The Black Crowes released Before the Frost in September of 2009. They took this opportunity to do something rather novel. Before the Frost was recorded live (before a studio audience) at The Barn on Levon Helm’s Woodstock, N.Y farm. The Barn was host to Helm’s Midnight Rambles, private concerts held by Levon with assorted musicians [...]
Ol’ Dirty Bastard pulls a Tupac to join Ludacris and The Black Keys for “Coochie.” If there’s one thing to bring a dude back from the dead, that’s probably it. “Coochie” is from Blakroc, the collaboration of The Black Keys and about a dozen of the best rapper’s in the business (Q-Tip, RZA, Mos Def, [...]
I heard their other song “In Love with a Ripper” ad nauseam on Sirius XMU and it kind of irritated me, but their sound was interesting enough for me to check them out at last year’s Anti*Pop Festival. They are a guy and girl vocal duo from Portland with avant guard, Talking Heads-like dance routines [...]
Not since the Judgment Night soundtrack has rock and rap got along so famously. Ha ha, no really, the Blakroc album is solid. This project is the brainchild of bluesy garage rockers, The Black Keys and producer Damon Dash. Together they enlist some hip hop heavyweights to bring a snazzy array of rap tunes with a unique [...]
The second release from Billy Corgan’s epic endeavor Teargarden by Kaleidyscope is a fun, catchy little rock song. It is reminiscent of ZWAN in it’s looser, more upbeat direction. Mike Byrne gets to flex a little more drum muscle in his journey to fill the biggest shoes ever. “Widow Wake my Mind” is song number [...]
The ubiquitous Danger Mouse has moved on from producer extraordinaire to auteur musician / songwriter by carving himself a cozy niche in a series of baffling yet brilliant collaborations (Cee-Lo, MF Doom, Sparklehorse to name a few). His latest pairing is just as unexpected and equally as glorious. James Mercer took time from being the [...]
The word “super group” gets thrown around a lot – so I won’t use it. Them Crooked Vultures is a near perfect union of 3 monster talents: Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), and John Paul Jones (from this little band called Led Zeppelin). Josh’s buzz saw guitar attack and [...]
Before stem cells were saving lives they were the subject of awesome metal songs. “Dead Embryonic Cells” is from Sepultura’s 1991 album, Arise. It’s¬† a bad ass skull crusher of a song and embodies what I like in metal; Satanic and /or death references, scary voices, vicious guitar, aggressive double-bass drumming and and a teeth-grinding [...]
“Mr. Dobalina” “If You Must” from Both Sides of the Brain Extended hip hop “Clint Eastwood”
I’m not sure what it is about Vietnamese girls from the San Francisco Bay area that also perform a bittersweet brand of folk-y garage pop – but they do it for me. I don’t even know what that means, but I do know fun little songs like¬† “Bag of Hammers” and “Cool Yourself” from Thao [...]