When Michael Shepard sings, even broken legs sound beautiful. His is a boyish lilt that could float on water. At times, the Lovedrug frontman’s voice quivers like a toddler’s lower lip; at others, it sounds like a daydream becoming a nightmare. Shepard is the entry point to Lovedrug’s pretty, progressive…
Straight outta Belton, Texas, Flyleaf is a teen-angst quintet that aims to inspire through depression. Lead singer Lacey Mosley’s lyrics are rooted in her hardscrabble upbringing and early addiction issues, but rather than simply recap her personal tragedies, she infuses them with upbeat messages. “Fully Alive,” from the band’s self-titled…
Experimental Dental School is the band that would play prom — that is, if the prom was on Mars and the student body was made up of pre-pubescent space aliens. Distilling polished hipster dance rock, the Oakland-based trio filters the likes of Adult. and Mates of State down to simple…
Mobbsters Prodigy and Havoc have a new sugar daddy: 50 Cent, who recently signed them to his G Unit label. Too bad the pros in the relationship are offset by plenty of cons — and not the kind who populate so many Mobb Deep songs. Granted, Mr. Cent’s interest in…
Tell us, Mr. Dolby, how did she blind you with science? Did it hurt? Or maybe your 1983 chart-topping synth-pop hit, “She Blinded Me With Science,” was meant to be understood as a metaphor — where “blinded” really means “bedazzled,” and “science” can be substituted for “her wicked perm and/or…
Dear Palisades, Do you like me? Please check yes or no. I know we don’t know each other very well, but with your bubblegum charm and my awkward posture, I think that we could make a good team. Whenever I listen to your sweet pop melodies, it makes me daydream…
Toby Flowers has spent the past couple of years decimating dance floors across the globe as DJ Demi. Considered by many to be one of the dance scene’s fastest rising stars, the British DJ’s dedication to straight-up house music and his knack for keeping a crowd moving for up to…
The house lights are turned up; the music is fading out. It’s a little before 2 a.m., and a modestly dressed lady is hunched over on a bar stool. Her fist is loosely wrapped around a beer, and she’s arguing with the bartender, who keeps asking her why she punched…
The name Cinematic Underground sounds more like a movement than a band. And for Nathan Johnson, who leads the international twelve-piece ensemble, it is. Last fall, he and nearly a dozen of his friends and family members decided to devote a year of their lives to living communally — first…
One Saturday every June, thousands of people descend on the Golden Triangle for the Westword Music Showcase. For music fans, the Showcase is the most hotly anticipated local-music event all year, every year. And to my continual amazement, that old cliche is eternally applicable: The Showcase just keeps getting bigger…
Junkie XL, born Tom Holkenborg, has remixed tracks for some of the biggest-selling stars in history, including Coldplay and Britney Spears. He’s scored top-selling video games like Forza Motorsport and produced soundtracks for such films as Catwoman and Domino. He appears to be at the top of his game. But…
There is a curse attached to the U.K.’s coveted Mercury Music Prize, commonly referred to as “mercury poisoning.” Previous winners like Roni Size, Talvin Singh and Badly Drawn Boy have been doomed with a steady decline in album sales and label support. Gomez is one of those bands, but it’s…
Erasure’s Union Street, a CD featuring semi-obscure tracks from the veteran synth band’s past as rendered on acoustic instruments, has earned a handful of negative notices — including one printed in these very pages. Last month, reviewer Jason Heller dismissed the disc as a “joke,” ending his assessment with the…
Maybe it’s the seizure that opens the mega-hit “Crazy” — four solid punches of bass drum marking the track’s unyielding tempo — that hints at the precarious character of Gnarls Barkley. The frenzied timbre of that voice rising to the conceit of the chorus’s question: “Does that make me crazy?”…
Last Name: Keenan First Name: Maynard Position You Are Applying For: Jizz Mopper Why You’re a Perfect Fit at Happy Endings Adult Video: I really should just attach a copy of my latest album, 10,000 Days. On this album, I prove to everyone that my band, Tool, is the ultimate…
On “I’m Ready,” an early track from the Twilight Singers’ latest, Greg Dulli serves sex straight up, with a bittersweet chaser. Rather than crooning “I’m ready to love somebody” with bedroom bravado, the ex-Afghan Whigs frontman ups the sleaze factor via just-this-side-of-miserable vocals and a lyrical hint that he wants…
What the world needs is more white people playing rock music, because frankly, there are just not enough third- and fourth-generation garage-rock bands to go around anymore. The rations of Clash-meets-Gang-of-Four up-tempo crack is running low — and dammit, the kids aren’t all right. Thank heavens, then, for the Rakes,…
Andy Monley is a Denver-scene veteran, having served time with Jux County, the Czars and the Velveteen Monster. Some artists who’ve been around over such a long haul merely go through the motions — a chore that becomes more difficult depending on how much rust is on them. Not Monley,…
Everything is beautiful all the time. Say it again: Everything is beautiful all the time. If ever there was a collection of words that were meant to be together, it would be those six. And if ever there was a band that could aurally and successfully embody that mantra, it…
Les Claypool, Of Whales and Woe (Prawn Song Records). Like him or not, Les Claypool has a singular vision. And luckily (or unluckily), he doesn’t steer too far from it here. Of Whales and Woe is full of half-sung, half-spoken ditties about wacky characters, “Vernon the Company Man” being a…
The number of pasty young men with petty post-rock ambitions could populate a small city. Behold Mopetopia, where overly sensitive souls while away the gray-dappled hours, thumbing through dog-eared copies of Schopenhauer, journaling ad nauseam or sobbing quietly into their chamomile tea. Enter Rahim, a New York-based three-piece that dwells…
Revolting Cocks are a rivethead’s wet dream. The act has been retrofitted again and again with some of industrial music’s elite since its inception in 1985 by Al Jourgensen (that guy from Ministry), Richard 23 (that other guy from Front 242) and Luc Van Acker (a Belgian). Although Van Acker…
