Robert Randolph may be the most original artist to erupt from contemporary music since Jimi Hendrix shouldered a white Stratocaster and played left-handed electric rock-and-roll lightning. Randolph’s instrument and style of choice are decidedly different from Hendrix’s; he plays the pedal steel, a guitar long associated with the mournful weep…
These Los Angelenos and their collective obsession with rejiggering folky guitar music–they’re worse than a gang of Seattlites with the collected works of Foghat! I mean, aren’t there better things to do in permanent 75-degree weather than sit inside and glumly strum old acoustic guitars? Apparently not, as we’ll get…
At the end of the beginning, “Little Danny” Lanois got it right. After all his beat-down poetry, after his self-congratulatory accolades, after a welcoming speech in which he kept referring to himself in the third person, the producer of U2 and Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan hit it square in…
Usually, at around noon on the Sunday following the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, we vow never to go again. Usually very quietly, since we can’t speak. Our clothes smell like sweat, liquor and smoke (or: any member of The D4, a rawk-rock!-ROCK highlight of the 2003…
I’ve been going back and forth on One Bedroom, the new album from Chicago’s the Sea and Cake, for weeks now. On one hand it’s the sleekest collection of digitally enhanced pop songs I’ll probably hear this year (unless Liz Phair really makes a go at Avril Lavigne on her…
Those hip-hop enthusiasts (or heads, as they’re often known) left invigorated but not entirely satisfied by the Roots and Cody Chesnutt’s joint appearance at Gypsy Team Room earlier this month should make their way to the same venue Tuesday night for performances by Common and Talib Kweli. Like a more…
Never been too worried about dying at a concert, though we’ve had some close calls. Been knocked to the floor in a pit. Had someone’s wallet chain snag on my nose, also in a pit. Fell into some broken glass, been punched in the face and burned by cigarettes too…
He always said it wouldn’t happen, because it couldn’t happen. Joe Jackson, you see, has never been a nostalgist fond of looking back, because there was always the risk of tripping over an abandoned corpse. The future lay dead ahead, beckoning with the promise of unmade music and unheard magic…
Gaz Coombes, Mick Quinn and Danny Goffey, I’m quickly learning, are three supremely unflappable dudes. We’re sitting in a cozy office inside the Universal Music Group’s gigantor Manhattan headquarters last month while the snow shoots down in angry spasms of white, gathered to talk about Life on Other Planets, the…
“Noooooooo!!!!” Dirtbombs front man Mick Collins hasn’t even heard the whole question, but he’s heard enough: the words “Detroit,” “garage rock” and “scene” in close enough proximity to each other to trigger this scream. “God, noooooooo!!!” Except, out of the mouth of the Dirtbombs’ big-voiced, barrel-chested front man, it’s more…
Says “Featuring Kim Pendleton” on the all-chips-on-the-table cover, and advertising the cameo’s a pretty safe bet; the appearance of the Vibrolux singer, who’s all smoke and no mirrors, promises and delivers something special inside the jewel case. Of course, this ain’t no George-n-Tammy retrofit, no Gram-n-Emmy revival, no John-n-Exene redux…
Hard to fathom that DJ Muggs has already racked up 15 years solid in the game. Kid first appeared back in 1987 on the Colors soundtrack with a Philadelphia-based group named 7A3, then moved forward to build a serious rep for himself as the producer and DJ for L.A.’s stoned…
Not many foreign rap artists find their way to American ears–and even fewer hang around for a decade. But against all odds, Japan’s DJ Krush is closing in on the 10-year mark with his seventh proper album, Shinsou: The Message at the Depth. Krush’s 1994 long-player, Strictly Turntablized, helped put…
Rock has a historically low tolerance for comedy. Sure, the Chili Peppers used to run around with socks on their cocks, but once they started selling records the music took on a more serious tone; “Party on Your Pussy” wouldn’t exactly fit on Californication, ’cause music ain’t supposed to be…
Chan Marshall, known to the rock-and-roll world as Cat Power, is a painfully shy woman with a lot to say. You Are Free, her new album and first since 2001’s bleak The Covers Record, is the least self-assured-sounding self-assured record in ages. “Don’t be in love with the autograph/Just be…
More SXSW overflow, this time from young people convinced that guitars can do more right now than remind old people of their Mitch Ryder records. Like remind them of their Joy Division ones instead! The three Los Angelenos in Moving Units, at Trees on Friday, do more than that, actually:…
Dallas benefits annually from a surfeit of bands hitting town before or after their appearances at Austin’s South by Southwest music-biz bacchanal. On Saturday night, unfortunately, you’ll have to choose between two busy bills happening simultaneously. Head to Gypsy Tea Room if you’re partial to down-and-dirty neo-garage noise: New Zealand’s…
Idol Records, Erv Karwelis’ local CD-releasing concern, commemorates 10 years in the CD-releasing business this year. The actual date? Not sure, and we didn’t bother asking anyone. (Because that’s how we do things; we’re loose cannons, and one of these days, the chief will have our badge.) March 11 is…
It happens exactly three minutes into “Ay Distress,” the first song on No Silver/No Gold, the Baptist Generals’ first album for Sub Pop Records. Singer-songwriter Chris Flemmons wails into the silent night, going out on a high note of sorts: “Cover up the light,” he cries. “You can dream it…
When Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine in a well-publicized bout of musical and personal differences in October 2000, his bandmates Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford didn’t waste any time recruiting former Soundgarden belter Chris Cornell and forming the outfit they’ve unfortunately named Audioslave. They…
If you don’t get it the first time, say it again. Calexico. Still not there? Calexico. Have a friend say it out loud for you, a syllable at a time (that’s what it took for me). Calexico. Get it? One part California, one part Mexico: Calexico! Joey Burns leans back…
Only seen the Roots once, and, frankly, they bored me: too much jam, not enough bread, especially considering their reputation as the saviors of live hip-hop. (Then again, the show was at a House of Blues, where drinks cost more than a house, and they played for what must have…
