Hot off an eventful 2007, Syracuse, NY’s Ra Ra Riot hits the road for twelve dates around the East Coast and Midwest. Their self-titled debut EP got them much-deserved hype and helped them get on tours with bands like Tokyo Police Club, Editors and Art Brut. The...
It’s really hard to say, but I’ve never become a fan of a band after they messaged me on MySpace beckoning me to “check them out.” I do, however, give most of them a chance because, well, you never know. This isn’t exactly how it happened...
Whether you referred to the current waning year as the year of the pig or simply as 2007, it was my year of Minipop. I first saw the dreamy indie pop four-piece when they opened for faux-French rockers Nous Non Plus at Cafe du Nord back in May. I bought Minipop's...
"It'll never work in theory, but it works in practice," is how the saying goes and, truly, no record released recently exemplifies that principle better than Raine Maida's solo debut. Other than Maida's own vocals, there's not a solitary thing...
I was convinced, in a complete and irreversible way, that Soulja Boy was the pinnacle of all musical recordings to date. I mean, seriously, who would have expected that someone could top such a useful and poignant (in a very post-911 world kind of way) phrase as...
In my first couple of columns here I described the opening of my own musical mind, when I moved from the punk rock of New England to the jam bands of the Mountain West. Looking back I can easily see how narrow my taste had become, and how being forced to listen to...
After watching the “Planet Earth” series on the Discovery Channel, I get the same feeling of bewilderment and awe as I do when I watch Sigur Ros’ first-ever live DVD, Heima. Although, instead of hearing Sigourney Weaver describe never-before-seen...
Check out this photoseries of Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks as they performed at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on 12.19.07. More on Stephen Malkmus here: www.stephenmalkmus.com Download "Baltimore" –...
Having come up through the indie rock tape-trading age synonymous with the 1980s and '90s, does it come as a surprise to anyone that Weezer was an avid home demo-makin' band? Anyone familiar with the band's unparalleled geekitude shouldn't be surprised,...
As idiosyncrasies go, few musicians can be topped by Rufus Wainwright; particularly now that the singer's adoration for Judy Garland has led him to recreate Garland's famous 1961 performance in every possible way from the set list employed to the venue in which...