In the strictest sense, Golden Smog wasn’t really a band – not under the conventional definition of the term anyway. Everybody in the group was already in a successful band – Gary Louris and Marc Perlman had Jayhawks, Dan Murphy had Soul Asylum, Kraig Johnson was in Run Westy Run and, of course, Jeff Tweedy was doing either Uncle Tupelo or Wilco depending on the day – so there was no pressure to “make it” because everybody’s bills were already...
Punk rock has been around long enough now (the actual duration and ‘first release’ title varies, but everyone can pretty much agree that the match was struck between thirty and thirty-five years ago) that the genre has had the opportunity to develop a mythos as well as a sort of revisionist history to support the lore. For example, it has been advocated by several of the older lions that the genre got a head of steam under it because the...
After seeing as many shows as I have over the years, it’s still pretty easy to walk away and say that I had a really good time, but it’s another to experience something truly unique as I—along with 3500 Chicagoans—did on this warm Wednesday evening at perhaps the most beautiful venue in the country. During “Festival,” while soaked in a dim yellow light that made Jónsi look like he was standing on a street corner, he turned the volume knob...
Sometimes a band will appear with a record that exhibits sounds considered to be haute mode at that particular moment but comes up lacking by comparison to those bands earning praise. In other words, the band in question is doing exactly the same things and they sound very similar to what`s dominating the airwaves yet, somehow, when passed through this particular group, it incites nothing but cringes. Take, for example, Star Fucking Hipsters; started as the side project for Stza...
I had been told to expect a great live show before I went to see The Hives last night at the Warfield in San Francisco—but no amount of warning could have prepared me for the musical onslaught that I experienced when I got there. There is no doubt that I have never seen a band with as much sheer energy blasting from the stage. It was as if someone had flipped the volume control into overdrive and pushed the fast...
Anyone familiar with The Creepshow’s story has been waiting for a new release with trepidation for the last two years. Upon first appearing, the band set the psychobilly world on fire as singer Jen “Hellcat” Blackwood, bassist Sean “Sickboy” McNab, drummer Matt Gee and keyboardist Reverend McGinty tossed a keg-sized Molotov cocktail into a haunted mausoleum and then started a zombie dance party around the resulting bonfire with the contents of their debut, Sell Your Soul. There was no stopping...
With Between The Lines, the newly re-christened Saint Alvia (formerly Saint Alvia Cartel – the band abbreviated its name with no explanation given but, presumably, they were sick of the anatomical comparisons raised by SAC) has clearly made its next order of business to put some distance between their prior work and their new direction. The band turns its back completely on the aggro-punk bruisers of its debut in the opening seconds of the before/after mash-up “Walk Before You Run...
Hallucinogenic frogs, stray cats, porn stars and Sarah Palin all have something in common: they’re dirty. They are dirty in a unique way, but they won’t get anywhere with it. They’re unorganized. The dirty people of this world need a union and good theme music that’s super sexy. Dirty people of the world, I bring you the Dirt Crew, your one and only savior in the organization of your kind. James Flavour and Break 3000 lead the way for the...
The new album by Bigelf may leave you wondering more than it makes you feel assured that the boys from L.A. know exactly what they are doing. Their first album, Hex, dished out some amazing samples of who their musical influences are (Pink Floyd, ELO, Black Sabbath, Rush) and danced around the edges of being a prog rock-type concept album. Cheat The Gallows actually is a concept album; the message of the songs implies that something on a deeper level...
Even in the interrupted and rough-hewn, needs-first exposition that was Reprieve (the sessions for the album were put on hold as Hurricane Katrina forced the singer to evacuate New Orleans for the comparatively stable climes of upstate New York) it was clear that Ani DiFranco was reaching out to find the elements that would help her re-envision the parameters of her sound. Beneath the chaotic clamor of that collection of songs were the seeds of new ideas forced into stasis...