A couple of years ago, I attended a wedding where the bridesmaids entered, dancing down the aisle, to Muse's "Resistance." "Really?" I thought. "You're already thinking your marriage is 1984?" But of course they weren't. They were thinking "Love is our resistance!" They were thinking, "What a cool song!" And therein lies the problem with Muse. I had actually never heard of Muse until they were tapped to headline Coachella. I had to ask my younger, hipper friends who this...
Honestly, what's a punk like me doing reviewing an album like this? Shouldn't I be reviewing the new Pig Destroyer record instead? Wait, maybe the punkest thing I could ever do would be to review a folk album. Thinking outside the box and going against the establishment and all that is a punk attribute. Yeah, that's it! Sprinkle a couple of "Oi!"s throughout the review and it will be a perfect fit! Nevermind what I said earlier. No, but seriously....
Remember the first time you heard Tweaker about ten or eleven years ago? It was an unusual time; the Matrix movie trilogy was setting box office records (the series hadn't become disappointing yet), Marilyn Manson was still being called “the God of Fuck” instead of “a pasty. bloated codfish” and “parody of himself,” and bands like Tool and Gorillaz were still holding sway on the charts as they pushed the boundaries of what was permissible in alt-rock. It was pretty...
The excitement started two days ago. Two days ago, the simplest of phrases appeared on the news section of the Eels' official homepage. In fact, while it was the first time the news page on the web site had been updated in a year (to the day), it was so simple and perfectly mundane that even those who scour that particular web site daily might have missed it; the new message was simply “Hi.” Not long after, something else happened;...
Hope began to flicker like a candle last year when The Headstones not only announced a new string of tour dates scattered across Canada, but also recorded “Binthiswayforyears” – the first new song to appear from the band in nine years – and gave it away for free via their website. Was it true? Could it really be that The Headstones were set to try again after so much time away? It certainly seemed so and, after the whirlwind of...
As every musician can tell you, at a certain level it pays to not ask too many questions – eventually it just makes sense to go with what's presented to you and try to not dissect the finer points of the matter too much. Why do things work the way they do? They just do – and no one is complaining because everything is running smoothly, so the best course is not to question and not to wonder. That is...
Oh, what times these are that we're-a-livin' in! What does it take to get a new Blues Explosion record? Maybe it takes simple determination? Maybe it's the simple passing of time? Maybe it's revisiting your entire catalog and then reissuing it which makes you fall in love again? With the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, it might be all of the above. The last time I saw the Blues Explosion was ten years ago. That is not a typo, ten years....
The tone in Judah Bauer's voice would have you believe that everything is just business as usual at the moment. At the beginning of his conversation with Ground Control, the guitarist is almost cavalier as he checks batteries and packs equipment for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's North American tour, but there's no doubt that cavalier attitude is really only a thin veil to diffuse the guitarist's excitement; he's finally going to get the opportunity to cut loose that, playing...
Heya junky,Man, ain't it nice when somebody sees ya workin' hardan' so jus' helps make yer job easier? Somethin' like'at happened ta me the otha day. Ther I was, truckin' through da interwebs an' swipin' everything I could find that wasn't nailed down, when somebody ova at spin sent me my fav'rit kinda care package: da kind I can flip ta youse. See, it's'at tima da year when CMJ is happenin' ova in Manhattan an' SPIN Magazine is givin' away...
Have you ever spoken with someone and just known that they were destined for great things at some point during that conversation? Speaking with Mo Kenney is like that. During Ground Control's conversation with the singer, it quickly became apparent that this young girl from Waverley, NS is the first in a new generation of singer-songwriters. She is soft-spoken but observant in the same way Neko Case was at the beginning of her career, and almost cavalier in her dismissals...