This was not my first time at the dance. Ages ago, mere weeks into last August, I marveled at the Echo’s tidy ambience as a slew of strange bands paraded across the stage and Annie Clark stomped out a fiery lullaby of smashed guitars and freckles. Now, only a few...
Oxford-based indie-dance-rock band Foals have announced the release of their debut full-length, Antidotes, due out April 8 on the mother of all indie labels, Sub Pop. After meeting up in Oxford, the five gents crowded around 20-year-old Yannis Philippakis and forged on...
In 1975 when Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was performed live, accusations of Peter Gabriel being "pretentious" were the buzz words among prog-rock’s self inflated elitists. I missed that tour—didn't discover Genesis until 1977,...
I've experienced a strange phenomenon at every single Mates of State show I've ever been to: I'm by far one of the oldest people in attendance. Seeing how I haven't been to a show by the duo in two years, I can only assume that this will be far worse...
There is no denying that Siouxsie Sioux is an icon. From her days as a Sex Pistols groupie during the birth of punk rock, to her rise as one of the leaders of the post punk/goth movement with both The Banshees and The Creatures, she has reinvented herself over and...
There’s no denying that Jeff Lynne is a genius. There is also no denying that he rocks the best afro/beard the world has ever seen despite the best efforts of Questlove, that guy from TV on the Radio and Bob Ross. And, when he isn’t out, accidentally...
Throughout this decade, Boris have always been able to outdo themselves musically with each album. They shift, squirm and fight their way out of getting pigeonholed in any way. And just before you say they’re doom or sludge metal or psyche-rock or just plain...
There haven’t been many times in human history that new ideas haven’t been met with resistance. Any philosophy student in any university in the world can (and will) tell you that Socrates was asked to drink hemlock by the governing bodies of the day because...