I think the San Diego-based band Pinback is highly under buzzed and underrated. Their compositions are brimming with pleasantly tangled melodies and well-written lyrics. The core of the band are singer-songwriters Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow. Smith once described his music as "…pretty with an edge? I don't necessarily know how to explain it. I like dark and brooding tones. I don't ever want my music to get too pretty. I like it to have an underlying rawness. Sugar coating on the top, evil underneath." The music definitely has an edge, but it's [...]
No real surprises to report. Beyoncé earned a bundle of Grammys. Lady Gaga delivered a rousing - and surprisingly uncontroversial - duet with Elton John . Taylor Swift also cleaned up, though her number with Stevie Nicks sounded a tad off (as did Slash's guitar solo during T-Pain's performance). Best prop goes to Best Comedy Album winner Steven Colbert , who pulled an iPad out of his jacket during his monologue. And kudos to Kings of Leon for admitting they were a tad drunk while accepting the Grammy [...]
Record of the Year "Halo," Beyoncé "I Gotta Feeling," the Black Eyed Peas "Use Somebody," Kings of Leon "Poker Face," Lady Gaga "You Belong With Me," Taylor Swift Album of the Year "I Am ... Sasha Fierce," Beyoncé; Shondrae "Mr. Bangledesh" Crawford, Ian Dench, D-Town, Toby Gad, Sean "the Pen" Garrett, Amanda Ghost, Jim Jonsin, Beyoncé Knowles, Rico Love, Dave McCracken, Terius "the Dream" Nash, Radio Killa, Stargate, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Ryan Tedder and Wayne Wilkins, producers "The E.N.D.," the Black Eyed Peas; Apl.de.ap, Jean [...]
ROYAL FLUSH BOOK SIX DEDICATED TO THE "GREATEST GENERATION" · Exclusive cover story / interview with Playboy's Hugh Hefner, including a first-time-ever-printed 60-year-old autobiographical comic strip written and drawn by Hef. In homage, Royal Flush Book 6 features two foldout posters: centerfold by comics rock star Paul Pope and calendar by poster legend Brian Ewing. Plus, a Joan Jett flip cover with 3-D "smoke eyes" spot gloss varnish. · Interviews with Joan Jett, Leslie Nielsen, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Brian Posehn, Jeffrey [...]
2005 opened my eyes to a world of new music. I joined the crew at KZUU over the summer, my first summer back in Pullman working toward my Masters in Business. I'd spend my two-hour show pouring over thousands of obscure albums, looking for anything that might spark my interest. While music had always been a borderline obsession, until now it was just that - borderline. In the days that passed, it became a full-fledged consumption of everything me. There are turning points in all of our lives, and DJing at KZUU was absolutely one [...]
The polka-less Grammys shortlist has been been birthed out . Beyonce is leading on the most nominations front, which we think is the music industry's way of telling her she's looking old now. Here - as is now traditional - is the full shortlist. It's bloody long, so if you're not interested in the detail, click here to leap to the bottom . THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF RECORDING ARTS & SCIENCES, INC. Final Nominations List 52nd Annual GRAMMY® Awards For recordings released during the Eligibility Year October 1, 2008 through [...]
Last year , EAR FARM featured 43 bands in our Band of the Week feature... ranging from relative unknowns (such as The Laughing and Bombadil ) to interviews with indie-rock legends (see The Wedding Present and Silver Jews ) to everything else in between. In 2009 we set out to one-up ourselves, and as it turns out we've done just that. This year EAR FARM featured 45 bands as Band of the Week, again flexing our genre chops across the entire spectrum of what we consider to be the best music being [...]
Last year , EAR FARM featured 43 bands in our Band of the Week feature... ranging from relative unknowns (such as The Laughing and Bombadil ) to interviews with indie-rock legends (see The Wedding Present and Silver Jews ) to everything else in between. In 2009 we set out to one-up ourselves, and as it turns out we've done just that. This year EAR FARM featured 45 bands as Band of the Week, again flexing our genre chops across the entire spectrum of what we consider to be the best music being [...]
Chi? Ok, ho scelto volutamente il nome completo (chissà perchè dalle nostre parti nessuno si chiama mai Mario Rossi IV), ma se uso il nome colloquiale Zach Smith cambia qualcosa? Scommetto di no. Ed è un peccato perchè Zach Smith , insieme a Rob Crow mente e anima degli eccezionali Pinback , è uno di quei personaggi piccoli piccoli di una certa scena indie americana che sono sulla breccia da 20 anni e non hanno la minima intenzione di togliersi di mezzo. Per fortuna. Di Rob Crow e della sua inarrestabile vena creativa [...]
Welcome to the new, not-really-improved BabyStew This Week In Chicago listing. What's new about it, you ask? Absolutely nothing, except that it now covers the week from Monday through Sunday rather than Sunday through Saturday. It always seemed weird to me not to be listing Sunday shows until the morning of – when not many people are reading blogs – for the sole purpose of sticking with the conventional definition of "week" ( i.e. , Sun-Sat). But convention be damned. So here's what's going on in Chicago this "week". [...]
Super Dance 2000-2009 Set.1 01. Special D. - Come With Me (Rob Mayth Radio Edit) 02. Cascada - Miracle 03. Ramon Zerano - Today (Mainfield Radio Edit) 04. IC3M4N feat. Andy Lopez - Passion 05. Sash feat. Stunt - Raindrops (Encore Une Fois) Kindervater Radio Edit 06. Siria - Désenchanteé 07. Keira Green - My Heart Goes Up (Picco Radio Edit) 08. Da Franco - Show Me 09. Stee Wee Bee - A Star (In The Name Of Our Love) 10. Spacecube - Forever Again 11. Manian feat. Aila - Heaven 12. Andrew Spencer [...]
[ Review originally published at www.drownedinsound.com.] OK people, I'm still at hard, working on the transition from Blogger to WordPress. It's going to be awesome, I've got a whole new look, but I suspect I'm slowly going insane, too, so there's that. Anyhoo, READ A REVIEW OF A PINBACK ALBUM HERE . It's pretty funny because someone in the Comments section calls me a "flappy dingleberry." A term I invented, but still [...]
Sweetest Day didn't go well for me. On one hand, I woke up entirely hung over from Friday's Dr. Dog show at Beachland. We had a little Citizen Dick reunion of sorts, with Rob, Brian, and Justin all converging at my place after the amazing set the medicinally astute canine put on for us. Plenty of brews were enjoyed, and after a slew of heated musical and professional debates, I went to bed knowing the morning wouldn't be too sweet. This was correct because my liver was smoking a cigarette next to me when I rolled out of bed. Lesson [...]
Trinity Of Terrors: Halloween Weekend 2009 Special Halloween Night Show with Slipknot Fangoria Entertainment , publisher of the world's best-selling horror magazine and industry leader of all things horror since 1979, has announced the FANGORIA TRINITY OF TERRORS - a brand new multi-media horror event taking place Halloween weekend, beginning Friday, October 30th and running through Sunday evening, November 1, 2009 at the beautiful Palms Casino Resort, home of Las Vegas' premier musical venue, [...]
Warner Music Group has named Grammy Award-winning producer Rob Cavallo to the newly created position of Chief Creative Officer. Cavallo will now work exclusively with WMG as a producer and an A&R executive. Cavallo won the "Producer of the Year" Grammy in 1998 and was nominated in 1999 and 2004. Cavallo has also won Grammys as producer for with Green Day including "Best Rock Album" in 2004 and in 2005, "Record of the Year" for Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Overall he's won six Grammys, an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and produced or or been involved [...]
I suppose it was sparked by a desire to establish a defensive position; when yet another CD arrived in the mailbox to be added to the thousands already crowding the office-turned-music room, I felt compelled to justify the acquisition. Do I really listen to all of this stuff, or, as I feared, do I limit myself to a spin or two of a new disc before filing it (alphabetically, of course) on the shelf? So, on Aug. 1, I decided to start keeping track of every full album I spun. Because this was my obsession, I made the [...]
With the exception of perhaps Rob Crow, Spencer Krug is almost a shoe-in for the inaugural Pitchfork-backed 'Mr Prolific Indie Rock of the Decade'; while the perceived day job he holds down may well be as co-frontman of Wolf Parade, the busy Canuck also finds time for Frog Eyes, Swan Lake, and not least, Sunset Rubdown, who sound less like a side project by the day. Album number four for Sunset, Dragonslayer , takes off where predecessor Random Spirit Lover left off - awash with swashbuckling and elaborate instrumentation, chiming with giddy orchestration, and [...]
Beck: Summer Tapes No. 7: Summer Tapes by planned_obsolescence Beck gets all Girl Talk on us.. Enjoy his Summer Mix Colleen- Summer Water Jens Lekman- Another Sweet Summer's Night On Hammer Hill Lee Hazlewood- Summer Nights Al Green- Feels Like Summer Love- Bummer In The Summer Brave Belt- Summer Soldier Marc Bolan & T Rex- Celebrate Summer Eddie Cochran- Summertime Blues The Who- Summertime Blues Guitar Wolf- Summertime Blues Outsiders- Summertime Blues Blue Cheer- Summertime Blues Alex Chilton- Summertime [...]
Well... It's that time of year again. The 2009 Americana Music Association's Awards and Honors Show will be held September 17 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The event is part of the Americana Music Festival and Conference taking place September 16tn - 19th in Nashville. As I did last year ... I'll be taking a look at most of the awards categories and trying to handicap the field. We start today with the nominees for "Best New & Emerging Artist." First up is a [...]
More than three years after the platinum-selling 'Fires' , Nerina Pallot has shaken up her sound, shrugged off the spectre of singer/songwriter and produced an album of clever, classy pop. 'The Graduate' has piano-driven songs high on happy pills, woozy electronics and beefed up bass. Where guitars would once have swooned, now they swagger and there is a new-found feistiness to Pallot's emotive vocals. Occasionally, the Brit and Ivor Novello -nominated singer strays so far from the haunting sound of her [...]
Cover That Don't Suck
Reuse Recycle Remix - February 8
This Week's Other Releases
the replacements’ sire era demos
