Heard this called “progressive bluegrass” or some such, and it is, I suppose, if only because the three members of Nickel Creek aren’t one foot in the grave and may eventually cover a song from Beck’s One Foot in the Grave. The group–guitarist Sean Watkins, his sister Sara on fiddle…
This is how www.allmusic.com defines John Doe–“Reflective, Humorous, Earthy, Literate, Earnest, Cathartic”–and, damn it, that pretty much pegs the ex-X-man (and every other denim-and-flannel fellow swinging an acoustic guitar, granted). It fits especially well, though, as he ditches Exene (long a “special guest,” this time without an invite) and beckons…
Nappy Roots was a T-shirt before it was a band, something Big V, Ron Clutch, Scales, R. Prophet, B. Stille and Skinny DeVille sold out of the record shop/recording studio–ET’s Music–they owned and operated just off Western Kentucky University’s Bowling Green campus, the city’s first black-owned record store. (ET’s, by…
Guitar heroes have always been more the province of heavy metal than punk, where the aesthetic of self-conscious primitivism and “loud fast rules” left little room for solos. There are exceptions, of course, and one of them is Rick Sims, the six-string scoundrel who leads his band of hard-rocking desperados,…
After Cannibal Ox released The Cold Vein last year, hip-hop heads began clamoring for more stuff that mixes ambient noise with East Coast rhyming. So all hail the real kings of noise-drenched hip-hop: Dälek. This Newark, New Jersey, outfit has rejuvenated all the jaded, indie-rock, Public Enemy-lovin’ mofos with hard-hitting…
To twist a line from The Usual Suspects: Jay-Z’s biggest trick was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Pretty high degree of difficulty for someone who’s got more names than God–including some (J-Hova and its many variants) that pretty much are names of God–and more fans than Christianity. (Hey, if…
In the future, radio won’t be beamed from rusty old antennae. That’s so analog, so last century. The future, as we all know (so shut up already), is digital, and more and more of it’s being beamed down from space via the satellites floating above us, dangling from invisible threads,…
Red Animal War releases its second full-length album, Black Phantom Crusades, on September 17, and it’s appropriate, if not entirely coincidental, timing. The fifth song on the disc, “When I Get the Feelin’ (Back in My Hands),” directly addresses the aftermath of September 11: “I’m waking up to the sound…
Three tracks in, Clipse introduces listeners to where it comes from: “In Virginia we smirked at the Simpson trial/Yeah, I guess the chase was wild but what’s the fuss about?/See plenty of my partners feeling like O.J./Beat murder like the shit is OK/That’s what our dough say.” When, say, Ja…
“Quick, dude, my hipster cousin and his girlfriend from Brooklyn are coming over to the house in, like, 10 minutes! Hide those Alice in Chains boots and find something cool to put on for when they get here!” You’ve been here before, right? We all have. (Well, not me personally,…
Plenty of DJs claim to “take you on a journey” with their sets, but Jace Clayton, better known as DJ /rupture, is one of the few capable of actually drawing a map. Despite the disjuncture his name implies, /rupture’s eclectic mixes–ranging from militant hip-hop and raga to his own noise-filled…
When Mark Stuart name-drops the Man in Black twice on the opening track, “Monte Carlo,” it makes the Bastards feel less like outlaws and more like a new-country galoot stressing that he always listens to Hank Williams but never sounds anything like him. But once Stuart’s “Monte Carlo” veers out…
The former singer for The Red Rooster Boogie Band isn’t shocked by what’s happened to him and his band in the two short years since they released their debut album. No, as he’s said before, it’s been like a surprise birthday party. He didn’t necessarily expect a party, of course,…
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the latest from good-hearted Oklahoma City psychedelics the Flaming Lips, is the record you’ve been looking for this summer if Signs creeped you out and the new Def Leppard leaves you a little cold–it’s sonically imaginative, structurally adventurous work that doesn’t skimp on the Big…
Don’t you sometimes wonder how many of Beck’s artistic triumphs are more the result of context than ingenuity? That we wouldn’t be nearly as impressed by his raggedy folk songs if they weren’t preceded by Day-Glo disco-pop, or that we wouldn’t consider him the white man’s Prince if we didn’t…
Want to know why I really like Cyndi Lauper? Because no one else does. Come on, guys, haven’t you ever bopped your head to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”? Thought that “True Colors” really captured a mood? Masturbated to “She Bop”? No? Then screw me. I’m a novelty. With stained…
Taken separately, any of the mid-’90s alt-rock dependables working hard for the money on this package tour might draw a respectable crowd and a low level of snickering. But together? It’s like Christmas, and the wise men are aging rockers with a quickly slipping grasp of the zeitgeist. What’s impressive–and…
Let’s hear it for the underappreciated singer-songwriter dudes. Except not really, in John Mayer’s case. This dorm-room heartthrob’s taken a nation of underage Dave Matthews fans by storm, giving jangly guitar-pop a voice that doesn’t necessarily pay homage to R.E.M. and doesn’t necessarily demonstrate any tangible allegiance to the “roots…
When we arrived at the Dallas Observer (not long after we landed in Dallas, period) one of the first albums we were given by the music editor at the time was Room 158, a disc by a band called Fugly. The name was horrible, but the music wasn’t bad. The…
Her reputation as critics’ fave well cemented–she writes gloomy and acerbic, sings scornful and angelic, collaborates with Elvis Costello, sleeps with Michael Penn–Aimee Mann need only break through to people who actually buy CDs (the Magnolia soundtrack excepted, since it had the kind of icky major-label distribution from which she…
The official book on Neko Case has her born in Virginia, growing up all over North America (though staying in Tacoma just long enough to call it home) and leaving that home at 15. Now nearly 32, she still can’t seem to decide where to settle down–Vancouver one minute, Chicago…
If The Willies is any indication, Bill Frisell could probably make “Achy Breaky Heart” sound like a walk in the clouds. Here the rangy jazz guitarist, banjo player (and Bad Liver) Danny Barnes and bassist Keith Lowe revisit the terrain Frisell explored on 1995’s Nashville, spinning a handful of folk…
