Defiantly homespun, the 2002 debut of Kentucky’s Nappy Roots, Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz, gathered up the back-porch drawl and bacon-grease funk that had been surfacing on Dirty South albums over the past couple of years, tied them together with a strong dose of populism and became a surprise success by…
Outside of the despicable Aqua’s repulsive “Barbie Girl,” Denmark has not been known for producing any notable music. That is, until now: Enter the Raveonettes, who are among the new school of Danish musicians (along with Junior Senior) creatively reinterpreting familiar musical archetypes. These clever Danes–Sune Rose Wagner (boy) and…
Here’s a neat triple bill for pop lovers not put off by Hollywood shine and record-biz hype as long as it accompanies some genuinely enjoyable tunes. Hollywood-based headliners Rooney kick off their self-titled debut (on Geffen because singer-guitarist Robert Carmine’s brother is Phantom Planet drummer/Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman, whose mom…
Emerging in 2001 in a welter of fuzzed-out guitar and excellently effed-up hair, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club could have been mistaken for the second coming of the Jesus and Mary Chain. Likewise anesthetically moody, but adding the extra oomph of sexual come-on in the bass lines and vocals, the band’s…
While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment in history when ultra-fashion-conscious new wave music formally emerged, we can be certain that its arrival altered the face of popular music forever and influenced more of what’s now heard on the airwaves than a few would care to admit. Though a…
As with pierced-and-inked TRL darlings Good Charlotte, it’s tempting to call out way-hyped L.A. sleaze-rockers the Bronx on their dubious fealty to hard-boiled punk ideals: On their Web site (thebronxxx.com, naturally), they declare that “these days rock is dead” and that “emo dudes are carrying purses” (which, to be fair,…
Is the Mermaid Purse a supergroup? Sort of. All the members of the band are in other bands: singer-guitarist Eric Shutt (Doosu), guitarist Justin Wilson (Red Animal War), drummer Dominic Weir (Flickerstick), bassist Jason Jones (the Feds) and recent hire Mike Graff (Halls of the Machine) on guitar. That’s one…
In the military, they call it a debriefing. In other circles, it’s an exit interview. Three of the people at this table at Sol’s in Deep Ellum work as animators, the other is an architect and, until recently, all of them played in the same rock band. So it’s probably…
Joey Duenas dreams big–perhaps a bit too big. The vocalist for Austin hard rock band Unloco had hoped the group’s 2001 full-length Maverick Records debut, Healing, would be a smash out of the gate, catapulting the band to the upper (or at least upper-middle) ranks of success. After the album’s…
On the back cover of the CD booklet that accompanies Richard X’s first full-length is an anti-piracy statement from EMI Music (Astralwerks’ parent), a polite but strongly worded missive reminding listeners about the danger of the Internet, CD burners and the like. Bit strange, really, since that’s pretty much how…
The British version of this DVD collection, an assemblage of rock-and-roll highlights from 16 years of TV’s finest live-music program (or programme, mate), runs two discs and includes the likes of Japan, Focus, Dr. Feelgood, Simply Red, Meat Loaf and Robert Wyatt–in other words, acts unlikely to enhance the show’s…
Earlier this year I called the Foo Fighters’ One by One a lonely triumph for music-lovers who’d all but given up on Serious Rock Music With Heavy Things to Say About Life. I asserted that Dave Grohl’s sense of humor (and his ability to write a satisfyingly chunky melody) was…
Type O Negative can embrace only about three emotions: misery, anger or some combination of the two. So it’s no surprise to encounter more morose melodrama, haunted-house synthesizers, Sabbathian sludge and the phantom-like baritone of vocalist-bassist-beefcake brooder Peter Steele. On their latest, songs such as “IYDKMIGTHTKY (Gimme That)” and “A…
Earlier this issue I called Live’s painfully solemn Birds of Pray a sad failure for music-lovers on the search for Serious Rock Music With Heavy Things to Say About Life. Those disappointed listeners should look to Arkansas nü-metallers Evanescence–they’re lapsed Christians who curse a lot and dig Ben Affleck! Actually,…
The recent economic downturn’s been good to no one; musically speaking, it’s been a particularly rude awakening for dozens of sound-alike indie bands spoiled by the booming late 1990s, when any dot-commer with a Pavement collection could start up a label and issue records by his friends’ crappy bands (or…
There are, to be honest, several reasons why Eric Michener might not be taken seriously, the most pressing of which we will outline briefly. 1. His first Dallas gig found him opening for Jon “Corn Mo” Cunningham, a somewhat like-minded singer-songwriter who is often not taken very seriously himself, as…
The roster sounds like the invite list for an award show, maybe a rundown of the Billboard charts. Jay-Z, No Doubt, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Nelly, Ludacris, Mystikal, Snoop Dogg, Clipse, LL Cool J, Sean Paul, P. Diddy, Scarface, Toni Braxton, TLC, ‘N Sync, Foxy Brown, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Garbage,…
O.A.R., a five-man band from Maryland by way of Columbus, Ohio, is a jam band for the Napster age. The group, which mixes reggae, folk and agile acoustic rock into what it calls “island vibe roots rock,” arrived at Ohio State in 1997, its members having already attained a modest…
What the Drive-By Truckers created: a gorgeous, sprawling, Alabama-centric, two-CD rock epic loosely based on Lynyrd Skynyrd, literally titled Southern Rock Opera. What the Drive-By Truckers destroyed: their lives. Musicians, you see, are complete assholes–self-centered, stubborn, megalomaniacal. They chase absurd rock-god fantasies by piling into a beat-up van and blowing…
The word “punk” is like one of those pesky zombies in Night of the Living Dead: You kill it again and again, but it just won’t die. Punk’s death has been dragged out for more than two decades, since that winter of ’78 when the Sex Pistols dissolved. The genre’s…
With apologies to Brian Eno, consider Broadcast’s Hahasound its Music for Films, Vol. 3. The U.K. electronica trio’s first soundtrack-worthy excursions (the mini-album singles compilation Work and Non-Work and 2000’s The Noise Made by People) possessed cool-cat sophistication, thanks to an affinity for Stereolab-esque tunes and spy-noir ripples that hung…
George Harrison may be dead, but Americans can’t help but turn their heads, as he did, toward India for spiritual and artistic inspiration. Madonna attends self-help seminars with Deepak Chopra, city-dwelling hipsters rent Bollywood features and it all plays nicely into the hands of Rajinder Rai, a.k.a. Panjabi MC. After…
