Enon While Brainiac, which released several records on Touch and Go Records, never inked a deal with a major record label (DreamWorks was reportedly interested during the band’s final days), it was one of several great bands to emerge from Dayton in the early ’90s, alongside Guided by Voices and…
Fu Manchu “Stoner rock,” by any other name, is one of the more appropriate genre appellations to be employed by critics and fans alike since “industrial” in how it quickly suggests sound, attitude, and lifestyle. Think Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, and Nebula — the last featuring three former…
Scene, heard After months of waiting, by him at least, Todd Deatherage’s new five-song CD is now available for purchase at Deatherage’s regular Wednesday gig at Lakewood Bar & Grill. But it’s not the record Deatherage has been waiting to put out. This disc is more or less a stopgap…
Confrontation CampObjects in the Mirror Are Closer than They Appear(Artemis Records) No wonder Chuck D’s all about free music, testifying before Congress about the evils of the RIAA and the benefits of Napster. Sooner or later, the only way Chuck’s gonna get his message to the masses is by giving…
Mark Kozelek Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer(Badman Recording Co. ) Depending on how you count, Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer is the second or third solo outing by Mark Kozelek, the songwriting arm of the Red House Painters. Although the RHP’s Ocean Beach (released in 1995) and Songs for a Blue Guitar…
When people see The Deathray Davies walk on stage for the first time, they might be a little puzzled, taken aback, perhaps, by the number of bodies onstage. After all, no one would expect this local pop-rock ensemble to be a sextet, complete with two guitars, bass, drums, keys, and,…
One afternoon, Brian Transeau received a phone call that would forever change his life, and without exaggeration, the nature of dance music all over the world. Really. “I was making records out of my bedroom in Maryland, never having heard English club music, and came up with [my first album]…
After practically inventing the hip-hop skit (on the landmark 3 Feet High and Rising, released in 1989), then spending the next decade turning it upside down (with a series of the-party’s-over records that few people actually remember), De La Soul had some serious steam to let off. For years–beginning with…
Despite the media attention that has surrounded U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel’s decision to close Napster’s file-sharing system last week, it’s clear that not everyone cares about the case. “Ahhh, I’m not staying around for this shit,” said one employee at the Gypsy Tea Room after learning that…
Elastica The Menace (Atlantic Records) In retrospect, it would have been better if Elastica had never been heard from again, if they disappeared inside a recording studio and didn’t come out until the world didn’t care anymore. Well, they actually did do part of that (save for blood relatives, does…
Kid Chaos Love in the Time of Scurvy (Vile Beat Records) I didn’t know much about Kid Chaos prior to receiving a copy of their new album, Love in the Time of Scurvy. About two or three years ago, I’d seen the band at Rick’s Place in Denton, show No…
The Distillers In 1998, a 19-year-old girl named Brody came to the United States from Melbourne, Australia, and settled in Detroit. Back home, she had played in a punk band called Sourpuss, so she wasted no time in getting together a new group and dubbing it The Distillers. Brody’s new…
Warped Tour 2000 I remember as a little boy, sitting around the fire in my ancestors’ ancestral home, hearing of the mysterious and mystical thing known as the “Warped Tour.” The elders would speak of it only in hushed tones, late at night, and with the house poorly lit. Once,…
Tattoo the Earth Tour When the Tattoo the Earth Tour invades Fair Park this week, 20 of the hardest bands in the land will be on hand, wearing a lot of black clothing (if anything), cursing blue streaks, screaming until they’re hoarse, and ensuring considerable panic and chaos. (In the…
Scene, heard The New Year will perform its first two Texas shows on August 25 at the Gypsy Tea Room and August 26 at Austin’s Mercury. The band–featuring Bedhead’s Matt and Bubba Kadane, Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine), Mike Donofrio (Saturnine), and Legendary Crystal Chandelier’s Peter Schmidt–recently finished recording in Chicago…
The Staggers The Sights, The Sounds, The Fear and The Pain (Haunted Town Records) Remember Riot Squad? Anyone who spent much time at the now-defunct Orbit Room probably does, since they played countless all-ages afternoon gigs there, along with tons of similar shows at the Galaxy Club. Riot Squad was…
The Causey Way For Causey, front man for this semi-eponymously named Florida quintet, getting guitar lessons from David Koresh was like the Flying Nun learning landing maneuvers from Christ himself. Causey once followed Koresh, believing in the same things (primarily that women should do the cooking and cleaning, men the…
Deftones First things first: White Pony, the just-released third album by Sacramento new-metal act the Deftones, does not belong on the shelf next to stuff by Radiohead or Fugazi, despite what Maverick Records or a few overzealous critics may have told you. It’s simply too unrealized and showy and self-consciously…
Duran Duran A few months ago, I–as I’ve done for the past few years–attended the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, spending almost a week as a visitor in a city I once called home. The place that I left doesn’t much resemble the place I returned to in…
Steely Dan no longer exists. Forget about the name, despite what you read in this paper’s music listings; since when did “in print” mean “the truth” anyway? Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are sick to death of the name–ah, if only they had gone with one of their original choices,…
For years, rumors swirled that Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon was intended to serve as a sort-of alternate soundtrack to The Wizard of the Oz. A number of songs fit certain scenes a little too perfectly for some viewers. Though the idea had made the…
When The BellRays’ Let It Blast blares over the speakers in a local hole-in-the-wall record store, the eyes of bored hipsters in the aisles suddenly come aglow. A few whisper urgently to the nearest clerk, “What is that?” The music is unnerving, unreal after years of digitally enhanced sounds–a time-warp…
