On Civilians, Joe Henry has locked into the busted shuffle of the patrons at the Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (as John Hammond did on Wicked Grin and Nathan Wiley on Bottom Dollar Baby) that finds the singer articulating modest hopes, dreams and failures as a survivor of them rather than their chronicler. This time out, Henry doesn’t scale back the production of the album in order to express the corrosion of his characters and observations of them as much as...
If there were any doubts that Sean Lennon was acutely aware of who he is, starting a conversation with him dispels them within seconds. From birth, Lennon’s last name has provided him with a legacy and a lineage assuring him the platform he’d need to be a star at whatever he tried—it just happened to work out that he was also an excellent singer/songwriter—but the double-edged sword of that same name and lineage also functionally ensured that both the man...
After playing their last gig in 1998 and breaking up in 1999, The Jesus & Mary Chain reunited this spring for a handful of high-profile club and festival dates in the U.S. and Europe which began with a triumphant main stage performance in front of an estimated 10,000 fans at Coachella. And now…for those of you living under a rock, The Jesus and Mary Chain have reunited once more with a new song, “All Things Must Pass” being featured on...
Arts & Crafts, the purveyors of all things Canadian, continue to bring more of their countrymen into the fold with the announcement of last week's dual signing of The Stills and the Constantines. The Stills are heading into the studio to record their follow-up to their last album Without Feathers, and are chronicling the recording process on www.thestills.net. Meanwhile, The Constantines are also working on a new album, and have joined the Arts & Crafts fold to release it in...
The night air was full of excitment and danger as the boys from Division Day stopped by Ground Control Radio. In addition to spinning some of their favorite tracks and talking about their forthcoming, long-awaited album Beartrap Island, the band blessed us with some live acoustic renditions of "Beartrap Island" and "Colorguard." In return, we gave them a coloring book. It's more awesome than it sounds. But that's not all. During the course of the show, GC's Mark had a...
When I heard that Flipper was playing in Los Angeles I didn’t think it could be true. When I told my other friends who also grew up listening to this band, they didn’t believe it either. Not much has been heard in Los Angeles from Flipper at all. Ever. They hail from San Francisco and usually headed north, east or even overseas, but rarely just a few hours south. The Music Box theatre isn’t a venue you would expect to...
It's late afternoon in Downtown Los Angeles and I’m high atop a bridge. To my left is a local YMCA and to my right is the Bonaventure hotel, a monstrosity of a building that holds a salon, a gym and a variety of worldly cuisine. It’s also known as the setting for the infamous horse vs. motorcycle chase sequence from the film True Lies. I’m reminded of that by L.A. MC Ivan Ives, a fan of the film who—like the...
There's a certain poppy darkness that weasels its way out of the little corners present in Immaculate Machine's Fables. The band's third proper album (and fifth overall release), Fables' quirky exterior—which could be expected from a band that released an EP entirely in French—and two-and-three part harmonies weave around songs of break-ups, loss and confusion. "Nothing Ever Happens" tells the all-too-familiar tale of being stuck in a small town, while "Old Flame" talks about the changes that...
You may know him as Beirut, you know him as that “gypsy kid”, or you may simply know him as Zach Condon…in any case, Beirut has been creating quite the stir in the independent scene since the release of his 2006 debut, The Gulag Orkestar. It may not be the most accessible music, but for those longing for Eastern European folk, Beirut is the band for you. What is more is that on October 9, 2007 Beirut will release their...