This week the British Tinnitus Association aims to raise awareness of a condition that affects one in ten people across the UK - and of which musicians, DJs, and music fans are particularly at risk. My ears have always been iffy. Gigs seem to affect me more than they do my friends. Particularly loud shows disorientate me, producing the odd sensation that I am stuck behind a thick sheet of glass, or wandering around like Travolta in his Plastic Bubble . Until about a year ago, after virtually every show I [...]
Last year my friends in Gunner's Daughter released the hard-charging Trust Us When We Tell You EP and I totally didn't write about it. I don't feel bad about it (okay, maybe I do) but I didn't write about a lot of music in 2011. Trust me when I tell you (see what I did there) I'm going to get to more of the really good stuff (like this) shortly. So the EP is available for FREE via Death To False Hope Records so go download it now, then read... [...]
A few nights ago I was driving around downtown Chicago with Ryan (he was actually driving though) and he said something like, "Have you heard the Gooningtons?" I hadn't, so he proceed to play Welcome To Goonington Beach! and blow my mind. He also explained verbally what's documented on this pop punk message board thread . To sum it all up, Ryan recorded 8 Ramones-core songs (written over the span of a few days) in a single afternoon and it's incredible. I have no idea how I missed this (or why no one told me) last year, [...]
With all the high-profile punk reunions of the past few months and years combined with the band's relative obscurity, it would be easy for most to overlook the reunion of Chicago's own August Premier . And that, my friends, would be a bad thing. I'm not really sure of the whole story about the reunion, but August Premier is back and the band has a new record called Happy Miserable due out March 27th on Pacific Ridge Records . More on that in a few... Back in their heyday, August Premier put out an [...]
One year ago for our tenth anniversary, we took a little break . A sabbatical. After six months with nary a peep, we quietly started publishing stuff again. And we've been posting stuff fairly regularly since then. The break was nice. It gave us time to migrate from MovableType to WordPress. We also switched hosts from Hostrocket to Dreamhost. And then switch back to Hostrocket after Dreamhost couldn't power our decade-worth of content with their measly 8MB of PHP memory. Our break also gave us some time to think about why we do this [...]
Or, Why Johnny Can't Spell without Abusing His Caps Lock Very recently mostly-esteemed music critic Chuck Klosterman took aim at tUnE-yArDs and the zeitgeist in general, cranking out an oddly restrained character assassination piece entitled " The Pitfalls of Indie Fame ." The central point of the article, that no one's going to be listening to Tune-yards (I won't be abusing my Shift key, if you don't mind) a year from now, managed to get drowned out by [...]
Filed under: Beats , Queen Of The Night , Yankee Panky Tagged: article , cover , hq , madonna , spread , the advocate
This winter, Colorado's Bad Weather California went out on the road with pals Akron/Family, to promote their upcoming LP. BWC worked with Akron Fam's Seth Olinsky to record the album, and it turns out they will also have a major hand in putting it out by releasing on their own label. In the above clip, Bad Weather California (the "punk band that doesn't sound like one") is seen performing a couple of songs, "If You Can Dance" and "Don & I," during their set last month at Rock and Roll Hotel. These tunes also appear on their [...]
Bro. Stephen is the name that (Stephen) Scott Kirkpatrick records under and (lucky for all of us) he's just released a new album called Baptist Girls which is fucking brilliant, if you like that sort of thing. It was recorded primarily in a converted chicken coop in rural Indiana but you'll find no clucking or crowing here. Really, it's a testament to the strength of Baptist Girls that it is just as good a record for late nights and headphones as it is for a sunny morning buoyed by cups of coffee. [...]
The Deaf Institute, Manchester Like most Mancunians, I'm packed with civic pride. And like a typical gobby Manc, I'll happily spout absurd notions to anyone who'll listen. So, when I say that Manchester is one of the best places in the world to watch live music, I mean it. And, I've got three reasons to back such a wild claim. Firstly, Manchester is big enough to attract almost every touring act. It is rare that a band undertaking even the shortest UK tour doesn't play a show in Manchester. Secondly, the city is small [...]
South by Southwest is many things to many people. For some it's a great way to catch up on bands they wouldn't normally get to see and for others, a place to meet and do business. One part of the conference that I feel gets a bit overlooked is the educational aspect. With a wide variety of music-related panels, workshops and keynotes, I thought it would be good to focus on some of the participants by doing a series of brief interviews. I did something similar with bands a few years ago and it went over very well. As a [...]
My Vinyl Solution is simple: I'm listening to my records. As my collection has grown, I've realized that I've been spending too much time amassing lps, to the point that I have no idea of what I even own. Hence, this column . Asia, Astra So the first thing you may notice if you read my last column post , is that regardless of what kind of writer I am, I clearly don't have a grasp of the alphabet. Or [...]
Stream: Jack White - "Love Interruption" Wurlitzer electric piano, acoustic guitar, then: I want love to roll me over slowly, stick a knife inside me, and twist it all around. I want love to grab my fingers gently, slam them in a doorway, put my face into the ground. And that's how Jack White introduces his debut solo album, Blunderbuss , due April 24 on Third Man Records/XL Recordings/Columbia. Background vocals from Nashville-based, Ghana-born Ruby Amanfu add a creepy, old-timey [...]
Un peu en retard pour poster ce nouveau remix du jeune producteur Canadien, Vakkuum ! Il nous gratifie encore une fois d'une track techno, avec un premier drop assuré par des basses saturées et des percus ajoutant du groove, et le second est plutôt assuré par cette basse plus aigue en répétition sur la même [...]
Howdy folks! This is just a test post so I can properly tweak the new layout. More posts coming very very soon. I promise! If you don't believe me, that's OK, but you should. OK great. Let's get one thing straight (div test) Some text is better than no text at all, right? Yeah, I think that some soft and mellow music would be great. Maybe something from Electric Light Orchestra or Simon & Garfunkel. Just typing nonsense about a prairie dog runing wild across the southern plains of Australia or something like that. [...]
Launching a new column is somewhat daunting, as there's usually a lot to explain. But an editor of mine once told me to just dispense with the disclaimers and jump right in. The readers will figure it out, he felt. And besides, plotting out all the thinking that went into the thing is somewhat presumptuous isn't it? After all, you haven't written shit yet, so laying out a bunch of crap that may or may not come to fruition is like showing people the boxes of parts you've ordered for the rusting hulk in the garage. Just shut up and [...]
Launching a new column is somewhat daunting, as there's usually a lot to explain. But an editor of mine once told me to just dispense with the disclaimers and jump right in. The readers will figure it out, he felt. And besides, plotting out all the thinking that went into the thing is somewhat presumptuous isn't it? After all, you haven't written shit yet, so laying out a bunch of crap that may or may not come to fruition is like showing people the boxes of parts you've ordered for the rusting hulk in the garage. Just shut up and [...]
Stream: The Doors - "She Smells So Nice" Seems crazy that they're still digging up new Doors material, but apparently producer Bruce Botnick discovered this one while preparing the session tapes for L.A. Woman , which is once again being reissued on January 24 . Curious that it didn't turn up when they released the 40th Anniversary remixes in 2007. Regardless, this is the kind of Doors song I really like. Lyrics aren't too silly and the band sounds great. Krieger's blues licks sound perfectly [...]
Stream: The Shins - "Simple Song" from Port of Morrow , due March 20 on Columbia . "I know that things can really get rough when you go it alone." So this is the sound of the Shins after James Mercer ditches his band and dumps Sub Pop for a major label. Sounds a lot like the Shins back when James Mercer had his old band and was still on Sub Pop. It sounds good. Might take you a couple listens to get adjusted [...]
Van Halen. Mark IV. Let me bring you up to speed-since we've entered a new phase of Van Halen-of my schizophrenic relationship with the band's various line-ups. There's the unconditional love of Mark I, the line-up that all others are compared to. There's the boredom and occasional irritation of the Sammy Hagar years, leading up to an embarrassing bit of time with Gary Cherone . And now we have the drama between Eddie Van Halen and Michael Anthony which leads to some pretty interesting alliances between the V.H. faithful, some of [...]
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