Oct 312011
Happy Halloween! An Interview with Martyn Jacques of the Tiger Lillies

Who are you and where did you come from?
“I’m Martyn, I come from a little town outside Slough (Berkshire, England) where I lived a happy childhood and a nightmarish adolescence.”
This is Martyn Jacques, the “criminal castrati,” a mastermind of sorts as the principal creative force and founder of the Tiger Lillies. The Tiger Lillies could [...]

Oct 282011
Vancouver's Said the Whale Stop in Winter Park, FL

Said the Whale hopped in a van in their hometown of Vancouver to play a short series of dates through the U.S to end up in Miami tonight for a show at The Vagabond. For some inexplicable yet awesome reason, they played a free show at Winter Park’s Austin Coffee and Film. These are Juno [...]

Oct 242011
Little Dragon and Tycho from Firestone in Orlando

Door times for this show were pushed back because of the big Latin festival, Calle Orange, in downtown Orlando. So I go there about an hour early (Doors moved from 7pm to 9:30 pm) and had the great fortune to witness blocked city streets with piles of refuse and several drunken fights, bum fights, AND [...]

Oct 112011
Yuck in Concert from The Social, Orlando

Grunge-y noise rocksters (I love that I just make up words), Yuck, stopped by The Social last night to lay down a wall of fuzzy pop distortion. One indicator of a good songwriting is to develop a signature sound while simultaneously creating catchy songs with great hooks that have instantly recognizable melodies on their own. [...]

Oct 102011
Yuck at The Social Tonight.

Yuck caught my ear when I saw them open for the Smith Westerns at BackBooth where they summarily blew SW off the stage. They were a scraggly bunch with the Smashing Pumpkin / Sonic Youth girl bass player configuration. Like those bands they also wielded a crunching avalanche of sound with their embrace of squelching [...]

Sep 222011
Album Review: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical

Hysterical, the new release from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sounds anything but.  The album is refined and mature. It is closer to Some Loud Thunder being heavier on more elaborate orchestral-type pop arrangements than the thundering disco beats and clean bass lines adorned with jangly duel guitars that made their debut album remind me [...]

Sep 142011
Orlando Calling and Arnold Palmer Hospital Share Healing Through Rock!

Representatives from Orlando Health and the Arnold Palmer Medical Center along with founders of the new rock music festival, Orlando Calling (including Festival Republic’s CEO Melvin Benn), and the ubiquitous Joey Fatone gathered at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children today to release some great news. The Orlando Calling event donated 10-large to benefit the Music [...]

Sep 132011
St. Vincent Raises the Bar with Strange Mercy

My current celebrity lady crush, Annie Clark, is back with a new St. Vincent album titled Strange Mercy. I always understood St. Vincent to be a pixie-ish waif with a great voice and tender, graceful pop songs. That is until I saw her on Austin City Limits with her full band just tear the ass [...]

Sep 102011
Smashing Pumpkins Begin to Unearth Rarities for SPRC

In usual fashion, Billy Corgan is cranking out music and wading through a pile of projects. In addition to getting behind a wrestling promotion venture and very slowly releasing the 44 free online tracks for Teargarden by Kaleidyscope as well as putting the final touches on the album-within-an-album, Oceania (Due out in November), he is [...]

Aug 302011
Unknown Mortal Orchestra:

There has been sort of an “Incense and Peppermints” roots revival of 60’s psychedelic guitar rock. Bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre have been doing it all along but more recently, outfits like Tame Impala, The Love Dimension, and even Smashing Pumpkins are busting out albums characterized by pop melodies drenched in guitar effects and [...]