It's been fifteen years now since Sublime singer Bradley Nowell died – just weeks before the band's breakthrough self-titled album was released. Think aout that for a second; think about the series of events and the amount of time between albums. It's entirely possible that there are college graduates walking around now who remember hearing songs like “What I Got,” “Santeria,” “Date Rape” and “Smoke Two Joints” blaring out of their big brothers' while they watched Barney and...
This year when Warped Tour came to Shoreline Amphitheater, it traveling festival brought with it one of the more diverse lineups to showcase at the festival. From the Celtic-flavored street punk of Boston-bred Street Dogs to the fantastic, blood-and-eyeliner exposition of Black Veil Brides to the almost Queen-ish operatic punk of Foxy Shazam and the grinding post-hardcore of A Skylit Drive, Warped did genuinely feature something for everyone this year, and every one of them put it all on the...
Kick the engines over on the welcome wagon, it's official: Urge Overkill is back! Yes, it's true – after a sixteen-year break, one of the best bands ever to swagger out of Chicago has returned to active duty with a new record (Rock & Roll Submarine), a short set of tour dates and a desire to make the world remember what lean, mean and poppy alt-rock sounds like. Sounds great right? It does sound great; but when any band returns...
Holy shit Commodore, we hit sixty-four SWAG Reports! C'n ya believe it junkie? 'At means I been gettin' away wit' dis shit fer almos' two years. Well, not allat close ta two years, ann'ere's nothin' allat special about the number sixty-four either – but it's fun ta say 'Hey Commodore!' so don' hold me up 'cuz I'm onna roll. This week's perty good fer SWAG, if ya wanna know da truth, I took some big bands an' some small bands...
The Vans Warped Tour continues to travel across North America. Back on June 30, Ground Control was invited to check out the fifth stop of the tour in the scorching hot sun of Las Vegas. Throughout the day, it seemed that every artist we interviewed had two things to talk about: 1. The heat and 2. The band Sharks. Originally discovered by Brian Fallon of the Gaslight Anthem, the UK-based four-piece earned high praise backstage at Warped from bands like...
This year’s edition of the Vans Warped Tour features one of the most diverse lineups in the festival’s seventeen-year history. One of the most unique bands included on the tour is the Cincinnati, Ohio-based experimental rock outfit known as Foxy Shazam. Prior to performing a wildly flamboyant set on the West Coast leg of the tour, bassist Daisy and backup vocalist Alex Nauth spoke with Ground Control about their inaugural run with Warped and the plans that they're already developing...
At this point – fourteen years after the original lineup came together in Palm Desert, CA – Queens Of The Stone Age has become an institution. The band itself may laugh at that image and possibility (who would believe that the world at large follows and enthuses over the movements of a bunch of “old transvestites” anyway?), but it's true; in the last fourteen years, QOTSA has amassed a mythos which includes getting matching tattoos to commemorate the worst show...
The recent swell of interest in “Americana” music has proven to be a really interesting and exciting development within the context of pop music because it has signaled a shift in values. Once again, the vacuous nature of the North American Top 40 pop tart has fallen from favor, and interest in well-written songs has returned renewed as bands including The Avett Brothers, The Felice Brothers, Mumford & Sons and Dawes have all broken through. That trend is heartening, but...
The last few years have been both good and strange for Matt Good. Since the release of Avalanche in 2003, the singer's manner has seemed to cool off and become more reflective; no longer hissing about “turning shit into solid gold” through clenched teeth, Good has seemed to start looking outward, if only to catalogue the inequities the singer sees within himself and the desperate unhappiness in him has been reflected in his music. It has been a humbling experience...
Over the last few years, Motorhead singer/bassist Lemmy Kilmister has seemed to have held a vested interest in playing against his image as a black leather-clad, snarling, hard-rocking beast and showing a lighter, campier and loveable side. Making cameo appearances in videos for Danko Jones (in Full Of Regret – alongside Elijah Wood and Selma Blair no less), Airbourne (in the video for “Runnin' Wild”) and as the limo driver in Foo Fighters' “White Limo” video all went a surprisingly...