The Constantines have, to date, built a career upon the idea that making solid and enduringly interesting music is possible, even if the only changes made on an album-to-album basis are a series of small alterations that ultimately renovate the face of their music....
After introducing themselves with a couple of songs off of last year’s Red Carpet Massacre, the best synth-pop band to ever grace the planet, Duran Duran, woke even the most casual fans up at the Sleep Train Pavilion on Friday with “Hungry Like The...
I first heard DJ/producer, Osborne, when I got my hands on the oh-so-experimental album from Ghostly International, Idol Tryouts: Ghostly International, Vol. 1. I owned a ton of Ghostly/Spectral 12-inches up to that point, but it was mostly Matthew Dear, Solvent and...
With two EPs under their belt, it was only a matter of time before the ever-touring Canadian foursome Tokyo Police Club officially issued a full-length debut—even if “full-length” means 28 minutes. On Elephant Shell the indie rockers punctuate short...
Do you like The Doors? I don’t. I pretty much hate them. In fact, probably the thing I like the most about them is how mad some people get when you say you don’t like them. Like, really mad. I guess it doesn’t happen as much now that I am older, but...
The landscape of the music industry has been a strange place of late. Even a cursory glance at page three of any issue of Rolling Stone published since the New Year will reveal what looks like an obituary column for high-level record label executives, in-house...
This is the latest installment of the Super Roots series from Osaka, Japan's Boredoms. Super Roots 9 (finally released domestically) features a single 40-minute live recording from Christmas Eve in Japan, 2004. The CD comes in a gatefold format with a 40-page...
In a time when the modern rock show too often comes packaged with pretense and posturing, the Breeders re-emerge to remind us what real rock is. At Slim’s, the crowd—young punks, dudes with Mohawks, girl-girl couples, and a large swath of middle-aged guys...
It’s been about five years since Gossip started to spread like wildfire out of Olympia, WA. People really started to notice when Movement appeared on KRS in 2003; blasting scruffy riffs, hammering drums and a singer with a voice that could make you cry or...
I had been curious about DeVotchKa for a long time. Any band that can take a Theremin, violin, accordion, sousaphone, stand-up bass and a string section and make it all sound like some twisted Slavic love song has got to be worth checking out, right? If a band like...