It might not sound like a glowing endorsement at first sight, but look at the following sentence twice and understand the compliment that it's meant to serve: “No band sets out to make an album like Health – The Heavy Blinkers' fifth album.”...
I first saw Raw Geronimo in a packed, hot performance space in Echo Park on my birthday; they were performing on a bill with a friend’s band, Jail Weddings. Some readers might be interested to get that background on how I cam upon the band but, really, it's...
Booker T Jones is the sound of Memphis Soul. Best known for the instrumental hit “Green Onions,” he wrote and, with his band the MGs, played on numerous hits, including many by Otis Redding and Albert King, as well as pretty much anyone who recorded with...
In life – as well as in music – everything is about balance. The entire musical spectrum cannot simply boil down to one idea; sure, the incendiary sparks of excitement which can be found in the best punk records can feel like a new reason to live when...
I have mixed feelings about remixes. (Remixed feelings? Sorry.) While I have certainly heard a number of interesting ones, but too often they seem like a self-indulgent exercise which adds nothing to the original song. I would apply the same criteria for judging...
Lou Reed has gone on the record several times as saying that one of the keystone songwriting principles which informed his writing for the Velvet Underground was Raymond Chndler's writing. With a perfectly understated and almost deadpan tone, Reed will drop lines...
The moments when a band is recording a new studio album can be remarkable, under the right conditions. With the right songs, the right producer or even just the right moment and energy, the music that the band records could end up being the stuff which, years later,...
If there are two bands from the Eighties who compliment each other perfectly, it has to be the Go-Go's and the B-52's. Both are still going strong after thirty-plus year careers, have had numerous hits and are responsible for some of the most recognizable songs...
What exactly is so wrong with cliche that it makes everyone who works in the music business (be they musician, critic, publicist or whatever) cringe when someone acknowledges its presence on a new record? Contrary to popular belief, cliche can be a handy tool in the...
Let it never be said that Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl didn't have a sense of humor. Those who require proof that not everything was so dire in the Nirvana camp in 1993 as it has since been painted will get a perverse little giggle when they see a...