In the days before “pop” was a dirty word, the music was funky, unpolished and not at all dumbed-down. The songs were so exciting, they could make you dance with wild abandon, and sing along euphorically, never caring who was in earshot. Everybody Else (named for a Kinks B-side) have created a record of just these tunes. With twelve back-to-back gems, Everybody Else’s self-titled debut is an album so refreshingly un-jaded it will leave you wondering why anyone would ever...

DJ John Digweed and dance rock outfit MSTRKRFT will team up for the first Diamonds 07 tour this spring. The trek begins March in Portland, OR, and will run through March 31 in New York. It will also visit the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas (March 16) and Miami's Winter Music Conference (March 20). "We are always in search of the best party possible and this is probably about as close as you can get," says MSTRKRFT's Jesse...

Having toured last year with his A Tribe Called Quest mates for the first time since 2000, Q-Tip is back on the solo beat. The Universal Motown artist is gearing up for the spring release of The Renaissance. Q-Tip put together a hip-hop band for project, but, according to the New York-based rapper, it's not a band simply in the sense of everyone just playing an instrument. "I wanted a hip-hop sonic feel, something pure to the sound of hip-hop...

Bjork has worked with a typically eclectic crew of collaborators on her next album, due in late spring via Atlantic. According to a post on the artist’s website, the as-yet-untitled album features two tracks produced by Timbaland and another two featuring vocals by Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. Additional guest appearances have been turned in by Toumani Diabate on kora, Konono No. 1 on electric thumb piano and drumming from Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale. “This record is a...

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are moving forward with a documentary film and live album from the quartet’s Freedom of Speech ‘06 North American tour, both of which are expected to be released this year. David Crosby tells Billboard.com that Neil Young is currently working on the film amidst his other well-chronicled archival projects that are due out this year, while all four are listening to show tapes for the CD. The documentary, he says, will be more ambitious than...

Every once in a while a band comes around that no one’s ever heard with a collection of songs that should be called “Greatest Hits,” but can’t considering, well, technically there are no hits. So you can go the “An Introduction to” route, but that seems to work better for Nick Drake and Shuggie Otis. For Stockholm’s cerebral rockers Audionom, Retrospektiv seems like an appropriate album title as nothing this band does can really be explained in one Virgin Megastore-friendly...

Walking into the Comets on Fire pre-Christmas bash at 12 Galaxies in SF’s Mission District, there’s a slight, although not overwhelming, feel of camaraderie. Here were the boys of the hometown sort, who had muddied their way up from the coast located at the bottom of the Santa Cruz mountains just a few years ago and were now making highly visible, highly praised cosmic dirt rock. Maybe not for the masses, but for a big enough selection of underground rock...

Honeycut’s name might ring a bell if you’re a Morning Becomes Eclectic listener, but if you asked anyone who attended the show about Honeycut, they’d most likely refer to them as “The band whose keyboard playing was (expletive) awesome, and beats were (superlative) sick.” And they were. Thank RV Salters’ skill on the keyboard and Tony Sevener handling the beats. But don’t assume that’s all there is to them. As vocalist Bart Davenport mentioned during the set, “This isn’t no...

Axl Rose has not aged gracefully. I was flipping around the television a few weeks ago when the remote landed on Axl’s puffy, pock-marked visage mumbling about “the future of Guns N’ Roses.” First of all, WHAT future of Guns N’ Roses? Axl is the only remaining original member of the supergroup and the fact that he continues to tour under the moniker is a bit like Roger Waters touring as Pink Floyd without even David Gilmour and with poor...

Dat Rosa Mel Apibus, the title of Brooklyn-based White Magic’s anticipated debut long-player, is Latin for “The rose gives honey to the bees.” As singer and pianist Mira Billotte recently explained in an interview with The Village Voice, “To me, the rose is life, the path of life and consciousness, the Creator, and the bees are us. The honey is what we’re looking for, our fulfillment, finding our truth and place.” However, the album’s title functions equally well as a...