When I think of Atlanta, I think “Dirty South.” I think of the word “crunk.” I think of a city that has changed the face of hip-hop and R&B for the past two decades. By breeding such legends as Outkast, Lil’ Jon, Ludacris, Usher, Da Brat, Toni Braxton, TLC, T.I. and Goodie Mobb, the A-T-L has become a stalwart in the lexicon of rap music. To describe this city, my man Jermaine Dupri once said, “big beats hit streets, see...
Things looked grim for those who failed to buy tickets in advance to the Fillmore on Friday night, as people endured the cold air of San Francisco in hopes of finding their way into the venue. The Silversun Pickups had come to town and as expected, sold out the historic concert hall. Inside, those who were lucky enough to get in to see their indie/hipster heroes, watched as The Happy Hollows surprised the crowd with deep ability. Next, Midnight Movies...
The Mars Volta's ever-rotating cast of players settled down for long enough this spring to put together a new album which will hit streets in the zero-eight, January 29th to be exact. Produced by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, The Bedlam in Goliath is a concept album based around a story that was attached to a gift that Rodriguez-Lopez got for co-founder Cedric Bixler-Zavala while traveling. Confused? Well, as usual, the tracklist will do nothing to alleviate that: 1. Aberinkula2. Metatron3. Ilyena4. Wax...
The Start Line’s latest release, Direction, is in stores now and has been receiving rave reviews. Furthermore, the band’s video for the first single “Island” has been added to MTV, and began regular rotation October 22. But these punk-popeteers aren’t happy enough with all that, and have recently announced that they will be embarking on a rather extensive US tour through the end of 2007. The band will be playing with a number of bands including, Paramore, Set Your Goals,...
After releasing a couple of fairly well-received solo records, Peter Walker has now assembled a band of likeminded players, called it Eulogies and released a self-titled album that, like it as not, sounds like little more than the third instalment in Walker’s catalogue; there isn’t a whole lot of difference between Eulogies and Landed and Young Gravity, just the name of the project performing the material. That isn’t a bad thing necessarily—as with his first two releases, Eulogies makes the...
See, it's sort of cool to see one of the new bands from the UK shuck the loosey-goosey dynamics that virtually every band since The Happy Mondays have used as a cover for not being being able to play very well and just play short, tight pop songs. The Fratellis’ set from Brixton Academy showcases the band’s ability to do just that and not bother to pat themselves on the back along the way. Over the 17-song set, the band...
In some cases, a band’s sound is not just the sum of its influences. Sometimes there are more outside stimuli at work when a band comes together and begins writing music and, if one needs an example to illustrate that fact, one need look no further than Bella—a band whose sound will lead listeners to different conclusions than the band initially expected. For the uninitiated, the title of Bella’s Mint Records debut, No One Will Know...
I'm not going to undermine the significance of a band as massively influential and talented as The Libertines, but a 'Best Of' album? I mean c'mon, the band only had two albums of material in the first place… Luckily, I can't maintain this cynicism; The Libertines are just too goddamn catchy. The original hype surrounding these rockers back in 2001 was as apt as can be, and thankfully, the people that put together this compilation know the band's work well,...
Hot off the heels of Easy Tiger, Ryan Adams' second legitimate, albeit questionable stab at mainstream reverence, comes the further perplexing follow-up EP Follow the Lights. If it weren't for the fact that the guy can basically write a sanctified country ballad in his sleep, wake up, not comb his hair, and then drop an absolute gem of spastic rock, no one would even bat an eye at his new sound, direction, girlfriend, etc. But the dichotomy of his genius—superlative...