There’s never been the slightest doubt that Trans Am drivers Nathan Means, Phil Manley and Sebastian Thomson have a sense of humor. But the question remains: When are they joking? Founded in 1990, the band has a lengthy discography stuffed with electro-oriented tracks that alternately encompass homage, pastiche and loving…
When Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy spoke to Westword in September 2006, his band was searching for a niche between youth rock, represented by the group’s patrons in Fall Out Boy, and hip-hop, whose aficionados regularly attacked the outfit for watering down the medium. Since then, McCoy and his…
The three members of Porter Batiste Stoltz have a lot to live up to on their own. Collectively, the funk-fueled trio has amassed an impressive pedigree that includes stints backing the Meters, the Neville Brothers, Dr. John and New Orleans musician, songwriter and producer extraordinaire Allen Toussaint. With the departure…
Most well-known Viking rock has come out of Scandinavia. Long before Mayhem murderously imploded, though, Poland’s Vader played some of the darkest, most brutally intense death-metal thrash to ever emerge from behind the Iron Curtain. In the early days, the act promoted itself through an underground network of tape trading…
Tori Amos: Earth Mother, faerie songstress, suckler of pigs, piano goddess. The 44-year-old singer has worn many a persona over her two-decade-plus career, but never so literally as on her latest concept album, American Doll Posse, in which Amos is joined by four alter egos — each female archetypes based…
Received word last week thatAchille Lauro’s Matt Close, was recently hospitalized after the bike he was riding was hit by a van. The accident, which left Close with a fractured pelvis and rib damage, has sidelined the singer/guitarist from performing for the time being. (In a bit of cruel irony,…
Compared with other holidays, Thanksgiving hasn’t inspired bards overmuch. There are no traditional hymns, no instantly identifiable music associated with the day save possibly various football broadcast bumpers. Nevertheless, here and there we find certain songs that — in lyric or in spirit — fit the theme of the day…
Here’s a selection of the best of last week’s music blogging from around the Village Voice media empire: Hip-hop needs more pie charts, as this post proves elegantly as it breaks down the latest offerings from Jay Z, Kanye and Wu-Tang visually. An explication of rock and roll more pure…
Some quick newsy and observational items culled from a weekend out on the town: Friday night, dbiddle turned in another beautifully shambolic performance at the hi-dive. Even minus the Dia de los Muertos-esque face paint the group sported a few weeks back on the same stage (see clip above filmed…
Be sure to twist and shout your way to, well, Twist and Shout Records, 2508 East Colfax Avenue, to see an in-store performance by ex-Drive By Trucker Jason Isbell. Isbell — possibly the most soulful white boy around — is a whiskey-drenched phenomenon of a musician who will play a…
It started off as an e-mail thread conversation with some former coworkers about absinthe. We went back and forth for a while on the best way to get, prepare and truly enjoy the wormwood wonder before I reached way back into my toxic past to summon the best liquid buzzes…
You know that scene in The Mask where Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz are swing-dancing to the rumbling tom-tom beat of “Hey Pachuco,” the song by Royal Crown Revue? Well, that clip was showing on a bunch of TVs at Maloney’s Tavern (1432 Market Street), which had its grand opening…
While their name might sound like that of a shopping-mall religious cult, the 29th Street Disciples (due at Monkey Mania this Friday, November 16) are actually one of Denver’s fastest, hardest and loudest punk bands. With righteous indignation and seething disdain, vocalist Ben Roy — who, oddly enough, can also…
Miguel Migs knows his history. His soulful, song-oriented deep house draws heavily on the style’s disco roots, tinting it with soul, funk, hip-hop and reggae influences. In the studio, Migs employs live musicians and soulful vocalists, skillfully blending organic elements with electronic textures and programmed beats to create ultra-slick yet…
The Tarmints’ exhilarating dynamism and hysteria-inducing percussive textures have always been their signature, but this record shows that the brutally intense act doesn’t just exorcise the dark side of the human psyche. If anything, Thirteen Dead Cats bursts with vitality and is perhaps the most musical of the band’s releases…
On All Over the Moon, Jen Pumo plays it cool. Rather than over-emoting, she layers imagistic lyrics over atmospheric soundscapes well worth ex-ploring. Her performances are unfailingly compelling, even though she seldom raises her voice. The album’s production fuses piano and other traditional instrumentation with synthesized washes and extremely subtle…
American Gangster is considerably better than 2006’s lackluster Kingdom Come, if only because it returns Jay-Z to his criminal comfort zone. However, it still falls short of his finest material. The disc feels more like the sort of Hollywood production that inspired it — a star vehicle assembled by skilled…
Although In Return is only Torche’s second record, you get the sense that this is one of those rare bands that will never leave you with a feeling of apprehension, wondering if the next record will be as good as the last. It’s almost a forgone conclusion that it will…
Chris Fogal is a closet shredder. You wouldn’t guess that, though, if you only knew him from his time fronting the Gamits. But those who’ve had the great fortune of working with him in the studio tell tales of Fogal plugging in their guitars to check for tones and then…
Babyshambles, Shotter’s Nation (Astralwerks). Pete Doherty isn’t just an on-again, off-again junkie famed for making scenes with spindly ex-girlfriend Kate Moss. He’s also a musician, and Shotter’s Nation, the second Babyshambles album, demonstrates that he can be an effective one when somebody (probably veteran producer Stephen Street) keeps him on…
Ketch Secor is on a Rocky Mountain high of sorts. As his band’s bus rolls into Sante Fe, New Mexico, all the Old Crow Medicine Show singer wants to talk about at the moment is Denver — John Denver. “The power of his songcraft has a lot more influence and…
The best way to understand Witchcraft is to listen to “Remembered,” one of the seven meaty tracks on the Swedish group’s latest release, The Alchemist. In just over five minutes, the quartet moves from happy-go-lucky hoedown to sludgy metal to Disraeli Gears-era Cream. While Witchcraft is frequently associated with the…
