Santa Cruz’s Comets on Fire unleash an unholy fret-blazing fury that is best experienced through big, clunky headphones. Ear buds cannot properly handle the sheer magnitude of their riffage. Don’t believe me? Try it. Your brain will explode, and your face will melt off like the bad guys at the…
If you’re looking for a lipstick kiss (and a platform-boot kick) from, say, lower Manhattan circa 1973, the New York Dolls, Version 2.0, upgrade their classic program for pop-hooked trash rock with a delicious finesse. Yes, the 2006 Dolls are a far more able band than V 1.2 that recorded…
If our culture survives long enough for Devo to get its due, the HBO biopic will open with a hectic re-creation of the May 4, 1970, Kent State University shootings, in which the Ohio National Guard killed four anti-war protesters. Then: Cut to an artists’ loft, where a couple of…
Not to denigrate the artists’ own distinctiveness, but imagine Ian Hunter and Neil Young sharing a bill or a battle of the bands between the Velvet Underground and Crazy Horse and you get an idea of how fine and vital this piquant pairing is. Suffice to say that the stunning…
Austin’s Okkervil River had quite the year in 2005, touring extensively in both the U.S. and Europe and releasing their third straight masterwork, the critically lauded Black Sheep Boy–a raw, sprawling concept record based on a character in a Tim Hardin song (and so good it deserved its own equally…
San Francisco’s Birdmonster dabbles in a brand of guitar rock that owes as much to the dirty-denim styles of Tom Petty and Bryan Adams as it does to surly Brits such as Joy Division and the Buzzcocks. Relentless, driving guitars hurl headlong over precision percussion and curling bass runs. Singer…
Dead American Radio, the third album by L.A. quartet Left Alone, seems like your standard punk rehash, complete with two members sporting mohawks bigger than Gene Simmons’ tongue and ego. But first impressions are decidedly misleading as Left Alone’s brand of ska/pop/punk is a refreshing and uncommon noise, a rejection…
It’s nearing 3 a.m., and Amanda Newman is finally getting her boys ready for bed. Jesse sits cross-legged on Newman’s wide leather couch and smiles shyly as she tosses a blanket beside him. She already made sure he and Dave, who will have to share the couch, have a late-night…
Alasdair MacLean, front man for British retro mope rockers The Clientele, is as unapologetic about his band’s signature sleepy sound as he is unafraid to share his opinions about pop in his homeland. The band’s 2005 release Strange Geometry was a melancholic marvel, an effort that should have come with…
With Eels in town for a no-strings-attached concert (or at least no string section), it’s the perfect time to examine the art of the double album. Most two-disc sets should have half as many songs–or none at all–but Blinking Lights and Other Revelations was the rare twin platter that actually…
After four different men verified my driver’s license, I was escorted into the club and given a few drink tickets. Athletic, attractive people already filled the lobby, but compared with what awaited me, they may as well have been dressed like Cub Scouts. In the main hall, more than a…
Video killed the… : After staring at hours of movies and documentaries at this week’s Dallas Video Festival (page 41), you’ll need a good excuse to stand up, move around and shake off the popcorn bits that have gotten stuck to your shirt. A strong music presence at the festival…
This extravagantly named pop-rock dude was born and bred in small-town Ohio, providing him with a solid Rust Belt foundation that’s reflected in his sturdy meat-and-potatoes songwriting. The tunes on Full Moon Cigarette, Gran Bel Fisher’s debut, explore familiar young-man lyrical turf regarding life and love, and his handsome, high-flying…
Angry guitar chatter, looping percussion, weird studio effects and strange synthesizer screeches: The sounds (if not “music”) of This Heat’s formerly rare debut record require total concentration. At times completely atonal and rhythmless, This Heat has nothing but the most adventurous audience in mind, influencing so many avant-garde acts since…
This Chicago MC gives a good name to conscious rap, too often the genre where creativity and fun go to die. Like his pal and benefactor Kanye West (with whom he won a Grammy last year for co-writing “Jesus Walks”), Rhymefest is obsessed with the intersection between virtue and temptation…
As the nine-minute-plus version of “In The Crowd” that opens disc two of this set winds down, a brief coda of the guitar chords that end The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” emerge. Makes sense; back in the late ’70s new-wave days when Weller led The Jam, he was the…
A common tactic by rappers, especially positive MCs, is to declare hip-hop’s state of emergency and then proclaim to be part of the solution. Forney (yes, Forney, get over it) rapper Sivion takes this approach on “I Still Love H.E.R.” (“Rap music is a mess/What once was greater has now…
It’s nice to catch an act before everyone knows what’s going on and enjoy that giddy satisfaction of having a pocket band all your own. San Antonio’s poorly named Snowbyrd (the moniker suggests an awful Jimmy Buffet cover band from Denver) offer the rare chance to get in on the…
The truth be told, Texas white blues may be most associated with Austin, but the scene actually percolated out of DFW. Doyle Bramhall was, along with the Vaughan brothers, et al., part of the Austin migration of the early ’70s. And with his soul-shouter voice, deep-groove drumming and heartfelt, classically…
In this week’s main music feature, Andrea Grimes takes a hard look at the changing face of local booking agents, but what good is the feminine shift without an interesting show to prove its worth? Fortunately, this week’s iteration of Callithump Productions’ New Music Tuesday is a good example of…
This British singer’s eponymous debut has created quite a buzz in her homeland, becoming only the fourth release by a female to ever debut at the top. Now, the 27-year-old Rae brings her sweet and rich voice to America, anxious to show that her relatively recent embrace of classic soul…
Inspired by fellow showbiz folk turned politicos (Schwarzenegger, Ventura, Friedman), one Theodore Nugent, aka The Motor City Madman, is said to be contemplating a run for president. It’s the kind of idea that begs just one question: Why the hell not? Besides making a ranchload of money by conning legions…
