If you were to look at a timeline of the concert reviews I’ve written for Ground Control, you’d easily surmise that I’ve gone into retirement. When my name pops up once on an annual basis for “best album of the year” lists, that’s one thing – but to inspire me to attend a concert again, that takes the epic promise of music that will make me think deep thoughts and stir my soul. Last year it took Opeth to drag...
Quintessential California punk band NOFX celebrate their monumental 30th anniversary by announcing the release of a limited edition deluxe LP collection of every studio album they have released, from 1988’s Liberal Animation through 2012’s Self Entitled on February 19th 2013. This limited edition collection will be available for pre-order today at: www.nofxboxset.com . The must-have collection of only 2500 pressings will include all of NOFX’s studio albums, as well as the 2xLP for the "7 Inch of the Month...
Awright junky,Here we go again, ya reprobates. Yup, da warm glow o' da Christmas season's ova an' my hangover from New Year's has faded a bit, so I'm startin' ta survey the damage. I's a little rough on my end but, lookin' atta amount o' stuff I wis able ta get fer dis first SWAG Report o' da year, I'm bettin' youse are gonna get well pretty quick! Seemed like, everywhere I turned, I had more stuff ta collect an'...
There are few things in the music spectrum more attractive than a band with a really, really melancholy and introspective demeanor who makes lush, beautiful and guitar-driven pop music. Those rock fans who have happened upon such groups have been both cursing and celebrating them for decades; bands like The Smiths, The Cure, The Screaming Trees and The Lemonheads have been baring their broken hearts and bruised souls for years and had it lapped up gratefully by fans – and...
The promotional material for Lady From Shanghai proclaims: "Smash the Hegemony of Dance. Stand still. … Lady From Shanghai is an album of dance music… fixed." That is an apt description of the music on Pere Ubu's fifteenth studio album. It almost sounds like dance music, but good luck trying to dance to it. This has been the essence of Pere Ubu's music for their entire career. It straddles the line between almost normal and completely off-the-wall bizarre. I'm not...
Is it possible for folk music to sound epic? Really, decades of history preclude the possibility of any listener expecting to be hit with an act of fantastic rock grandeur on a folk record but, on his fourth album, From The Top Of Willamette Mountain, singer Joshua James proves that such a record is absolutely possible to find. Not only that, but he can show listeners just how powerful his music can be and win hearts without leaving the “folk”...
About four years ago – when Tom Fun Orchestra released You Will Land With A Thud on the world – they took everyone by complete surprise. Sounding like the score to a Newfoundland kitchen party that Tom Waits crashed, TFO shocked and awed listeners because, as odd as they were, they were also an epic rock band, the likes of which the world had never heard before. Now, four years later, Tom Fun Orchestra has returned with Earthworm Heart and,...
I'm dingin' an' dongin' merrily junky, are you high?Howzat holiday spirit treatin' ya junky? Me? I'm on cloud mothafuckin' nine! I'm swipin' right, I'm swipin' left, I'm swipin' everything that ain't nailed down fer youse junky, howzat grabbin' ya. Dis week too, I'm swipin' whole albums an' EPs fer youse – not jus' individual songs, but dose individual songs I did grab are pretty awesome. Like dis new tune “Santa Is An Asshole” – have you heard...
The funny thing about benefit compilation records is that no matter how good they are, they usually end up being pretty disposable when all is said and done. One look at the history of the phenomenon proves it – sure, that Free Tibet album which came out in the Nineties was good for its moment, but who still owns a copy? What about the one which hoped to raise money to stop abuse against women, Home Alive? Or Sweet Relief?...
Do you remember how it felt the first time you heard Dinosaur Jr.? It felt good and weird all at the same time right? You probably picked up on the band because somebody told you were the greatest band ever to come out of the independent rock underground. You probably liked punk rock at the time, so the idea of checking something like that out sounded good to you. Why not? New music is always good. So you started listening...