Flipping through a variety of newspapers and reading a wide selection of music rags, I keep coming across reviews of Elliott Smith's posthumous collection, New Moon—each one invariable tagged and dragged by some sort of personal reminiscence. Windswept, rainy memories of car rides with loved ones who later dumped the homely writer for someone with less of a fixation on sad songs. Mid-90s mixtapes where "Biggest Lie" was the last track. Myself, in my jaded worldview, have been reading these...
It seems like more times than not in my life it’s by the seat of my pants that I fly. This night would be no exception, and as a result I’d like to thank everyone involved at the onset. You know who you are, all five or so of you. Thank you. When the Coachella 2007 lineup was announced this year, as chock full of talent as it was, I was quick to put Teddybears up near the top of...
Rumors of Superdrag’s death may have been greatly exaggerated. Or at least intransigent fans of one of Tennessee’s finest purveyors of rock & roll songcraft can pretend as much thanks to last month’s Changin’ Tires on the Road to Ruin, an odds ‘n’ sods retrospective record par excellence. Featuring cuts culled from hard-to-find EP’s, unreleased demo sessions and Superdrag’s most natural habitat—live on stage—Changin’ Tires showcases the talents of John Davis, a songwriter...
Back once again for an evening of kick-ass music and awkward banter, it's Ground Control Radio. Be sure to check it out next Tuesday night at 8pm PST on www.littleradio.com. For now, listen to the podcast and peep the playlist: Ground Control Radio 5/15 Playlist: 1. This Is A Song – The Magic Numbers2. Apartment Story – The National3. Atlantis – Amateurs4. End Of The World – Dog Day5. Seen How Things Are Hard – Elliott Smith6. Dear Confessor –...
Listen up (literally)! Every Tuesday evening at 8pm PST, catch the editors of Ground Control as we spin the latest and greatest music on Ground Control Radio. Broadcast over the internet by our friends at www.littleradio.com, we'll play music, talk about music, invite in our friends and favorite bands to join us for two hours of the stuff that needs to be on your radar. And be sure to check Ground Control the next day to find the playlist and...
At the heart of a good cover pulses synthesis. Requiring more than just fidelity to note, timbre, and technique, a few good covers exceed their predecessors (dare I suggest The Byrds' version of "Hey Mr. Tambourine Man"?) but most re-workings of widely loved and well-crafted songs simply bring about works of faithful, albeit limited, duplications. A good rendering obliges more than just love. In listening to the eclectic collection of songs and songsters on this album I realize that a...
On October 18, 2000, Zack De La Rocha announced that he was leaving Rage Against The Machine. Less than a month later, in a storm of irony that not even Oscar Wilde could have dreamt up, our current president won his first presidential election. Rage had always flown in the face of the Clinton administration, and now an even less desirable political camp would take power easily and entirely un-raged against. As the din quieted from the Rage faithful, the...
Eddie Argos is coincidental. After forming a band, he and his fellow Art Brut members got together and practically ad-libbed their debut sensation, Bang Bang Rock & Roll. “It was nerve-wracking this time around,” exclaims Argos. “We had written all the songs live. I never sat down and wrote words, I just sort of sang things and they became songs. Not doing that was different. We became obsessed with equations and maps as well when we...
Almost a year-and-a-half after releasing the darkly mellow album Makers, Rocky Votolato is heading in a new direction with his soon-to-be-released The Brag and Cuss. He is still the same singer/songwriter whose raw vocals evoke real emotion, but this time he's with a full band and has chosen a sound even closer to his Texas roots. Lyrically, Votolato sticks to storytelling, drawing inspiration from places you would never guess, including the 60's Beat Generation and Transcendentalist philosophers. Thoughtful and artistically...
Just when you thought you’ve outgrown heavy metal, along come a band called Mastodon. Their name alone evokes a primal, prehistoric struggle for survival in a world that can be both dangerous and healing. The growling wails of vocalists Troy Sanders and Brent Hinds appeal to the most ancient parts of the cerebral cortex as you take in music that franticly expresses the struggle of man on a gut level. Mastodon is able to transform their music from calm to...