Dear readers, I welcome you to our new column here on Ground Control called 777": The New, The Old, and the Out Of Print. The concept is simple: each month we'll review one old, one new, and one OOP record. Sound simple? We thought so, too. In addition to this, we wanted to take the reviews one step further by providing some eye candy and reviewing the package as well, so we'll try to include scans of all the records,...
Now that I had a chance to charge my batteries (both literally and figuratively) I was ready to pick up where I left off. Since I was over at the Old School stage yet again, I decided to stick around and catch the Adolescents, who had put on a great show opening for...
Technology has proven to be a double-edged sword as time wears on and it further encroaches upon the business practices of the music industry. For a band, improvements in recording technology have made it possible to keep costs down to an absolute minimum; record complete albums on an entry-level laptop and digitally distribute it via a web site that the band itself maintains. In some cases, record labels, with their overblown marketing budgets and convenient-for-the-label-only pricing/payment schemes can be removed...
Say what you will about the hipster crowd, but I’ve noticed that they aren’t lacking in the "hot girls on ecstasy" department. This contingent was out in full force and it was the bearded man, A-Trak, they came to see, which is funny considering he went unnoticed as he strolled through the crowd before his set (only to scamper away once I pointed to him for my photographer). Before the dirty hipsters got to see the man that, so often,...
As convenient as it is to believe that every musician in the world – big or small, schooled or not – has absolute control over his or her muse, the fact is that sometimes the muse exerts a will of its own over the musician in question's progress rather than vice versa. There are times when a musician will sit trying to summon the forces that produced great work previously, but they simply will not come and, in cases like...
Australian rock trio, Sick Puppies, have settled in to their sound with their two week old release of their second album, Tri-Polar. It’s a perfect album for the alt-rock fan that is sick of Nickelback-like ballads and craves harder hitting drums and guitar combos. Formed in 1997, Sick Puppies consists of Shimon “Shim” Moore on vocals and guitar, Emma Anzai on bass and drummer Mark Goodwin. Down under, Shim and Emma met in high school and shared a common love...
It's surprising how simultaneously hilarious and accurate the title of the new album by Extra Happy Ghosts!!! is. On the surface, as songs like “J and 3k” and “Mash-Up: Neither Being Nor Nothingness” – with their indie rock-infused love of textural waves, glitchy electronics and early Sebadoh-esque tape designs – build undercurrents beneath singer Matthew Swann, any sort of comparison to the penultimate sunshine band is totally asinine. The squalls of noise, screechy sonics and plinky performances...
In listening to Care Bears On Fire's sophomore long player, it's hard not to feel a sense of (certainly misplaced) paternal pride. Particularly now, in the landslide of ghost-written, saccharine-encrusted pop unloaded on kids by Family Channel-endorsed, neatly-pressed and media savvy kid rock (see Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Demi Levado among others), it's easy to forget that young people have a voice of their own but that it's still often ignored. It can be downright terrifying to think that...
There are a lot of clever turns of phrase that could be used to qualify Party Rock, but in the vernacular most regularly employed by the audience that LMFAO is making a play to entice, “Oh no, they didn't.” Oh no, they didn't give two weak-ass emcees a record contract. Oh no, mic mis-handlers S.K. Gordy and S.A. Gordy didn't bother to learn how to flow before making their debut, beyond cramming as many syllables and as much sixteenth note...
It's the kind of conventional wisdom that every parent teaches their children, but the sort of lesson that needs to be periodically re-learned: don't judge a book by its cover. Or rather, in the case of Andrew W.K. (born Andrew Wilkes-Krier), “Don't judge an artist by the cover of his first record.” Of course, it's very hard not to make (groundless) assumptions based on the cover image of I Get Wet and the story behind that photo; when it came...