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2008 Rockstar Mayhem Festival (Part 1) - [Live Review]

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:41:58 PST

ARTIST: 2008 Rockstar Mayhem Festival (Part 1) - [Live Review]
feat. Mastodon, Black Tide, Airborne
VENUE: Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA
DATE: 07-23-08
REVIEW BY: Raymond Ahner
PHOTO: Raymond Ahner

I'm not quite ready to say that the Rockstar Mayhem Festival has taken the place of Ozzfest as the premier summer metal festival, but I will say that Sharon and Ozzy need to turn around and take a look at who is running full force behind them, because Rockstar is right on their asses, and seems ready to take over the pole [view more]

The Stills - [Album]

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:26:43 PST

ARTIST: The Stills - [Album]
DATE: 07-20-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams
Sometimes a band that you thought you had pegged will turn around and surprise you by totally reinventing its sound between records (also known as when you weren’t looking) and so, when a new album eventually appears, you’re totally caught off-guard by what you hear. That moment of initial confusion—when that first [view more]

Scarlett Johansson - [Album]

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:11:11 PST

ARTIST: Scarlett Johansson - [Album]
DATE: 07-18-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams
Entertainers of every stripe and discipline are strange breeds of creature. For whatever reason, as soon as an individual gets into one quadrant or another of the arts and makes it in his or her profession, the grass begins to look greener on the other side of the septic tank; actors want to make music, musicians want to star in motion pictures, [view more]

The Paper Cranes - [Album]

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:34:50 PST

ARTIST: The Paper Cranes - [Album]
DATE: 07-18-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams
What is going on out on the west coast of Canada? They boast the healthiest population in the country, are the least polluted and have the most consistent weather, yet still so much of the musical population (beginning with Hot Hot Heat) has an obsession with The Cure. Don’t think it’s true? Check out The Paper [view more]

Dennis Wilson - [Album]

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:41:53 PST

ARTIST: Dennis Wilson - [Album]
DATE: 07-18-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams
The popular theory is that Brian Wilson was the creative drive behind The Beach Boys and it’s true; Brian is the face of the band and his story is the one that most people regard as the definitive one for the rise and fall of the band that popularized the surf pop sound. What most people don’t realize is that Brian [view more]

Billy Idol - [Album]

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:42:39 PST

ARTIST: Billy Idol - [Album]
DATE: 07-18-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams

What a piece of work is Billy Idol. In the late Seventies, there was no arguing that the punk band he fronted, Generation X, was at the bottom of the British punk pile that managed to make it across the ocean. Idol was the embodiment of what Iggy Pop called the “Dum Dum Boy”; he wasn’t the greatest or most [view more]

Beck - [Album]

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:17:08 PST

ARTIST: Beck - [Album]
DATE: 07-16-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams

Sometimes when a producer begins to get legs under him and gets known as an “it” producer, anyone paying attention knows that the paths of the individual in question and a particular musician will cross. It’s a foregone conclusion; they’re destined to work together because they’re cut [view more]

Bound Stems - [Album]

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:45:00 PST

ARTIST: Bound Stems - [Album]
plus free mp3 for 'Happens to Us All Otherwise'
DATE: 07-16-08
REVIEW BY: Mark Ziemke
In 2006, Bound Stems proved to the world that they are more than capable of writing great songs, which they did quite well on their debut LP Appreciation Night. But the soon-to-be-released follow up, The Family Afloat, exists at a different level entirely. Their debut demonstrated how well they infused [view more]

Un-Broken Social Scene

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:02:34 PST

ARTIST: Un-Broken Social Scene
BSS's Brendan Canning Unifies The Fragmentation
DATE: 07-15-08
WRITER: Bill Adams
There are few things more logistically difficult to sort out than the way that Broken Social Scene works. There’s no reason for that really, other than the fact that there are so many songwriters in the band—so many heads—that it makes bands like The Mekons or Husker Du (which each had three songwriters that [view more]

Butthole Surfers - [Discography Review]

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:35:35 PST

ARTIST: Butthole Surfers - [Discography Review]
An in-depth look into the complete catalog for the Butthole Surfers
DATE: 07-13-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams

The single most important construct to the fabric of humanity and the condition of it is the establishment of motivation. ‘Motive’ is the cornerstone for crime, punishment, change, virtue, vice and myriad other human endeavors but, most importantly, defining motives and qualifying motivation means articulating cause [view more]

Verbally Viewing Various Videos (Q-V) - Vol. 5

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:28:54 PST

ARTIST: Verbally Viewing Various Videos (Q-V) - Vol. 5
'Jerk It' by Thunderheist
DATE: 07-13-08
WRITER: Kamron Ahmed

Oh shit! It’s a triple! Hey kids, Today’s viewing is for a little band called Thunderheist. The only reason you could say that this band is little is from them not being on Wikipedia or iTunes, yet their music and lyrical abilities put their stuff at the top of my list. How on earth I stumbled upon these people I [view more]

An Interview with Tokyo Police Club's Josh Hook

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:09:46 PST

ARTIST: An Interview with Tokyo Police Club's Josh Hook
Creativity Over Commerce - TPC Follows Its Muse at any Cost
DATE: 07-11-08
WRITER: Bill Adams

Doesn’t anyone else marvel at how rare it has become to find a band brave enough to be creative without obsessively keeping an eye on their bottom line at the same time? It has become so rare, in fact, that sometimes when a band first starts, it’s difficult to believe in it. Tokyo Police Club was such a band when its [view more]

Flobots - [Album]

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:11:59 PST

ARTIST: Flobots - [Album]
DATE: 07-10-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams

No matter what type of music you like, it seems like someone’s got something to say. Whether it be about social injustice, political injustice, loss of freedom or a condition that the artist in question deems important, there’s a punk, a rocker, an emcee, a folkie and more lining up to talk about it. There is a [view more]

Calico Horse - [Album]

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:30:44 PST

ARTIST: Calico Horse - [Album]
With 3 mp3s for download
DATE: 07-10-08
REVIEW BY: Ryan Kobane
Southern California has this way of dulling the senses, especially during early July. A toxic mixture of apathy, gloom and Sublime cause most of us to forget that So-Cal music isn’t necessarily meant to be enjoyed with a Corona and a blunt. This is especially true in San Diego, where Calico Horse (formerly The Clock Work Arm) has [view more]

6 Day Riot - [EP]

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:13:37 PST

ARTIST: 6 Day Riot - [EP]
DATE: 07-08-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams

Maybe it’s because the island’s surface area is so small – making a high population density and so very easy to hear and be influenced by the same things – or maybe it’s because any given band’s music has to travel such a great distance to reach foreign ears and so similarly [view more]

Ground Control's 2008 Half-Year Review

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:24:42 PST

ARTIST: Ground Control's 2008 Half-Year Review
With 50+ mp3s for download
DATE: 07-07-08
WRITER: GC Editors
PHOTO: GC

It's hard to believe that 2008 is already half over. The longest day of the year (or the shortest, if you are reading this in the southern hemisphere) has come and gone, and it's pretty much guaranteed that Christmas decorations will start showing up in store windows any day now.

That [view more]

2008 Vans Warped Tour Part 3 - [Live Review]

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:57:02 PST

ARTIST: 2008 Vans Warped Tour Part 3 - [Live Review]
feat. Angels and Airwaves, Pennywise, Horrorpops, Aggrolites
VENUE: Pier 30/32, San Francisco, CA
DATE: 07-07-08
REVIEW BY: Raymond Ahner
PHOTO: Raymond Ahner
This is part three of a three-part series on the 2008 Vans Warped Tour. Part one can be found here and part two can be found here.
[view more]

Goldfinger - [Album]

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:17:55 PST

ARTIST: Goldfinger - [Album]
DATE: 07-06-08
REVIEW BY: Bill Adams

The verdict was out if Goldfinger would ever return. Over the last couple of years in particular, the band members’ business outside of the group saw a tremendous amount of expansion: drummer Darrin Pfieffer became a radio personality and president of a record label, John Feldmann became an activist keeping closer to full-time [view more]

2008 Vans Warped Tour Part 2 - [Live Review]

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:38:37 PST

ARTIST: 2008 Vans Warped Tour Part 2 - [Live Review]
featuring Evergreen Terrace, As I Lay Dying, Family Force 5
VENUE: Pier 30/32, San Francisco, CA
DATE: 07-03-08
REVIEW BY: Raymond Ahner
PHOTO: Raymond Ahner

This is part two of a three-part series on the 2008 Vans Warped Tour. Part one can be found here and part three is coming soon.

Well so far it was shaping up to be a pretty good day. It [view more]

2008 Vans Warped Tour Part 1 - [Live Review]

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:57:10 PST

ARTIST: 2008 Vans Warped Tour Part 1 - [Live Review]
featuring Allura, The Bronx and The Lordz
VENUE: Pier 30/32, San Francisco, CA
DATE: 07-03-08
REVIEW BY: Raymond Ahner
PHOTO: Raymond Ahner

This is part one of a three-part series on the 2008 Vans Warped Tour. Part two can be found here and part three is coming soon.

The punk rock purist in me really wanted to hate the Vans [view more]