Those of us that grew up in the Eighties understand just how bizarre a time it was. While the underground was busy brewing many of the bands that would go on to inspire and influence a staggering amount of the music that would come out through the Nineties and early Millennium , things were very different in the mainstream climate. Some portions of the economic sector enjoyed an unprecedented boom and mainstream culture really reflected that; items looked statuesque and...
It seems bizarre to think this way, but there are a very great few moments when trash culture can have a profound effect and influence on pop culture – even if it's totally impossible to understand why or how it happened. Such was exactly the case with Big Audio Dynamite; somehow in the early Eighties, a ragtag bunch of dispossessed punks and punk supporters ended up making music that would eventually influence not just punk, but Top 40 pop, electronic...
Ever wonder what it would sound like if The Kills got together with The Black Keys and did one enormous, bluesy rave-up? Probably not (who, other than the biggest music geeks, ever thinks about stuff like that?), but such a question might get more valid consideration if you listen to The Pack a.d.'s third album, We Kill Computers. Stomping out of the gate with a renewed sense of frustration and a petulant desire to get even with everything, We Kill...
Awright youse, So we reached the milestone of five posts full o' ill-gotten SWAG, and nobody's caught up with us yet – nobody's complainin'. Suits me, I can scour the web lookin' for free shit all day! And wouldn't you know? I've got a whole bunch more right now. Now, I know you little miscreants have some anger management issues (it' a bitch isn't it? I'm still in therapy), so I went and I found some metal SWAG for you...
It's funny how a musical style is able to mutate after the initial bloom comes off its' rose. Take the creature that punk rock has become for example. After the first wave of punk bands crested and receded, in smashed hardcore and that made sense – the latter was a distillation of the former – but the music continued to mutate even further; to date, it is possible to find bands crossbreeding even imaginable genre of music (including – but...
Lots of bands say they're committed to working as hard as possible and that they're hungry to break through to a mass audience, but one look at their actual itinerary illustrates that they're still working well inside a leisure industry paradigm; things get accomplished at a rate favoring comfort over deadline adherence and so, while some bands might break on a grand scale, it still usually happens on someone else's terms. Such laissez-faire productivity may suit some bands just fine...
Since 2005, Bruiser has been punishing audiences with their simply complex rock 'n' roll. Over the last few years, a couple lineup changes and a few familial transitions have put these three friends—Clarke Mills (bass), Dan Stock (Guitar, vocals), Chris Balagot (drums)—together to form the final trio. They allowed us into their studio at Uptown Recording—where Stock works as a studio engineer—to see a little behind-the-scenes action into the making of their latest EP, I Sold Hand-Grenades to the Salvation...
Who can say that The Dixie Chicks haven't had a rough run over most of the last decade and keep a straight face? Between the band's surrealist battle with Washington and the Bush administration, diminished record sales (sure – Taking The Long Way went double platinum in the US, but compared with Home – which went six times platinum in the US alone – that result isn't exactly comparable) and other assorted woes both personal and professional, the band's strength...
Sometimes as soon as you read about a record label and the acts associated with it, you're going to get a clue regarding what to expect from any and all output said label will release in the future. Label Fantastic! is the perfect example of such a phenomenon; staffed by Mathias Kom (a.k.a. The mastermind behind The Burning Hell), Chris Adeney (better known as Wax Mannequin), Gillian Manford (Miss Quite Contrary) and Jenny Mitchell (Jenny Omnichord), LF! is an artist-operated...
The day that Nathan Rateliff's In Memory Of Loss showed up on my doorstep, it was with several other packages of albums. It looked innocuous enough, so I didn't pay if much attention; I had other things to do, so it sat for a brief period in my stacks, untouched. One night after I'd already gone through a number of other titles, I took a minute, stopped and relaxed. I didn't intend to review any more CDs that night. Then...