Music fans disappointed by a lusterless display of the unbridled genre-mashing they’d assumed implicit in the 21st century–those listeners possessed of an appetite not sated by Pink’s new one, that is–might do well to drop into the Ridglea Theater on Friday night for a glimpse at two outfits actually making…
We’d been in Austin maybe an hour, been at the convention center for less than half that time, when we were approached by two young girls, out of their teens by a few seconds, if that. They looked like just another pair of volunteers, two more of the dozens of…
Forget all that modern-day high-tech jive about the Internet, file-swapping, sampling and digital downloads for a minute. When all is said and done, there is nothing new under the sun, and what sells in rock and roll is the same old threesome: sex, swear words and shock value. Custom, an…
Much mediocre music is the product of dilettantes feigning artistry in order to get laid. This may be truer of bad folk music or indie rock than sorry specimens of other genres, as both subcultures eschew commercialism. So it’s almost a revelation to find a truly unassuming and creative soul…
No one’s really surprised anymore when a pensive singer-songwriter in a button-up shirt (or maybe a lovable old ringer tee) shows up on MTV or in the weekend pages of USA Today, wearing a terribly earnest look on his face and strumming his battered acoustic as though his 401(k) depended…
Ben Kweller stares at the row of posters taped along a wall inside Fort Worth’s Ridglea Theater, six or seven of the same make and model: an oversized reproduction of the cover of his new album, Sha Sha, a close-up of his face with a red toothbrush jammed in his…
The problem was, Josh Rouse was from Nashville. Well, he wasn’t from there, but that’s where he lived then, and where he lives now. And he sang and played guitar, sometimes an acoustic, wrote his own songs, wasn’t in a band. It all added up to a paint-by-numbers portrait that…
If nothing else, the English band Clinic deserves a seat on that upcoming commercial flight into space (you know, the one Lance Bass got denied) for sounding pretty much nothing like Radiohead. No offense to Coldplay and Elbow and South (and Starsailor and Lowgold), but the wide-screen hand-wringing the U.K.’s…
Before there was Norah Jones, garnering A’s and yays in Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, there was Kelly Hogan–the brilliant singer unfettered by genre, the clever interpreter who riffles through the vinyl stacks and claims her discoveries as her own fresh invention. For 12 years she’s toiled in cult anonymity,…
Though complete artistic invention ranks pretty high on my list of potential reasons to like a band–this is where Wings would fit in, for example–a lot of times an effective interpretation of an existing form is good enough to do the trick. Friday night we’ll get two such interpreters at…
Look, it’s like this: I don’t really begrudge these kids their fame, their money, their glory or their Britney. However, it’s completely disturbing to me to turn on MTV (I could actually end this sentence right there) and see ‘N Sync centerpiece Justin Timberlake playing Elton John in a video…
By the time you read this, dear reader, we will be hip-deep in free hooch, assaulting our innards with various stripes and strengths of liquors, doing untold damage to our liver and kidneys and God knows what else for years to come. The hangover will be stupendous though, fortunately, slow…
Look in the used bin of any record store, and you’ll probably find a dusty copy of 1996’s Hee Saw Dhuh Kaet, the first–and might as well be only–record from Jersey City’s once precious Rye Coalition. It’s not a bad record. Well, it wasn’t a bad record when I heard…
No one was really interested in Sarah Shannon anymore. That much was clear to her. The interest ended in 1997, as far as she could tell, when her band, Velocity Girl, splintered apart. When Shannon decided to resume her career as a full-time musician, it wasn’t long before she realized…
There are many milestones on the way to being not-as-young-and-punk-rock-as-you-used-to-be. Turning 21 and being able to go to any show at any bar you want, legally, is kind of bittersweet. Talking to young, on-fire kids, however, is a much bigger reminder of the reality that you’re not as young or…
In the world of collectibles, it’s always the unique that’s the most valuable. Doug Ferguson was a collector. He would drive thousands of miles for the right keyboard. His collection of vintage synthesizers, and his ability to play them, was one-of-a-kind. So it was fitting that his prize Mellotron was…
Green Day and blink-182–who next month begin a joint U.S. tour that will take them into the middle of June–make a good pair onstage in front of screaming fans: Both bands boast three relatively amiable dudes with knacks for three-chord pop-punk more gooey than it seems and soft spots for…
“I was in People magazine, and I’m still busing tables at Stubb’s,” said Damnations singer-bassist-keyboardist Amy Boone as we stood together at an Austin club last spring, being bored to death by J. Mascis and Mike Watt. Grinning, she turned and added, “Isn’t there something wrong with that? I’m not…
Anyone who’s managed to turn on a radio or MTV or leaf through a magazine or a newspaper over the past couple of months won’t have trouble telling you that The Strokes have taken their scuzzy New York City shuffle way beyond the five boroughs, making a coast-to-coast sensation out…
After the fine-lined deluge of technically astute, occasionally bloodless post-rock that commanded the Chicago-based underground-rock scene in the late 1990s, I was beginning to wonder when that city would recultivate its devotion to the shamblingly polluted music that initially brought it attention, back when a young Drag City Records was…
At long last, it’s the world premiere of Rob Zombie’s movie House of 1000 Corpses and…sorry, still a bit premature on that announcement. My apologies–seems Universal’s determined to make you wait a little while longer (like, forever) to catch Rob’s directorial debut. (Which is a damn shame, since we’re all…
There’s been too much of this lately. Doug Ferguson, the musician behind Yeti and Ohm, passed away February 23 after slipping into a diabetic coma. J. Bone Cro, a friend and occasional collaborator, says that Ferguson wasn’t even aware he was diabetic until it was much too late; when Ferguson…
