With a booming, bluesy voice that can start, stop and pivot on a dime, Bay Area MC/producer Lyrics Born has established himself as one of the most compelling figures in underground hip-hop. But unlike the space-tattered pseudo-Marxists who regularly inhabit the genre’s dungeons, Born understands that listeners pay more attention…
As much Pure Prairie League as Townes Van Zandt, Portland’s Dolorean has spent the last five years finding the pop appeal lurking within the darker backwater of the folk-rock canon. Essentially the vehicle for singer/guitarist Al James, the group recently released Violence in the Snowy Fields, a collection of songs…
I wouldn’t like me if I met me — weird lyrics for sure, coming from a pair of identical twins. Said song, “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” is the first cut off Tegan and Sara Quin’s breakthrough disc, 2004’s So Jealous. Resembling a twenty-something Heart with a serious Strokes crush, the…
The first time he saw the video for “Mr. Brightside,” the latest single by the Killers, Simon LeBon must have felt as if he’d fallen through the looking glass, or maybe the picture tube. Everything about the clip — its ornate setting, elaborate costumes, semi-clad vixens and air of sophisticated…
For such a relatively new band, Monofog has a complicated history. The Fort Collins outfit started in 2001 and quickly kicked up a buzz with its atmospheric, cerebrally aggressive indie rock. In 2003, though, drummer Lucas Rouge moved out of state; three of the remaining members — singer Hayley Helmericks,…
A relative newcomer to the club scene, Zana Mills made her debut behind the decks at Fevah in London just three years ago. Since that time, she has made strides in her career — such as garnering residencies at Toxik UK and Fevah USA — that would have taken most…
During a February 14 interview, John Legend reacts with a knowing chuckle when he’s asked what Valentine’s Day means to him. “It’s a good payday,” he says, “for a guy who’s got a big romantic ballad out.” No doubt. “Ordinary People,” a bare-bones endorsement of taking love slow, is an…
“Booty tuba.” Seamus Kenney, lead singer of North Carolina’s SNMNMNM, is attempting to describe the slithery, oomph-like gulp emitted by his outfit’s unconventional low-end instrument. Most sane bands use a bass guitar, or, in a pinch, a synthesizer, to pump those subterranean frequencies. But instead, SNMNMNM’s Mark Daumen wields a…
Dreaming this vision. I’m lying next to you at home in bed. I wish this were true. Five months away. Getting farther every day. Life on the road! I long to see her face again. War in my head of where I should be. Here on tour or with my…
Once upon a time, the existence of Jennifer Lopez CDs was entirely justified by the photos included with them. Given that she’s now 34 years old and has become one of the most overexposed celebrities to tread the planet’s surface, I figured this would no longer be true — but…
Stereolab’s once-thunderous drone may have decayed into a flimsy echo over the last few years, but that hasn’t hushed Laetitia Sadier. In 2003 the group’s singer released a solo album, Socialisme Ou Barbarie, under the name Monade — and while it deviated from Stereolab only in scale, the project’s homespun…
Bar-stool laments from lovable losers have been the staple of hard-edged honky-tonk since long before George Jones drove his riding mower to the liquor store half-cocked. But in the sure hands of a seasoned troubadour like Rex Hobart, the well-trod themes of cheating, drinking and insanity sound fresh — especially…
It’s not exactly a mystery why Sony is pushing O. After all, Omarion Grandberry’s got a kiddie-soul pedigree (he was in B2K), an acting background (he played Reggie in Fat Albert, a fact he might want to keep to himself) and the sort of look that appeals to teens raised…
Ripping words from music can be as traumatic as mom and dad getting a divorce. Very rarely are lyrics able to stand unaided by their sonic concomitant. Shit, even naked Dylan stinks. So what possessed Aesop Rock to release an EP accompanied by a ninety-page book collecting all the script…
Artists granted legendary status all too often stagnate and slip into self-parody, as if the mounds of accolades and accoutrements of success were the artistic equivalent of Medusa’s gaze. But the Geto Boys have managed to stay fresh, despite years of internal beefs and well-publicized personal struggles. Behind the bluesy,…
The contrasts between Ozzy Osbourne and Morrissey are multitudinous. A few of the most obvious: Morrissey is rock’s most famous abstainer since Ian MacKaye; Ozzy once inhaled pills and groupies like they were oxygen. Morrissey reads Oscar Wilde; Ozzy has problems with a TelePrompTer. Ozzy munches bats; Morrissey thinks meat…
Blame Green Day for refashioning “punk” as a watered-down pop subspecies that tries to elevate the state of suburban tedium into some kind of political outrage — the kind where the only thing being suppressed is the view beyond the big, scary hedge in a well-manicured front yard. Look no…
During the mid-’90s, Jonathan Fire*Eater was marked for big things that never came to fruition, which is the sort of thing that happens to groups that insist on wedging an asterisk into their names. The better part of a decade later, former Fire*Eaters Paul Maroon, Walter Martin and Matt Barrick,…
Anyone silly enough to believe that music journalism is populated exclusively by deep thinkers will be quickly disabused of the notion after thumbing through the Jucifer clip file. Most articles about the combo mention that it sprang from the same Athens, Georgia, scene that produced R.E.M. — an act that…
The story starts like this: Five years ago, two sisters by the names of Adrienne the Anemone and Bethany the Barracuda decide to mix ornate, goth-shaded pop music with puppetry, sign language and a flair for sheer fantasy. Enlisting the aid of drummer Khattie the Katfish, the Austin-based outfit began…
Side projects often have a way of turning around and influencing the bigger bands that spawned them. The New Amsterdams is a prime example: Singer/guitarist Matt Pryor formed the group in 2000 as a vehicle for his more folky, delicate compositions, ones that didn’t quite fit into the emo-pop framework…
Unless you speak fluent Japanese, you’ll only understand about 5 percent of what Guitar Wolf’s frontman is screaming about — a garbled spew of vitriol peppered with smatterings of thickly accented English: “Baby! Baby! Fire Joe! Fuck you! Go! Go! Time machine! 1-2-3! Rock ‘n’ roll! Yeah!” The rest of…
