Music

…and he’s not scared to tell ya. Or so the chorus goes in his new single, “Faleyuh” (like “failure,” not “Fallujah,” the city in Iraq). You’ll notice something funky going on with Pik’s voice here; he calls it “chipmonking,” for obvious reasons. No word yet on if Houston’s “Chopped and…

Before we get too deep into our budding relationship, Dallas—me being your new music editor here at the Observer and all—and before I start telling you guys just how much of a must-see Local Act A is or just how much tighter Local Act B would be if it took…

Fran “DJ Frantic” Erck’s first club gig wasn’t supposed to happen at all. He’d only started spinning records two years earlier, after he’d grown bored of his videogames and after his friend Pat “Phat-1” Johnson had persuaded him to get a secondhand set of turntables. Johnson tried to convince the…

Just months after opening for Interpol during its fall 2007 tour, Liars is back on the road, despite singer/guitarist Angus Andrew’s painful back injury, which has the frontman mostly seated during recent shows. (Andrew says he was just “tidying up” and reaching for a cushion when his back gave out.)…

I go way back with the now ever-present pop-rockin’ guys in the super-clean, Timbaland-tested, mom-approved OneRepublic. I mean, we both rep Colorado Springs, and I’ve spoken to the members a few times over the phone. OK, so we only spoke once. But it was for a cover story on how…

Sheryl Crow used to put out a good bit of songwriting. Looking back at the dates, though, those gems come distinctly from 1996 and 1998. There is no bluesy “Redemption Day,” no solid pop of “The Difficult Kind” and certainly no incredibly soul-baring “Crash and Burn” on her latest scattered…

Perhaps no album of 2007 had a greater sense of place than Bon Iver’s (pronounced “Bohn Eevair”) For Emma, Forever Ago, set for re-issue on Jagjaguwar this week. Recorded by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon over four months in a northwestern Wisconsin hunting cabin, it’s quintessential winter listening (in fact, Bon Iver…

Seattle-based musician Barton Carroll has toured as a member of and also served as an accompanist with Azure Ray, Delorean and Micah P. Hinson. So his bluegrass/alt-country credentials are fairly strong. As a solo singer-songwriter, however, Carroll evokes ’70s archetypes James Taylor, Jim Croce and Cat Stevens, presenting sensitive tales…

The recluse with mental illness has always had a bizarre place in the annals of popular music. Every decade or so a few tortured souls fade in and out of view, retreating to apartments or studios to piece together their peculiar visions, recording their neurosis for others to deconstruct. Clutchy…

Hopefully you’re smart enough to take one look at this lineup and know that you should have acquired your tickets to this thing already. If not, get on it. Chances to see The Paper Chase seem increasingly rare, and the openers—both of whom have recorded with Paper Chase mastermind John…

Rose County Fair, John Pedigo’s post-Slick 57 band, has dropped the rockabilly influence of his previous group but kept the contrasting elements of vintage punk and Americana. “Falcones,” from 2007’s The Overture (and available on its MySpace site), is a good example of the band’s catchy pop leanings, with Pedigo’s…

Bridges and Blinking Lights delivered one of last year’s best local albums in Standing on the Same Stick, a collection of taut, jaunty indie rock reminiscent of Built to Spill, Centro-matic and mid-period Flaming Lips. B&BL guitarist Marc Montoya also pulls double-duty in local folk-Zeppelins Dove Hunter, who—fingers crossed—will deliver…

A few years ago, I was in Mexico and saw Molotov perform in a cockfighting ring in Juarez. The crowd was 90 percent male, a wild combination of metal heads and goths. Loads of leather, makeup and alienation filled the rest of crowd. Molotov, basically a Spanish-language version of Korn…