Mandarin’s debut, Driftline, hits stores this week (October 1, to be exact) courtesy of Two Ohm Hop Records, but at least one member of the band is too absorbed in another project to notice. Well, that’s probably not entirely true, but guitarist Brian Smith is pretty busy these days, about…
There’s a weird moment toward the end of Warning, Green Day’s sixth album and first since 1997’s Nimrod. Well, it’s not weird so much as unexpected, and that still doesn’t accurately describe the moment in “Jackass” when an honest-to-goodness, blow-Big-Man! saxophone solo turns off E Street and crosses the bridge…
Last time out, he stepped onstage and fell into the orchestra pit: Songs from The Capeman, in which Simon played tough-guy dress-up for the Broadway crowd while adopting the cause of an unrepentant murderer, left a nasty taste in the mouths of even the die-hards, who still love the old…
There’s a long pause–20, maybe 30 seconds. Maybe longer. Rivers Cuomo, Weezer’s notoriously press-shy front man, is in Tulsa, a couple of hours before his band is set to take the stage at the legendary Cain’s Ballroom, “the house that Bob”–Wills, that is–“built.” The doors have just opened, and the…
The Get Up Kids, it seems, have gotten up. I’m on the phone with singer-guitarist Matt Pryor. He’s in Seattle, a few hours before his band’s show at Graceland, standing on a bustling street corner in front of the Dionysian bus he and his four bandmates sleep and eat and…
You’ve heard it before. If it’s not the oldest cliché in the business, it’s the best-known: “We’re big in Europe.” “Big in Europe”–a phrase so ancient that it’s become a sort of all-purpose joke even to people outside the music industry–means you’re skirting the issue of your unpopularity at home…
While we still can’t believe someone forgot to stage a reenactment of Turner Van Blarcum’s infamous beatdown of Kurt Cobain at Trees (there’s a video file of it somewhere on the Internet), we have to say that the club has gone out its way to throw a kick-ass 10-year anniversary…
David Bowie is the Peter Sellers of rock and roll: He’s all blank slate, the chameleon who adapts to his surroundings without actually adopting an identity. He commits only to schlock, tailoring the disguise–mod rocker, dickless spaceman, fashion faux-pas–to fit the delivery, which is somewhere between smirk and sneer (the…
The thing that gets me about Hot Young Glaswegian Rockers Travis is that they’ve built their highly orchestrated American breakthrough on the backs of 15-year-old girls whose idea of high fashion is the Delia’s catalog. When Good Feeling, the band’s quite alright debut, was released in 1997, no one here…
It’s probably best to begin with an explanation, or an apology, or something. First off, I love The Beatles. Grew up with ’em, thought my dad was a Beatle, etc. But this, this is, well…hmmm…at least Paul McCartney is keeping himself busy. And it’s at least, ah, interesting. Just look…
It shouldn’t be this easy to get Peter Frampton on the phone, but it is: A publicist for DreamWorks Pictures calls, asks if you’re interested in talking to the man, and five days later, he’s on the other end of the line at the appointed time. Twenty-four years ago, such…
Speedealer has endured its share of hassles, legal and otherwise. First was the cease and desist order, then, the bankruptcy. And tonight, lead singer and guitarist Jeff Hirshberg is trying to shake some unpleasant bug he awoke with this morning, plus the cell phone keeps cutting out. But the band…
It sure sounds like a good band on paper: A slightly obsessive-compulsive songwriter named Billy with a shaved head and lots of famous musician pals. A singer (also bald) from a dark, foreboding, prog-metal band with a huge underground following that hasn’t released a record in four years. A guitarist…
When Prize Money releases its new CD, All Eyes On the Prize, on September 19, it will mark a new beginning for both the band and one of the labels helping to release the disc, etherStream. Prize Money is essentially a retooled and recharged version of Slowpoke, back in business…
The cynic won’t care, the skeptic won’t understand, and the true believer will be overwhelmed: Nearly 30 years to the day of Jimi Hendrix’s death, here come 56 more unreleased-unavailable-unattainable tracks from a man more prolific in death than in life. Three studio albums before his death, 300 or so…
The thing I like about the Dave Matthews Band is the same thing I like about Phish and Korn and Aimee Mann and Fugazi: the grass roots, baby. These are guys that have built their fame from the ground, strategically and tirelessly touring for years, low on cash but high…
In the modern world, most reasonable people tend to choose lifestyles and opinions based in temperance–you know, tolerance, equality, and all that. You do, however, have your exceptions: For instance, the religious fanatics like the Branch Davidians, who exiled themselves from society and holed up in their compound near Waco…
Re-emerging after a seven-year hiatus, Sutherland, England’s Leatherface, has taken a less political stance on Horsebox; the fist-pumping personal protests match the whiskey-and-gravel vocals of lead singer Frankie Stubbs with the emotional muscle of his often poetic musings. Like the best oi! bands of old and unlike what usually passes…
After a decade knocking around in relative anonymity with the indie in-crowd, Stephin Merritt lately has joined the ranks of pop music’s Who’s Who. The superlatives garnered by his band the Magnetic Fields’ one-of-a-kind, three-CD musical revue, 69 Love Songs, have turned him into something of an alterna-celebrity. For his…
FastballI suspect that the first time Fastball assembled itself in one of its three members’ garages, the sparks flew. It’s a cinch to see the guys knocking back a couple of cold ones toward the end of a particularly stifling Austin scorcher while the Replacements and Elvis Costello and Big…
The least surprising thing about Curt Kirkwood’s new venture is that it’s based in Austin. There’s more to it than the fact that his new bandmates were based here. And it’s not, as drummer and new bandmate Shandon Sahm, quips, “because Texas has barbecues and death penalties.” Phoenix was no…
Tom Paxton doesn’t like to look back too long, for fear of turning to dust that disappears with the slightest gust of hot air. It is OK to glance backwards every so often, he says, but do not stare. Still, for an hour in late August, Paxton is only too…
