Let it never be said that hard work doesn't eventually get rewarded. For the last eighteen years, Israeli punks Useless ID have released albums and toured at a tireless rate and built a devoted fanbase (among which Jello Biafra numbers himself) which each successive move they've made. There's no doubt it must have been a hard road for the band (UI is often referred to as Israel's most successful punk band – but doesn't mean the amount of exposure they've...
While it's true that rock history sports no shortage of great but widely overlooked or underrated bands (the 1980s proved to be full of them), sometimes it's just impossible to decide how it could have happened – what averted the public's attention so completely – that a fantastic record passed through completely unnoticed. Like, in 2002, what was going on that The Blank Fight's only album got overlooked? That particular year – while mainstream audiences were justifiably diverted from the...
After so many years of Van Halen actively holding the possibility of a reunion with David Lee Roth in front of fans like a carrot only to pull it away when it looked like they might get excited, can anyone blame those spurned supporters for not wanting to play along anymore? In the last sixteen years, Roth has passed through the “frontman” position with a facility akin to both entering and exiting a revolving door, but hasn't actually accomplished much...
Awright Junky, Yeahyeahyeah, I know whatcher thinkin'. My bag o' SWAG is a little lighta dis week right? Yeah, I heardja, but ya know what? What I missed out in quantity, I made up for in quality – le's get inta da SWAG Report. Once agin dis week, I nabbed a tune dat both ol' fi' dollar Billy an' me c'n agree on, annit's da las' one onn'is list, so le's start d'ere. I nabbed da secon' song onna new...
Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, has entered into a historic new record deal with American legend and innovator Willie Nelson. The deal marks a label homecoming for Nelson, who, from 1975-1993, cut a phenomenal string of top-selling singles and albums for Columbia Records, beginning with 1975's seminal smash Red Headed Stranger. Forthcoming Willie Nelson titles under the Legacy imprint will include newly recorded songs and performances as well as archival releases, personally curated by the artist,...
It’s difficult to judge Lana Del Rey’s record without addressing the media hype that has surrounded her for the past six months. If you haven't heard, just type her name into Google; you’ll find blogger backlash about her image change, a highly criticized performance on Saturday Night Live and, in popular opinion, a general lack of talent – but the truth is that Del Rey is not untalented. Her singing is good (not great), she’s attractive and has style; the...
If there’s a canon of musicians who craft music driven by experimentations in sound – Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, Tune-Yards – it would only make sense to add Gotye to that list. Gotye (pronounced “gore-ti-yeah,” or “Gaultier,” as in the fashion designer Jean Paul) is the moniker of Wally De Backer, the Belgian-born Australian musician who also plays in the Melbourne-based band The Basics. While Gotye has released two albums in Australia, including 2006’s Like Drawing Blood, he’s...
It has never been analyzed too deeply before, but the fact is that all of the great collaborative rock bands and albums start out as loose, fun affairs which only become serious later – after the players who came together to contribute to the project discovered they might just be onto something. For perfect examples of such artistic development-on-the-fly, one could look at the albums that The Travelling Wilburys made or (more recently) the album that Fred Squire, Julie Doiron...
As has been the case every other time Leonard Cohen has released a new album since 1969, the first question which really begs asking when one examines Old Ideas is how much rhetoric inspired it, how much rhetoric was required to produce it, how much wry wit has been laced into it and how many perfectly polished double entendres fuel it. These are the thoughts that seasoned fans will have before they hear one note of music. Before they hear...
Now about eighteen years after bands like Green Day, NOFX and Rancid broke through into the mainstream, punk rock has changed in some most peculiar ways. After the great renaissance happened in 1994, it didn't take long for other young, hopeful bands to formalize punk rock (see the results in Blink 182 and all of the side projects from that band, Sum 41, MxPx, Simple Plan and We The Kings, and that's just for starters – there are more) and...