Bill Callahan, formerly a.k.a. Smog, a.k.a. , is taking to the highways and byways of America this fall in support of Woke on a Whaleheart, his latest album on Drag City. The tour is his first sans moniker, and will be opened up by renowned acoustic guitarist Sir Richard Bishop. Callahan is a man of few words and deep meaning, so be sure to keep rolling tape as you bootleg the show, just in case he decides to drop a...
Self-proclaimed “Flower Punkers” The Black Lips just announced a new record and a huge-ass tour, beginning the day after their September 11th release of Good Bad Not Evil (Vice). Their 5th album in 4 years, these Atlanta-natives are nothing short of showstoppers when it comes to the stage. You can check out a recent in-store appearance at Amoeba Records here in L.A. and also the video for “Cold Hands” on vicerecords.com. If you need more, well, you’re just going to...
Every generation has a band that is perhaps too complicated to fully comprehend, but once you take a step back and allow the vivid soundscapes to envelop your body and seep into your veins, it begins to make sense. Sigur Ros is one of those bands. Being a fan for years, and having seen them live and actually met Jonsi down in San Diego while we there for the Takk… show, their performance and their very presence is imprinted on...
1993. High school parking lots, headphones, closed bedroom doors—Smashing Pumpkins were everywhere the disaffected youth needed them. Notebooks bore the long, skinny heart logo and guitar teachers taught simple, memorable songs like “Disarm” and “Today” to students begging to impress friends at bon fires. Torsos that once advertised Iron Maiden and Metallica now flaunted Siamese Dream as the new heavy. No need to follow the Pumpkins’ career through the 90s into the 21st century—it’s been told a...
There was nary a distortion pedal in sight. The evening was clean and crisp like a boot camp bunk—except, of course, for Rob Crow's formidable beard. Perhaps it was said beard that needed all the room that The Grove of Anaheim provided. And provide room it did—the venue itself seemed like an attendee, the kind that stands there with arms folded, daring the bands to entertain him. The Little Ones seem like a modern day version of The Monkees—fun and...
I have to be cautious with my wording when I recommend Gogol Bordello to friends. Foremost, I have to make sure they understand the extreme matter-of-fact tone that I use when I say they are undoubtedly the greatest live act currently performing. Certainly, I could understand how my friends might find this hard to believe: how could the world’s greatest live band be so obscure? I must also tiptoe around the discussion of their “genre,” since calling them Gypsy Punk...
Of all the events of my life that have led me to be the audiophile that I am, none was more shaping than a week of summer camp in which my counselor mentioned to me that I should listen to the new Radiohead album, OK Computer. This was mid-July 1997. Since my counselor was infallibly cool, I immediately picked up the album as soon as I got home. I had a small boombox at the time which would purr and...
"It's a contributory factor to epilepsy. It's the biggest destructor in the history of education. It's a jungle cult. It's what the Watusis do to whip up a war. What I see in the discos with people jogging away is just what I've seen in the bush."-Harvey Wood, Director General of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation, on disco (1979) Harvey Wood (who is a square and a racist) speaks of disco disparagingly for the reasons outlined above, and it is the...
I awake to a friendly, apologetic voice of a gal pal asking for forgiveness for her birthday-bash plans that have taken us to a rather rashly hip, hot and sticky London club with a DJ bill tough enough to satisfy any pair of skinny jeans. The venue is three stories full of drunken asymmetrical haircuts and runny eyeliner. It’s a wonder how any brace of dancing shoes manage to stay sane and not get lost in this sweaty, pungent, rock...
A pregnant woman stood stage left amongst a packed Troubadour crowd for Wednesday night’s sold out Tokyo Police Club show. For a few hundred revelers and the potential hipster in the making, tonight would mark the first audio/visual outing of the young group who hail from Newmarket, Ontario, otherwise known as Canada. Just infants in the big scary world that is indie rock, and really their second time stepping into Los Angeles, it was more than likely that the band...