Hey – I got somethin' special for youse, Hey there kiddies! So, like I was sayin' the last time I unloaded a truckload o' SWAG on you, I came up with somethin' a little special for this tenth edition o' the SWAG Report. It's a little...
It has long been contended that some of the best songs ever made tell a story and that is a reasonable assertion, but the truth is that sometimes there's a little more to it than that. Sometimes what really makes a song stick with people is a combination of the...
Every now and again, an urban myth comes true and the living, breathing, panting and screaming release/reissue of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Controversial Negro is proof of that. “Reissue?” you ask, “I thought it was a myth that this album...
By the time the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion even started to think about making Now I Got Worry – what would be their fourth domestically released studio album – they had already tread pretty far from their beginnings as a Pussy Galore-d, pigfuck-ed, dirty...
Hey there you little scavengers o' human decency, So what's goin' on? Whaddaya need this week? I'm feeling a little charitable to you because it's comin' up on summer. You know summer? Not that girl up the street that cuts her bags of China...
Ever been surprised by those moments when a musician takes a significant creative turn that didn't even appear to be on the horizon? It's not uncommon for fans to only be acquainted with a musician through his body of work – that's how artists are...
It's funny how things can change and evolve, and sometimes all it can take is a slightly different perspective to spur it. As a perfect example, just look at twenty-first century punk rock. Over the last few years, the genre has become so institutionalized that...
While Soulfly has been instrumental in seeing metal be infused with a variety of different styles since the band formed in 1997, such stylistic incorporation (including punk rock and hardcore of course, but also elements of different musics native to South America) has...
The surest way to disrupt a comfort zone is to bombard it with outside stimuli and, clearly over the last year or so, that has been precisely the plan for Mark Oliver Everett and the Eels. Following a four-year absence from recording after the release of Blinking...
Maybe it's just the power of suggestion but, while Heart That's Pounding is the singer's first album, it's impossible not to feel like you've heard Sally Seltmann before, somewhere. From the very beginning of “Harmony To My Heartbeat,”...