Music

“Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood, to terrorize y’all’s neighborhood.” —Vincent Price, “Thriller” We know there’s nothing like a sugar buzz to cause cranial confusion and a depressed decision-making faculty. Oh, sure, give us 14 Stella Artois and…

Live hip-hop is always hit or miss. A sample or rhyme that comes through loud and clear on CD or vinyl can all of a sudden get muddled and drip from the speaker like molasses. A sweet bass drop can transform into a staticky mess that sounds more like paper…

It’s Friday night. The Cavern is packed for the Fresh party that happens once a month. The room seems oddly bright for 11 p.m. on a party night, illuminating the flushed, pleased faces that float just above a layer of gauzy ciggy smoke. You can see all this from the…

It all began with a pile of wires and cables, configured onstage in what looked like a visual manifestation of every preposition, as they snaked about, above, across and around amp heads and keyboards, effects modules, samplers and mixers, plugged into speakers and drum machines, synthesizers and microphones. Vintage this…

It’s lucky for Kid Rock that he’s an egomaniacal dipshit, because otherwise his music would be about as memorable as a Molly Hatchet eight-track sans “Flirting With Disaster.” Still, the former Mr. Pamela Anderson’s good-humored salutes to his own cocksmanship—not to mention his skill at Xeroxing classic boogie—can’t entirely offset…

Neil likens Chrome Dreams II, with its mix of Crazy Horse-style guitar thunder and mellow country rock, to After the Gold Rush. In other words, it’s the kind of album Young could make in his sleep by now. Recorded with pedal steel/dobro player Ben Keith, bassist Rick Rosas and drummer…

DJ Vadim may get less attention these days than when he was cranking out abstract/breakbeat productions back in the ’90s, but his music grows more interesting and globally minded with every release. After several solo instrumental hip-hop discs that aligned him with DJs Krush, Cam and Shadow, the Soviet-born, London-raised,…

There was once a day when synth-y pop could be both polished and vaguely eerie, coated in scuzz but also featuring a metallic sheen: Early- and mid-career Cars come to mind—when the tepid soul of machine-based music found life and became dirty and somehow sexually threatening. Denton’s Parata follows this…

An unusual and interesting local bill that features some playfully obnoxious metal and an electronica-fueled tribute to Cream. Money $hot are a typically sexist metallic mess, all testosterone and no brains, but hell, that’s what’s made Motorhead great. Paying homage to Judas Priest, Queen and AC/DC, Money $hot is three…

If someone said to you, “Hey, you should totally check out the Secret Handshake. They’re, like, ambient electro-emo,” what would you do? You’d want to throw up into your Emily the Strange lunchbox, right? Well, the truth is: The band’s not as bad as you’d expect. The tunes are just…

What is it about these indie folksters using pseudonyms? Samuel Beam goes by Iron and Wine, and Will Oldham has recorded under Bonnie “Prince” Billy and various Palace monikers. Then there’s Matthew Houck, who’s been recording and performing as Phosphorescent for the past seven years. Fittingly enough, Houck’s latest effort,…

To think of a pilgrimage is to think of a progression, or even a procession—a steady, continuing path to somewhere over the horizon, even if it’s a road to nowhere. Pilgrimage is a very apt title for the third effort by Om, the duo of Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus,…

As stand-in singer with the surviving Doors (godawfully rechristened Doors of the 21st Century at first, then the much better Riders on the Storm) on their tour a couple of years back, Cult lead singer Ian Astbury finally got to indulge his deep-seated Jim Morrison fantasies to the hilt. It…

Cheapwads unite! Rent’s due soon and Mavs tickets cost money, so it’s time to skimp other places. What follows are suggestions for keeping your music expenses down and your endorphins up. Wolff 6 p.m., Monday, October 29. Good Records, 1808 Greenville Ave. Free Well, shit, since rock is taking a…

It’s a common issue. You want to go to a show but you gotta eat first. For some it’s an energy issue and for others it’s all about the drink base. Whatever the reason, you’re sure as hell not going to pack a sandwich (not that it’s uncool or anything,…