Good teachers learn from their students — and Utah Phillips is the best. For fifty years, the California-based folksinger and activist has crisscrossed America via hopped trains and hitched rides, absorbing songs and stories to pass along to all who would listen. But it hasn’t been a one-way street. While…
All hail Jurassic 5! They were a breath of fresh air, bringing pleasure and fun back to the type of hip-hop listened to by indie-rock fans. But they did not come alone — and the group that came with them, the Black Eyed Peas, has turned from a fun bit…
It’s been six years since the Greyboy Allstars brought their blend of jazzy funk to the masses. Formed and produced by DJ Greyboy in San Diego in 1993, the Allstars dropped a couple of studio albums and a live effort before embarking on separate solo endeavors. Most notable was onetime…
Kreator. The name alone sounds like someone’s trying too hard to be hard, doesn’t it? Kreator is hard, though, and has been for over twenty years. Yeah, the act’s moniker is kind of cheesy, but Kreator knows a thing or two about kicking ass. Cue up these German thrash-metal kings’…
Jimmy Page could have written and performed the entirety of Black Is Beautiful — the debut disc by L.A.’s Rolling Blackouts — with his left pinkie. But that doesn’t mean the quartet’s cocktail of riffs and struts doesn’t rise to the top of today’s polluted rock-revival reservoir. Minus the shtick…
The men of Little Brother have set a difficult task for themselves — to find an audience for intelligent tunes in a hip-hop world that celebrates the likes of “Grillz,” a song that praises overpriced dentures. (Coming soon: Efferdent for Rappers! Guaranteed to remove plaque without damaging jewels or gold…
Female singer-songwriters are a dime a dozen these days, multiplying like mogwai: Sprinkle a little water on them and suddenly they’re everywhere. Worse, they all want to be just like Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco or Aimee Mann! Maybe that’s why the truly talented singer-songwriters of today stand out so dramatically…
Chris Soucy sure keeps a packed schedule. Besides having played guitar for everyone from Aubrey Collins to Sally Taylor, the Longmont resident is currently a member of the Sixers, the backing band for Massachusetts-based songwriter Stephen Kellogg. Kellogg’s not a big name yet, but that’s not a surprise: His latest,…
Like a trip to the dentist without that minty fresh feeling, Orthrelm leaves you aching, reeling and confused. The experimental rock of D.C.-based guitarist Mick Barr and drummer Josh Blair translates the minimalist approaches of twentieth-century avant-garde composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass into the context…
Anyone still following hardcore since the denim-clad, illicit-beer-run days of hanging out in the basement knows that modern hardcore has progressed little from the prehistoric time of the Cro-Mags. Cookie-cutter riffs and double bass still support Cookie Monster vocals. Winnipeg’s Comeback Kid is an exception — along with Converge and…
It’s understandable that the men of Korn would be thinking about their bank accounts these days. There ain’t many other first generation nu-metal groups still standing, and if they sit idly by, they’ll be opening for Skid Row at mid-level bars across the country before they know it. Besides, their…
When Jen Korte took a required choir course for her theater degree, she was put with ten other tone-deaf pariahs in remedial choir, where she spent a semester learning quarter notes, half notes and scales. And when it came time to audition again, she still didn’t make it into the…
Few DJs or producers have matched the level of mainstream success enjoyed by Victor Calderone. Handpicked for his skills by the likes of Madonna and Sting, this New York DJ has watched many of his remixes go to Billboard’s Top 10, in addition to putting out massive hit singles of…
Not every musician smokes pot. But a lot do and always have. Long before the term “stoner rock” became shorthand for describing a certain subgenre of music, reggae bands smoked bales and bales of the stuff. So did metal bands, rappers and jazzbos. Plenty of cats have been intimate with…
Who’d win in a wrestling match, Bono or God? Okay, so I ripped off that joke from Airheads, substituting Mr. Hewson for Mr. Kilmister. Nonetheless, judging from his performance Sunday night at the Pepsi Center, Chris Martin already knows the punchline: Bono is God — at least in the eyes…
Having a handle like Bleeding Through can be a stigmatic sign of boring generic metalcore or fashion-produced punk made for pimple-faced teens. But this Orange County act is far from sappy, and its members tend to rail against such trite assumptions. Not that the name is entirely off the mark…
Critics reviewing AnimaminA, the debut EP by Iceland’s Amina, often assume that the disc’s seemingly serene yet unexpectedly intricate compositions are attempts by the string quartet’s players to translate the forbidding geography of their home country into sound. Such conjecture frosts cellist Solrn Sumarlioadóttir. “It’s what people think,” she says,…
“The Two-Man Who” is one way that Swearing at Motorists describes itself. But just as apt might be “The Two-Man Who?” Although associated with tons of bigger names throughout its history — including founding member Don Thrasher of Guided by Voices, recent tourmate the Hold Steady and enigmatic songwriter Scout…
Destroyer, by nature, is a band that conducts hyperbole. Its music is vast. Its scope is epic. Even its name is foreboding, in that late-’90s ironic kinda way. Funny thing is, Destroyer does destroy. It destroys indie-rock wussitude by channeling it into the sonic equivalent of a passive-aggressive apocalypse. Destroyer’s…
I’d always wondered why Gang of Four (a band I like) would have an inspirational shelf life longer than that of, say, the Supremes or James Brown. Though the neo-soul movement tried to marry the soul tradition to hip-hop, until recently, few people seemed to directly revisit the prematurely extinct…
This review is not an indictment of Il Divo, despite the crimes its members have committed against the human eardrum. Likewise, it isn’t intended to assail either American Idol’s Simon Cowell, the professional prick who assembled this pop-operatic boy band, or the material that makes up Ancora — including a…
How can an Elliott Smith tribute album go wrong? The guy was practically deified before his apparent suicide in 2003, and the exaltation has only continued since. But such an homage presents a dilemma: Adding too much of a new twist to Smith’s songs might seem arrogant or inappropriate, while…
