Foxygen We are the Ambassadors of 21st Century Peace and Magic Jagjaguwar When I talk about American indie rock having an aversion to reality, and I have to praise the Australian underground for taking the rare approach of living and singing in the same world , I'm talking about Foxygen. You know the types. Foxygen say they love Jesus and Zombies, but they're also the ones holding court at the local hipster bar, admired by one half of the crowd for their nowness and loathed in equal measure [...]
Friday, February 1st : Lottery League Draft Night @ Beachland Ballroom. U.S. Girls, Slim Twig, Malcolm And Sammy @ Happy Dog. Saturday, February 2nd : Ragers, Night Sweats, Dead Sweaters, Thaddeus A. Greene @ Grog Shop. Sunday, February 3rd: Action Camp, Cereal Banter, Missile Command @ Now That's Class. Thursday, February 7th: Yo La Tengo @ Beachland Ballroom (2 sets no opener). Johns, Nervousas, Wooly Bullies @ Happy Dog. Obnox, Family Dollar, HR (bad brains), [...]
The concept is simple. 170 Cleveland musicians have submitted themselves to the whims of ping pong balls and a hopper. One by one, they will be drafted into new bands with fellow musicians whom they've never collaborated with before. Metal heads will be paired with singer-songwriters. Electronic artists will be paired with rockers who still believe in putting music to tape. The results can be sublime. Some of these acts will exist for only one night, the big show, taking place Saturday April 13th at the Cleveland Agora . Others may stick around and play gigs around [...]
Part of the deep Melbourne rock scene , Dick Diver specialize in jangly pop somewhere along the garage and indie rock spectrum. The exact place isn't all that important, really. Rather, let's focus on the ease of which they deliver their melodies. Their music is not fussed about, and spoken/sung with their strong, Australian accents in tact. Songs like "Water Damage," from their forthcoming release Calendar Days ( this March on Chapter Music ) brilliantly manage a balance between pleasure and plaintiveness by obscuring the downtrodden with brightly strummed guitars and gentle whooshes of keyboards. [...]
Subtle is our word of the day. Used in a sentence, Yo La Tengo's most recent album, Fade, is a subtle album, one where the listener must pay close attention to hear the multi-layered structures created by the band and producer John McEntire. Similarly, subtle can also be used to describe the video for "I'll Be Around," where Superchunk's Mac McCaughan is alone in the woods strumming an acoustic guitar while words, unrelated to the song, appear and fade from screen. You'll see a recipe for Spicy Tortilla soup and another Spanish Omelet. This could be subtle humor, or a [...]
"Full of Fire," is not the most pleasant song. The beats over the first handful of bars may channel fun-time new wave of the '80s (you can mash up "Mickey," if that's your thing), but they're coarse and clawing for your skin. When the electronics are first added to the mix in little bits and drips, they elicit a similar reaction. Think images of rotting and decaying flesh, like the ones Trent Reznor would project during his live shows with Nine Inch Nails. Later, Karin Dreijer Andersson's vocals, when they do kick in, channel the wicked witch of your childhood [...]
Earlier today, The Daily Swarm pulled out this quote by James Lachno of the Daily Telegraph about his unashamed love of Fleetwood Mac. Apparently, it's a generational thing and a Millennial thing: Where a decade or so ago the success of New Yorkers The Strokes and British quartet The Libertines led young music fans to devour the visceral debuts released during 1977’s punk explosion – from Television to The Clash – the resurgence in hook-laden guitar-pop has led us back to Rumours. My generation, meanwhile, can enjoy the album [...]
Desaparecidos - Read Music, Speak Spanish (2002) How we managed to get through the Occupy Movement, not to mention all of the continued distrust and anger aimed at Corporate America, without a single album to define the moment escapes me. Maybe escapes me isn't the best choice of phrase. Bother is better. Yes, it bothers me. We have plenty of indie and mainstream musicians in the Seinfeld tradition who sing about nothing. What we don't have is a new voice. There are the veteran voices, like Bruce Springsteen and the not as veteran voices, like Ted [...]
Following in the footsteps of such greats as Funkadelic and Man or Astro Man?, and not so greats like LA Guns , Great White, Asia and Queensryche , two versions of the seminal punk and hardcore band Black Flag will tour this summer. Black Flag made their announcement first with Ron Reyes, Greg Ginn and Robo announcing plans to play the Heavy Fest in England. Not to be outdone, other former Black Flag members, Keith Morrris and Chuck Dukowski announced they would to play some festivals this year, [...]
I neglected to hop on the hype train when Danish punks, Iceage, released their debut album in 2011. I can't say why it didn't hit, or click with me. That would take going back in time. It just didn't. "Coalition," however, the first track released upcoming Matador album, made my ears perk up almost immediately. Its combination of heft and dexterity, old skool ideals and modern methods, kicked ass and kicked pretty much every other new kid punk band off the stage. "Ecstasy," has much the same effect. Half dirty, disco-punk and half hardcore throwdown then slowdown, it's [...]
Before the Grunge Beatles , aka Dave Grohl and the other surviving members of Nirvana with Paul McCartney, and before there were the Sound City Players, there was Sound City , Dave Grohl's pet project, a documentary about the Sound City recording studio in the San Fernando Valley where artists as varied as Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Metallica and Nirvana all recorded. Grohl's documentary not only retells the story of a legendary studio with personal interviews of Trent Reznor, Rivers Cuomo, Rick Rubin, Frank Black, Stevie Nicks and others , but [...]
Originally written as a response to the Batman slayings in Aurora, Colorado, The Black Angels ' new single, "Don't Play With Guns," isn't just heavy in terms of subject matter. The first track from Indigo Meadow (out April 2nd), finds the band ditching the poppier sounds of their most recent release for the dark, droning guitar sound of their 2006 debut, Passover. There's even a freak-out of an outtro at the 3:00 mark, another aspect of the band that got lost when they explored those other psychedelic avenues on 20102s Phosphene Dream. This sounds promising. The Black Angels [...]
Most people, when they do a special pre-order, toss in a t-shirt, colored vinyl, and a couple stickers and call it a day. Not former Parts and Labor man, Dan Friel. Pre-order his new album, Total Folklore , from Thrill Jockey, and you can win a music box of the track, "Thumper." That's a prototype of the music box version, embedded above. And that's his cat in the video, too. Below, you can stream "Thumper," in the more traditional manner, complete with the type of electronic squeaks and tweaks Friel once crafted for his noise-punk band. Instead, here, instead [...]
By now, we should all be used to Fat Possum Records eating up as many buzz bands as they can. The days of the label being home to The Black Keys and a bunch of old blues men are long gone . Still, the news that Olympia longhairs Milk Music signed to Fat Possum , seemed a bit odd. For even though Milk Music played the Pitchfork Music Festival last year , I never got the impression they were much loved outside of the rock record nerd crowd. Certainly, they weren't big enough for a move [...]
California X California X Don Giovanni Records By deftly straddling the line between power pop and hard rock, Big Star and bigger guitars, Guided by Voices "Motor Away" and Motorhead, Badfinger and Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, California X's self-titled debut is the type of album you'll know whether it is for you within the first 30 seconds of lead track "Sucker." Either this hook-filled and relentless riff fest blows your hair back like the man in the old Memorex commercials, or you'll disregard it as something that's been done before by different bands. [...]
Thank you to the Beachland and brunch staff. You're always a pleasurable bunch to be around on a Sunday morning. And, thank you to all of those who stopped by and said hello during during my time behind the turntables. To the man at the bar, I'm sorry I didn't have any James Brown or Elvis or Pink Floyd or Kiss or Ace Frehley or another of those other bands you asked for as I pretended to listen to your other suggestions. As I tried to explain, I pack a lot of classic punk rock, but not so much classic, [...]
As much as I like my garage rock, and my punk rock and that rock which lies somewhere between garage rock and punk rock, I also enjoy seeing garage rock bands mature and evolve past the limitations of those often tightly defined genres. Take Frankie Rose , for example, the one time Dum Dum Girl whose 2012 release, Interstellar, was closer to synth-pop than anything else from her prior recordings. And speaking of the Dum Dum Girls, they've also matured from a band with one drum beat and very catchy melodies and little else (besides hype), to a [...]
Grunge OGs, Mudhoney have never gone away. They've been slinging sludge for Sub Pop Records since the very beginning of grunge. And if one were to ask, let's say, Thurston Moore, or Yo La Tengo, perhaps that's why they don't get the same adulation as the '90s bands who left the spotlight for a decade or more only to return for a reunion tour. "The Only Son of the Widow of Nain," is not going to result in a new era of Mudhoney appreciation. Not that Mark Arm and Mudhoney even dream of such a thing. Remember, this [...]
With "Jubilee Street," we're now two tracks into the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record and it's becoming even more clear that Push the Sky Away will be a clean break from the nasty and rowdy Nick Cave of Grinderman . Like first single, "We No Who U R," "Jubilee Street," is a calm and meditative number, skillfully orchestrated and exquisitely narrated by a man whose voice has the ability to twist a seemingly innocuous stroll into a tale of regret and deceit. The man does have a way with words, especially when his subject roams the [...]
* The Replacements' first new recording in over 20 years, a benefit EP for guitarist Slim Dunlap who is dealing with medical issues from a recent stroke, will begin to be auctioned off tomorrow on eBay . Initially limited to 250 copies, the Songs for Slim EP will be pressed on 180-gram, 103 vinyl and will be autographed by Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson & Chris Mars. For those who would like to support Slim, and not do so at what will certainly be a pretty penny, Songs for Slim will see a commercial release later this year. Also, you [...]
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