The room was quite full by 9:00pm when These United States began to play, but the floor in front of the stage was still largely unoccupied. The few who hugged the mangy, stained carpet which wraps over the stage-front were the true fans. Those who insisted on trying to talk to the band between every song and every time bassist Anna Morsett crouched down to have a sip of beer. But These United States ate it up; they fed off...

Maybe more than any other band in history, The Dandy Warhols have personified the theory (most often upheld by cooler-than-thou hipster/scenester trash) that indie rock bands are at their best when they're the private pleasure of a small group of people. Anyone who questions the legitimacy of that statement need only look at the band's history for proof; with two good albums already under their belt (Dandys Rule OK and Come Down), The Dandy Warhols blew up on the strength...

The problem with remix albums is that, for all the promise and star power they usually have, they very, very regularly come up short because they're unable to establish a consistent vibe or sensation for listeners. It's ironic, of course, because all of the songs on such albums began life as the work of one artist, but all the fingers which touch a remix album diffuse, obscure or otherwise sully the point. Such are exactly the sorts of problems which...

Twenty-one years since the release of their debut album, Leisure, in 1991 and due to popular demand, Blur's body of work has been personally compiled by the band and gathered together in one box, due for release by Parlophone on 30th July 2012 (31st July in North America). All seven studio albums are collected with over 5½ hours of unreleased material including 65 previously unreleased tracks and more than twice as many rarities, 3 DVDs, a collector's edition book featuring rare...

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The time is growing ever-nearer – soon Record Store Day will be upon us. Since last Ground Control updated readers on what goods would be made available on everyone's favorite holiday (well, most everyone on the Ground Control masthead, anyway), a few news releases have come down the wire outlining a few new releases but, now, Warner Brothers Records has announced MORE releases coming from them. Without crutching too much...

Heya junkie,So here we are again, right back where we ben, right? I know, I know – that prolly sounds pretty static an' non-discript, don' it? I'm yer Don Loder right? The big loud mouth hustla. Well'is week, I ain't gonna lie to ya junkie, my bag o' SWAG is heavy, but there ain't no rhyme or reason to it – i's a real mixed bagga dope cut wit' some hip hop, some rock, some punk, some alt-country an' god...

There is something perfectly seductive about a stolen moment. The occurrences of unforeseeable events – like when a ballerina wavers on toe during a performance of Swan Lake or a guitarist breaks a string live onstage right before a big solo and has to get creative in order to cover, for example – have the potential to be perfectly disastrous. Moments like that could grind the whole show to a halt and see it spontaneously liquify into a formless mess,...

In addition to this morning's announcement of The Flaming Lips headlining at Yonge-Dundas Square on Saturday June 16 (presented by AOL Canada), NORTH BY NORTHEAST (NXNE) is now thrilled to announce the next wave of programming for the 18th edition of the festival, taking over Toronto June 11-17, 2012. Tickets are now available online at www.nxne.com/tickets. NXNE Music has confirmed that Bad Religion, Raekwon & Ghostface Killah and Matthew Good will headline free shows at Yonge-Dundas Square (YDS) throughout the...

While the festival has managed to present a tradition of impressive growth since beginning its annual showcase in 1994, the North By Northeast music conference truly hit on something remarkable in 2011. Featuring sets by such lauded names as Devo, OFF!, Fucked Up and Descendents, 2011 was an awesome spectacle which truly did exceed the expectations set the previous year (which featured Pavement, The Stooges and Broken Social Scene among others), one announcement made on April 17, 2012 guarantees that...