The thing about Queens Of The Stone Age's music which has always managed to capture and hold listeners' attention is that it is nearly impossible to qualify. Of course, there's no arguing that the band's music falls squarely into the 'rock' idiom but, after Nirvana broke and the Alternative bands from the Seattle and Chicago scenes landed on the pop map, a hard line got drawn between the underground (or “indie”) stream and the mainstream that has proven to be...
The August 12th Queens of the Stone Age/Eagles of Death Metal benefit show for Brian O'Connor in Los Angeles has SOLD OUT! Thank you to everyone for buying a ticket and helping our bassist Brian O'Connor fight this bitch we call cancer. We've set up a few eBay auctions for some extra tickets. All these auctions include: – Meet & greet with Queens of the Stone Age– Meet & greet with Eagles of Death Metal– Two special event posters signed...
Hey there youse, Can I let you in on somethin'? I've started to notice a pattern in how these columns operate – there's a common theme in how the business leaks. Let me tell ya about it… So dere's four weeks in a month right? It's weird, but what I found since I started gracin' you with my weekly presence (and presents!) is that everything always seems to build up and hit a peak every month. It's like a military...
Laurie Anderson is known for her storytelling – for elaborate, album-length cycles of stories – however she seems more concerned with the music than her storytelling on Homeland, her first album in over eight years. There are only three pieces here which could be called narrative, and only one of them “The Beginning of Memory” is a straight forward story. Most of the other pieces would be better described as songs, although the definition is necessarily a broad one. As...
While some records can fade, images live forever and, in Ted Nugent's case, those images are what have always preceded their inevitable soundtrack. Think about it – virtually everybody knows Ted Nugent from television as the NRA-endorsed, gun-toting, wild-eyed Motor City maniac with charisma to burn – even if they've never heard “Cat Scratch Fever” or “Free-For-All.” Likewise, everyone over thirty knows the words “Double Live Gonzo” and “Intensities In 10 Cities” courtesy of...
As any fan can tell you, Judas Priest stands as musically peerless – not just for releasing a succession of genuinely remarkable studio albums, but for being one of the most consistent live bands in metal history. Sure – the studio albums are great and that's one thing but, on stage, Priest has brought its' best game almost every night (with the possible exception of when Tim “Ripper” Owens was fronting the band) for the last four decades and that's...
Some readers will cringe and some will cheer, but there is no mid-point in possible reaction; such is the polar nature of the reactions to Simply Red, and it has been since the band formed out of the ashes of a punk band in 1985 (no joke – singer Mick Hucknall used to front The Frantic Elevators before founding Simply Red) and that disparity is likely to be more accentuated with the release of Songs Of Love. Now, twenty-five years...
I can think of no other band which laid out their musical development from album to album so clearly as Talking Heads. Each Talking Heads album built on what came before, while adding some new element into the mix. Sure, you can watch the Beatles grow from Help to Abbey Road, but that is a much smoother progression, rather than a set of discrete steps. Even David Bowie, that great musical chameleon, is better known for drastic leaps and random...
How does one qualify a record as beautiful? With other art forms, it's easy; a painting can be attractive or not, a theatrical production can capture human truths and faithfully represent them, a dance can be fluid in its' execution and affecting in its' performance – all of those things can be beautiful – but how does recorded music attain that state? The single most effective way for a record to accomplish it is to affect its' audience and tap...
As any heartbroken man can tell you, there's a progression to the ache in a relationship's end after the initial crushing event that is required for the healing process to start. First comes the anger – the man lashes out both at his surroundings and himself as he torments himself with everything that was. It can be ugly and aggressive, but it's necessary; the poison needs to be expelled, and it's only after that expulsion has occurred that, feeling empty...