ProTools rigs and sculpting massive creations from the initial song chunks. Starting with the hard elements of rock—guitar, drums, bass line, melody—the Kansas City band stacks on vocal layers, atmospheric keyboards, sampled…

Not really a threesome (tour manager Nolan McGuire often plays guitar for live shows), Chicago’s Alkaline Trio is nonetheless one of the best purveyors of catchy and thoughtful punk/hardcore at a time when fashion sense and well-applied eyeliner have sadly become the modus operandi of many in the genre. Even…

For a gal from Australia, country singer Audrey Auld sure sings with an authentic Texas twang. Check out this new song, “Last Seen in Gainesville,” from her most recent CD Music with the Dirt Left On. Bonus mp3: With a vocal style that faintly recalls local fave Lisa Loeb, Auld’s…

Hal Samples snapped some shots of Mount Righteous for us… You had plenty o’ options to choose from this past weekend, but it seems like a good deal of you–as seen in this slideshow from Hal Samples–chose Mount Righteous’ performance at Space for your entertainment needs. Click the link, and…