Of late, hip-hop supergroups have fared better than their rock counterparts. C’mon–Madvillain? Handsome Boy Modeling School? Incredible stuff, especially in comparison to Velvet Revolver. Now let’s add Dangerdoom to that distinguished list. A collaboration between it-producer Danger Mouse and Madvillain rhymer MF Doom, The Mouse and the Mask goes high-concept…
Tristan Bechet and Christopher Pravdica, veterans of New York’s Flux Information Society, one of the city’s seminal techno bands, regrouped as Services to mix a little more rock in with all of the computers. Using a cut-and-paste editing technique clearly imitative of Zappa, the pair piece together tape loops and…
Despite logistical and personnel complications, local legends El Gato nailed a rare Thursday night appearance so well that it reinforced questions of why the formerly Denton-based band wasn’t headlining a Saturday show instead. It shouldn’t have been this good–band manager Kirk Dixon replaced longtime bassist/keyboardist Evan Hisey not too long…
Leave it to Snoop Dogg of all people to put Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale in his place. “I realized I had gotten entirely away from my minimalist background,” the 63-year old Welshman says. However, the inspiration he drew from “Drop It Like It’s Hot” wasn’t Snoop’s rapping, but Pharrell…
There is a joke to be made about Liz Phair performing on Halloween. The woman is a little scary, whether swinging her sexuality like a pair of nunchucks or making a second-act grab for mainstream success. A Liz Phair show on the 31st is also scary because, as a performer,…
For Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino, agreeing to collaborate with Sam Beam of Iron and Wine was a no-brainer. It’s an indie dream come true, a fantasy mating of Beam’s sepia-toned Southern folk with the instumental fireworks of Calexico’s widescreen technicolor West. Logistical hassles delayed the project, with both…
n 2005, Erika Wennerstrom saved South by Southwest. Thanks to record-setting attendance, most of the Austin music fest’s big-name shows were reduced to laminate-only status, leaving real music fans in the cold…that is, until Wennerstrom’s Heartless Bastards snuck in with a ’70s rock blast that any casual fan could attend–and…
“I just don’t see the point of being in a rock band,” New Jersey’s John Murphy says. “I love rock. I was raised on rock. But especially now that there’s so many bands, it’s just been reduced to an effort of ego; to ‘Let me tell you how I feel.’…
Rhode Island’s Lightning Bolt approached 2003’s Wonderful Rainbow like two ski-masked horsemen of the Apocalypse, frenzied metal-punk harriers hellbent on the merciless ravaging of all available eardrums. Allied in studio-annihilating forward thrust, Brian Chippendale’s meth-freak drums and Brian Gibson’s amazingly versatile bass were calibrated to reduce listeners’ inhibitions (and brains)…
These are the Earlies: A band that began with four men tinkering with samples and strange compositions in bedrooms, studios and e-mail songwriting swaps has become a British sensation. More than 20,000 copies of These Were The Earlies, their 679 Records debut, have sold overseas. The group has nabbed rave…
Back From the Dead Rigor Mortis were once “Condemned to Hell”–and irrelevance–but the Dallas metal legends have risen By 1991, Rigor Mortis was through. The Dallas band didn’t just part ways–after signing with Capitol Records only five years before, they were booted off the popular music radar, along with most…
On Saturday, I was supposed to attend the Dallas Observer’s 25th Anniversary/Best of Dallas extravaganza. It was one of those invite-only, chic-attire things with martinis, hors d’oeuvres, fancy outfits and so on. Not my bag, really–I’m still not sure how to even pronounce the word chic–but I heard there would…
Call a band’s style of music “freak-folk” for long enough, and eventually they’ll get tired of it. That’s the lesson to take from Animal Collective’s Feels, an album that sees the New York quartet not only excising the acoustic elements that dominated last year’s Sung Tongs but also reaching a…
Marah used to be an easy band to fall in love with. Their first two albums were shambling folk rock masterpieces held together with duct tape and bubble gum, and their sweaty live shows were equally legendary. But the Philly band took a Brit-pop-inspired turn for the worse with 2002’s…
As the Silver Jews’ poet in residence, Dave Berman has always been a master at wrestling the humor out of melancholy. Uncommonly literate, his take on the usual indie rock themes of anomie, loneliness and longing was especially unusual insofar as Berman constantly seemed to be making fun of his…
In a dream world, John Dufilho’s first “solo” album would be hailed by the major music media as a “return to form” for the songwriter behind the Deathray Davies and I Love Math. Rolling Stone and Spin would dedicate full pages of their October issues to the release, recapping the…
Slug (aka Sean Daley) is the focal point of this Minneapolis hip-hop collective, dispensing his unique version of street wisdom and male bravado. Genuinely old school, Slug is definitely influenced by prime early rap movers such as Ice-T and Ice Cube. His anti-drug “Panic Attack” is a first cousin to…
“Looks like Sting, sings like Bing” was how SCTV ribbed Billy Idol in the early 1980s when his punk-goes-pop rise to MTV fame stoked much derision. In the ’90s, he tumbled into self-parody thanks to his debauched romps through the L.A. party scene and highly publicized overdoses. But contrary to…
Amy Rigby’s 1996 solo debut, Diary of a Mod Housewife, was an acclaimed assimilation of pop, country and folk. Rigby’s fifth and most recent effort, Little Fugitive, quickly recorded in two days in New York City, abandons the rural influence, concentrating instead on roughed-up, deliberate pop-rock. Whether it’s a somber-yet-witty…
Someone once wrote me a letter with the words “DEATH METAL” in big, bold caps. It might as well have read “DEATH THREAT,” because I had committed an unforgivable sin by labeling the mighty Opeth a black metal band. This is a capital offense in Gothenburg, Sweden, you see, so…
In 2002, amidst a flurry of ironic, retro-referencing new-new-wave and electoclash offerings, Metro Area (Morgan Geist & Darshan Jesrani) proved to be the era’s exception. Melding the black disco sound of the early ’80s with Detroit techno’s gritty cold futurism and Chicago house’s abstract track modes, they created a true…
Name one, just one. Name one band that truly, actually, seriously sounds like Gang of Four. Plenty have been said to be heirs to their throne, which was abandoned in 1981, more or less, when the original Four dwindled to three, two and then none at all. The names of…
