The core of the Smashing Pumpkins was the telepathic relationship between Jimmy Chamberlin and Billy Corgan. On one hand there is a grandiose and ambitious songwriter and guitarist and on the other, a pummeling and incredibly dynamic drummer. Avalanches of howling guitar shift suddenly into waves of shimmering melody and back again. A drummer whose [...]
I was just thinking to myself, “what happened to the Beastie Boys?” Then, BAM! New album. Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 is exactly what I needed right now. The right blend of hip and goofy, but an excellent mix and some songs that are down right nasty. “Ok” is one of my favorites on first listen. This [...]
Your Tomorrow is a smart, polished, and dreadfully sad collection of music. The album surges out of the gate with a single-worthy tune in “You Were Only A Song.” Despite the charging bass and pitter-patter of the floor tom driven rhythm, the core essence is almost mournful. Even moments that seem somewhat uplifting come across [...]
Ol’ Merle – aka The Okie from Muskogee – is one of the last real outlaws; country musicians with true grit and balls. Merle along with Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Coe, Kristofferson, Williams (Sr., Jr., and now carried on by Tricephus), Shaver, and a handful of others defined country music as the soundtrack of the outlaw, a [...]
Room 205 is a sort of an artistic co-op. A revolving cast of musicians work with any number of filmmakers, artists, set designers, and the like to create avant-garde music videos at the confluence of visual and sonic art. Director Otto Arsenault (the naked video with Matt & Kim) works with The Soft Moon and [...]
The spunky and energetic CSS – Cansei de Ser Sexy not Cascading Style Sheets – tore up the Firestone and played as if they were headlining. Aptly named uber-cutey, Lovefoxxx, invigorated the near capacity crowd with sassy dancing, pseudo-stripping, and audience engagement in between songs like the one-time ubiquitous iPod anthem, “Music is My Hot, [...]
The first time I heard the name Dr. Dog – I think it was at a festival – and I just assumed they were a jam band. Then I heard some tracks off Fate and decided they were not a jam band. I got an advanced copy of Shame, Shame and over time was drawn [...]
As a lead-up to MMJ‘s new album, Circuital, they are releasing a song a week for five weeks. The first four were live tracks from their 5-night stint at Terminal 5 in NYC last October. The 5th song, out today, is a new song and title track from the forthcoming album. It’s a little too [...]
Awwww yeah. I remember when I was actually scared of Ice Cube. N.W.A was pretty successful at painting a picture of some serious hard-asses that had no tolerance for middle class white boys like myself. They were about as successful as King Diamond or Deicide was in convincing me that they had ties to the [...]
I usually tell non-English rock music to fuck off unless, of course, it is Norwegian Black Metal, but Davila 666 has got a pretty cool tune here. It’s got a retro garage twist that makes it suitable for the climax of a Robert Rodriguez film. I like the singer too. He looks crazy. The gist [...]