Chicago DJ/producer Felix da Housecat paid his dues for years in the underground scene, then exploded like a well-timed volcano with his 2001 release Kittenz and Thee Glitz, featuring oversexed electro chanteuse Miss Kittin. After starting off as a real house cat at fourteen and hitting Europe at seventeen, at…
Critics, including this one, tend to use terms like “competent,” “solid” and “professional” when reviewing albums that fail to hit our sweet spot but aren’t so mediocre as to deserve slagging. As a result, it’s easy for scribblers to forget that the qualities denoted by these identifiers can be positive,…
With a screech of chalk, today’s lesson begins. It’s time for the music-appreciation professor to liven up his boring-ass syllabus. “Set Me Free is an example of motifs from the classic period blended with modern elements like brick beats,” he says with a satisfied half-grin. As string-backed programming plays, some…
Three weeks ago, I opined in this space on the American Music Auditions that had taken place at Avalon May 12-16. I received quite a few e-mails in response, most of them from members of bands that had been duped — er, I mean, had participated in the event. None…
The globe may be far from grooving these days, but lovers and fighters, hawks and doves, Bush-lickers and Kerry converts alike can tune all of that out at the Global Groove World Music Festival. With its eclectic, communal vibe, the fest is an ozone-friendly, disaster-film-free example of global warming. Appropriately…
In an interview with Tampa’s Weekly Planet earlier this year, John Paul Caballero, bassist for California-based dios (below), predicted that “everybody’s gonna write about we’re a bunch of Mexicans, that we’re from Hawthorne and sound like the Beach Boys.” But journalists who stop there will be giving short shrift to…
Taking its name from one of the most stupid bits of slang ever to infest the youth vernacular, Hella (above) hails from the bland, artless sprawl of Sacramento. But the instrumental duo of guitarist Spencer Seim and drummer Zach Hill make some of the most adventurous, challenging noise rock going…
The concept of lo-fi is a curious one. How can something sound too good? Indie groups currently attempting to emulate the sound of ’60s garage bands overlook the fact that those older bands were striving for the highest-fidelity standards possible. The vinyl snap, crackle and pop and piss-poor production weren’t…
Kiss’s makeup is the foundation of the band in more ways than one. Truth be told, the group’s only got about three good songs — and, no, “Beth” isn’t one of them. The reason Kiss didn’t descend into rock-and-roll hell a long time ago, then, is due to its collective…
People love to hate Poison, but the band’s members are having too much fun to care. They tour faithfully, coming around Denver almost every year — and just as faithfully, fans keep showing up to hear them play. Because playing is what Poison’s always been about: pleasure in its many…
It’s a story as old as dirt and every bit as gritty: Rock band forms, shows promise, toils for years and years, fails to grab the brass ring and finally is written off as irrelevant. When faced with the fact that it will never make the bigtime, each act reacts…
Yeah, we just mope around all the time,” says Mike Hudson, bassist for Aveo. It takes a half a second to realize that Hudson is fucking around. Upon first hearing Battery, the Seattle-based outfit’s new disc, you might not expect the trio to be anything but pensive, excruciatingly sincere, maybe…
Good Charlotte is one of the biggest bands in the nation right now, a pop-punk quintet that’s played the MTV Video Music Awards, graced the cover of Rolling Stone and sold over three million copies of its latest disc, The Young and the Hopeless. To Good Charlotte vocalist Joel Madden,…
Some bands are like street gangs. Others are like closeted gay relationships. The best, though, fall somewhere in between, and Detachment Kit (appearing Friday, June 4, at the Larimer Lounge) is just such a combo. Ian Menard and Charlie Davis formed the duo some dozens of months ago in Chicago,…
The average record-label sampler is an inconsistent mélange of already overexposed songs that weren’t that great to begin with. Jade Tree’s latest 21-track compilation, however, is a rare find that showcases the most interesting and talented artists on the label’s impressive roster. Since launching the Jade Tree imprint in 1990,…
Since 1995’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and 1996’s Ironman, Ghostface Killah has been the most consistent rapper of the Wu-Tang collective. While the rest of the clan continues to churn out average projects every couple of years, Ghostface has proudly carried the Wu-Tang torch on each release. However, The…
Any writer who dares suggest that Mike Skinner, the Brit behind The Streets, is something less than a primitive genius would undoubtedly get the frigid-shoulder treatment at a critics’ roundtable. Reviewers on both sides of the pond worked themselves into a lather over Original Pirate Material, Skinner’s 2002 full-length debut,…
Naming your band after a line from Wes Anderson’s 1998 cult masterpiece Rushmore is a dicey proposition. What happens if your music totally sucks shit? You’re gonna have a pack of rabid, vengeful Max Fischer apostles out to pop a cap in your ass. Luckily for the three members of…
As a songwriter, Rebecca Folsom shows many faces on Shine, a collection of twelve original songs she recorded last year in Austin. At times her approach is pensive and spare, with minimally instrumented songs that recall other cerebral female writers, such as Edie Brickell and Nanci Griffith. This approach lends…
For hipper-than-thou subversive types who extol Tenacious D’s lampooning of the time-tested power ballad, metal’s appeal lies in its irony. But for the hardcore, metal is a religion — and they take the music on faith. Lately I’ve been a backslider; on most Saturday nights, you can find me in…
The late Screamin’ Jay Hawkins once declared, “I’d rather sing opera than be a black Vincent Price.” And though he’s better remembered as a novelty performer who rose from a coffin, foisting a skull on the end of a stick, Hawkins possessed an astounding vocal range that would have made…
The Briefs return to late-’70s-era dirt punk, creating a ruckus made of hit-and-run guitars and songs about pubic lice and the cost of getting laid. Skinny ties and bleached hair aside, the Seattle band is brazen enough to have put out an EP of cover songs about spree killing, including…
