The fact that Evanescence has only been around for fifteen years is quite surprising. They certainly aren’t a band who churns out albums year after year but they still manage to sustain strong popularity and a devoted base of fans. Having more than twenty million albums sold, seven Grammy nominations and two gilded gramophone trophies certainly helps that cause. Today, with a mere three albums under the band's belt, the mix of ferocious goth-rock guitars, epic, larger-than-life choruses and Amy...
Sometimes the fact that a change is coming to the makeup of pop culture isn't perfectly evident or apparent until the scales become unbalanced and everything is just suddenly different. In moments like that, everyone is simply left to run, catch up and adjust, or simply be left behind to accept that the times have changed and they are simply no longer theirs. Many such events can be found littered through the history of pop music, but none in recent...
Hey junky,Well, I tell ya junky, this week is a little special onna SWAG Report – not only have I gotcha some good, good stuff ta sling yer way, but some of it is even stuff I like; not jus' stuff I can handja. 'At's right – this week, I got some good an' solid stuff bitch! Like check dis out: 'Is week, I got a bit o' dis new band called The Dirty Pearls from jus' downna street 'ere....
A present life worth accounting for makes living in the past a mistake. Entertaining as it can be, I often cringe when a night out is taken up more with conversation about humorous glories-gone-by than any attempt to create some new ones. Apparently, Steve Albini agrees with me until it hurts. Deep into Shellac’s second of two nights at the Bell House in Gowanus, Albini – the guitar wrangler and more acerbic of the band’s two pitchmen – had reached...
After five years and two albums spent trying to streamline its cinematic sound into a form that both audiences and the band itself were comfortable with (the results were entertaining, but very, very mixed), Ohbijou's sound and style have seemed to fall into grace all at once and perfectly on their third LP, Metal Meets. This time, singer Casey Mecija's fluttering, trembling soprano meets the tastefully adorned string section string section which has always been Ohbijou's secret weapon and the...
Awrightcha mooks,So here we go, everybody's back an' we're movin' now. I guess fi' dollar Billy hadda good time gettin' hitched, but I almos' didn' make it back – las' time I got a SWAG Report done, I was onna move cuz, I did somethin' dumb an' almos' got caught fer it. No worries now though, ain't nobody catches Don Loder unaware, an' now I'm back ta spreein' as usual. So dis week, in celebration o' not gettin' caught, I...
A Band Of Bees – "I Really Need Love"https://groundcontrolmag.com/music/SWAG77A_Band_Of_Bees-I_Really_Need_Love.mp3 A Band Of Bees – "Winter Rose"https://groundcontrolmag.com/music/SWAG77A_Band_Of_Bees-Winter_Rose.mp3 And So I Watch From Afar – "Beautiful Universe Master Champion"https://groundcontrolmag.com/music/SWAG77And_So_I_Watch_From_Afar-BEAUTIFUL_UNIVERSE_MASTER_CHAMPION.mp3 And So I Watch From Afar –...
Over the last couple of decades (pretty much since LPs began to lose ground in popularity to cassettes, and then even more so when CDs came along), the process of a band creating an involving “experience” for listeners to enjoy has really fallen from favor. Where once tremendous care and thought were put into album artwork (like the stuff that Storm Thorgerson did for Pink Floyd) and lithographs of lyric sheets, now the act of assembling an album seems terribly...
Over the years, plenty of bands have indulged in mind-expanding substances and their music has duly reflected it with vibes of “methodical otherness” radiating from the results (see Butthole Surfers, 13 th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd and even Queens Of The Stone Age to name a few) which implies that some pharmaceutical weirdness is going on. Such workings have become commonplace in rock at this point, but Captain Nowhere's music is something else again. On Party Time Inc., the band...
In the way of a brief notice:After taking a three-week break (the longest in some of the Ground Control staff's respective careers) for Editor-In-Chief Bill Adams' honeymoon, Ground Control is now once again firing on all cylinders. During the break, Bill drove, ate plenty of bad and greasy food, associated with alligators, Disney characters and Paula Deen. Thanks to the Ground Control writers for keeping the pilot light on in his absence. It was fun, but now we're getting back...