To say that I was excited about this show would’ve been an understatement. Opeth, a band that I had missed every time that they’ve played San Francisco, were back, and this time they were bringing with them one of my favorite bands, High On Fire, and a band I had been curious about for a long time, Baroness. Adding to my excitement was the fact that it was a Monday evening and I could think of no better way to...
It was about twelve years ago when I first heard the Danielson Famile. I was working as an intern at a major label. The German translation of said label is roughly “jungfrau.” I was always milling through the stacks, looking for something that wasn't completely, soul-suckingly awful. Eventually I made friends in the office with the label rep for Blue Note who eased my pain with some Art Blakey and Dexter Gordon reissues, and I began picking at that guy's...
After a brief freak-out session thinking that I was going to miss the one new band that I’ve wanted to see live, Friendly Fires were scheduled to start at 10:30, not 10, as I’d originally thought. Believe me, this would’ve really pissed me off. And the only thing I could blame would be anyone who attended the Family Force Five show next door at House of Blues because the line for the valet was 10-deep with teens waiting for their...
A couple of years ago, Alecia “Pink” Moore decided that she’d had about all she could take of being a pre-groomed, prefabricated pop tart presented the same way as all the others of that ilk – including Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and the rest of the horde – were presented: as easily consumed and disposable chattle. So she hamstrung herself on purpose with the Tim Armstrong co-written Try This and tripped so hard that her label backed off...
In order to understand what one is listening to when attempting to decode the megalithic assembly that is Jonathan Nelson’s newest effort under the Escape Mechanism moniker, one has to understand what the difference is between a musician and an artist of music. It sounds like it should be the height of differentiating the most miniscule of minutiae, but really the difference is enormous. The musician is bound by the constraints of the structure that any musical instrument implies; as...
Whether it’s intentional or not, some bands can’t seem to help but have a polarizing effect on all listeners with whom their music comes into contact. Whether it’s the combination of sounds that the group chooses to intermingle, the way they put those sounds together or even just the voices and effects used to administer the group’s ideas, listeners are instantly either turned on or put off of a band within seconds of sampling an album. There is no halfway...
Let it never be said that punks aren’t industrious. Since forming in 2002, Winnipeg’s Comeback Kid has managed to break out of nowhere and position themselves among the top bands in the national hierarchy of “Bands That Matter” and, on the strength of just three albums along with an Ironman‘s touring schedule, won themselves a rabid global following. That in and of itself is impressive, but not content to rest on laurels, the band recently embarked upon a most ambitious...
In the last forty years, many groups of musicians have stepped forward boasting that the strains they’re making will “expand your mind” and/or “alter your consciousness” but, for my money, while 13th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Flaming Lips, Mogwai, Apples In Stereo and the dozens of others that have offered to feed your head and expand your mind have their charms, the only true mind-expanding exercise to be had comes from laying back with a dub reggae record...
Some side project bands seem destined to appear. For example, when Kim Deal broke away from The Pixies to get some more of her music heard out from under the watchful eye of Frank Black, it made sense; when James Iha did the same thing a few years ago apart from Smashing Pumpkins, no one was shocked and no one faulted him in the slightest. That Jackson United’s debut long-player has surfaced, however, is quite a shock. Front man/guitarist Chris...
Once every decade or so, a band appears seemingly from nowhere that mixes equal amounts of pop, punk and rock so perfectly – they hit that serene balance so evenly that it doesn’t fit easily under any of the aforementioned tags – that it compels the loudest upholders of each to rush in and try to claim the group as their own. This decade, it’s a band that walks out of the wilds of New Jersey with a quiver full...