Though it’s only about 93 miles as the crow flies from Toronto, Ontario, to Rochester, New York, it’s a straight line that runs primarily through Lake Ontario, requiring a drastic detour if you’re going to travel between the two by automobile. You have to head southwest and wrap around the…
You have to like Chris Mills’ songs. You just have to. If for no other reason, you have to like them because he understands that love and hate aren’t separated by much, that people make bad choices that can’t be easily fixed, that life isn’t a series of happy moments…
Tonight’s the night for you playa-haters who think post-punk equals post-important. The Dismemberment Plan, from Washington, D.C., makes rock and roll rooted in guitars and their traditional baggage, but it deviates from the norm via an ever-expanding vocabulary of tricks learned by paying close attention to the lunatic fringe working…
Wanna start a fight? Walk into any alt-minded, college-radio-friendly, independent record store in America during its peak after-school hours and proudly proclaim, “Rivers Cuomo sucks,” and see what happens. You may not incite the throwing of punches or even the pulling of hair, but you’ll definitely be the recipient of…
When is the Smirnoff Music Centre not the Smirnoff Music Centre? No, not when you’re too ‘faced at Edgefest to remember where you are. The correct answer is July 1, when a tour featuring Aaron Carter, his sister Leslie Carter (both siblings of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter) and the A*Teens…
The answer to the question would be Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew, covering the O.S.M. himself, who proclaimed himself as much on The Black Album back when people actually paid retail for Prince bootlegs. Maybe “covering” is too misleading a word, the same way “fucking awful” can be misleading…
If the thought of keeping up with the latest and greatest in underground rock, combing through second-hand record stores until you develop carpal tunnel syndrome, managing the day-to-day operations of a small label, parenting, producing/recording/writing/composing music, reading, writing, living and breathing makes you want to scream enough is enough is…
I’m about to start seriously player-hating on this fool in front of me. It’s two weeks ago, and we’re standing in a tiny stairwell to the left of the stage at Boston’s Roxy nightclub watching Sonic Youth play a show to a couple of thousand appreciative fans, which is more…
A brief explanation: Scene, Heard is accused of overlooking new bands trying to do new things so often, it might as well be part of the job description. While that still isn’t the case, it is an unavoidable fact, as inescapable as the Slop 40 spilling over the edges of…
It could be said that the Japanese have a better understanding of American culture than Americans do. Or, at least, that they’re better at assimilating and restyling our culture. What else could explain the ultra-American, sensational pop music of Japan’s Fantastic Plastic Machine? Fantastic Plastic Machine is, in fact, a…
For his first album in four years, KRS-One was faced with the same dilemma that his contemporaries from hip-hop’s so-called golden age (circa 1987) have had to deal with, to varying degrees of success. Following the major label A&R line that conscious rap is no longer relevant to the rap-buying…
It needs to be said: People who have heard Atom & His Package albums or seen him live and still think he is a no-talent geek, an absolute moron making dumb songs for dweebs, are probably mean to their parents and hate babies. On the other hand, fans of Atom…
If the thought of a “jam band” sends shivers down your spine because it immediately brings to mind the twirling masses that started following Phish after the Grateful Dead stopped touring, then congratulate yourself on being sane. But there’s a slightly new breed of instrumental joy starting to flow out…
Before we go any further, let’s get this out of the way: Actionslacks is a band. Four members are in the group now, there used to be three, and the number of members named Tim Scanlin remains at one. Remember that, and highlight or underline it if necessary. There are…
A few months ago, we hinted that The Adventures of Jet might be permanently grounded, calling it quits, breaking up, however you want to say it. Not true. Yes, the band has taken a break from live appearances, but AOJ is still very much in effect. The proof: A song…
In the Disco Biscuits’ kitchen, beneath the grimy glitterball that’s really a bong, roly-poly Phisheads and dead-headed trance fans take turns cutting the astral rug while scratching each others’ backs, humming a hymn of solidarity that’s like a solar sunspot with a touch of gray. The Pennsylvania-based granola godhead of…
Right about now, the joke’s getting old. That’s the unfortunate reality for Norman Cook, who spent the ’80s as a Housemartin and the ’90s as a household name, famous for bringing big beat to America’s alternative nation and for that horrendous line-dancing scene in that one Freddy Prinze Jr. movie…
It was sometime around 1977, Southern soul singer Millie Jackson recalls, when she realized she had “a reputation that preceded me.” “I was booked to appear on The Merv Griffin Show, and everybody was runnin’ around lookin’ scared,” she remembers. “I came on to sing Merle Haggard’s ‘If You’re Not…
Like DFW Airport is to travel, the ubiquitous ABC Radio Network is an international hub for standardized radio formats. And like DFW Airport, and unbeknownst to the listening public, the ABC Radio Network is based here, quietly nestled in North Dallas. The stations that broadcast from here are syndicated in…
Work with me here for a second. You’re up in the club, listening to the types of things that make clubs get crunk, sort of dancing, spilling your drink, paying too much attention to your shoes, when you suddenly realize you’re bored beyond belief. You’re uncomfortably numbed by one of…
So this band is doing pretty well–looks that way, at least–with everyone expressing high hopes, doing that extra little bit of work that might make all of the difference in the world, pushing, prodding, trying to make it happen. And then, suddenly, disaster strikes. Or does it? The band’s A&R…
From Metropolis to Star Wars, we’ve been tantalized by robots that can walk like us, talk like us, even look like us. Well, it’s 2001: Where are all the robots? Sure, they can weld a car door; so can a unibrowed high school dropout. Worse are the robots at shopping…
