I remember when we persuaded an insider man to sneak me and couple of girlfriends into a college cafeteria-cum-coffee-shop venue back when I still believed higher education was the ultimate path to enlightenment. The show featured some scruffy Scotsmen, who were actually not scruffy at all but rather dashingly dressed, and had cleverly named themselves after that Archduke of Austria-Este whose assassination in Sarajevo allegedly began WWI. I remember feeling uncomfortable at the surprising site of the jam-packed cafeteria floor,...

It's an odd feeling these days, to stand in the audience of a show at 27 and be part of the younger half of the audience. The high school and college kids—the ones still searching for their identities—are usually the first adopters of new music, and so make up the majority of the audience at indie shows. Don't deny it, it's true. The older fans, the ones with 9am jobs and mortgages and wives or husbands to get home to...

I can’t quite put my finger on it—I don’t know exactly what it is—but for some reason, growing up soaking up Southern Californian sun rays made me very, very musically stubborn; and if labels mean anything to you, I sneered against anything remotely referred to as “Country Western.” Call it coming of age, that inevitable right of passage, call it whatever you like, but I feel as if I’ve gone soft in my old age (I’m 23; hey that’s so...

The title of this article may seem like old news, LCD Sounsystem’s 45:33 has been out nearly for six months on iTunes; however, it will just now be released for the first time on CD and double-vinyl on November 13. What a great example of the current state of the music industry…. 45:33 was originally recorded by James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) as a continuous, album-length disco symphony.  Basically it’s one really long song commissioned by Nike for their Nike +...

What’s a multi-million-dollar industry to do? There’s no way for the record industry to hide it anymore as the loss of many record labels’ revenues have now been thrust squarely into the public eye. Variety recently reported that one of the “big four” record labels, Warner Music Group (Sony BMG, EMI and Universal Music are the other three –ed), reported losses of $27 million, or 19¢ per share, in the three months that ended on March 31, 2007, compared with...

"Retreat! Retreat!" somebody shouted, and followed by several other people. No, it wasn't an order, but it's a song title from 65 Days Of Static, the band from Sheffield, England who made their way to Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco. It's probably 65 Days Of Static's most well-known song, thanks to its air share on MTV2. 65 Days Of Static has been hailed as the new Mogwai with their soft-loud, crescendo sound. What sets them apart from other imitators...

Part 1: The Concert King Crimson, Nov. 30, 1981, somewhere in Seattle. It is, I'll admit, a close call. In competition for the honor are concerts by Bob Dylan, The Who, The Rolling Stones (with Guns 'n' Roses), The Clash, Talking Heads and Iggy Pop. But the King Crimson concert always wins out. It's a combination of an incredible musical experience, and, admittedly, the circumstances surrounding the concert. For those of you unaware, King Crimson, in the early 70's, was...

The single most important construct to the fabric of humanity and the condition of it is the establishment of motivation. ‘Motive’ is the cornerstone for crime, punishment, change, virtue, vice and myriad other human endeavours but, most importantly, defining motives and qualifying motivation means articulating cause for the purpose of allowing others to understand outcomes and effects. Without that understanding—that relatable human element that everyone can find within themselves—people get very nervous. That was the instinct the...

Taiwanese extreme metalists ChthoniC—fresh from a tour of duty with Ozzfest and currently in the midst of their first-ever North American headline shows, which precede a brief tour with Cradle of Filth—have confirmed their first batch of fall European tour dates. For you non-international metalheads, ChthoniC are fresh off the international re-release of 2002s Relentless Recurrence and have been melting faces across America with their unique style of symphonic black metal….(yea, you read that correctly. In fact ChthoniC may...

Spencer Krug, he of Wolf Parade and Frog Eyes and Swan Lake (and, since he is Canadian, may very well be a secret member of Broken Social Scene. I think they all are, even my Canadian cousins from Alberta), is gearing up to release the latest Sunset Rubdown album Random Spirit Lover, out Oct. 9th on Jagjaguwar. Somehow, the man has found time to tour and show off his new pretty baby to North America. He's even hitting Saskatoon! All...