I’m pretty hard on 2-man bands and even harder on laptop bands. The White Stripes are the quintessential 2-piece garage rockers with a superior singer / songwriter / musician at the helm. They write great songs and can rock small venues, but despite their prowess (well, Jack’s anyway) they can be really weak at festivals [...]
Founding members of Orlando’s Plain Jane Automobile, Duke Crider, Paul McCorkell, and Luis Meija, regrouped as Our Wild Love. They have a new song available for free on their Bandcamp site called “Low”. If you’re a fan of PJA’s take on alternative Brit pop then you might want to sit down. Our Wild Love is [...]
I didn’t know much about Future Islands before this show so I was surprised to hear the 80s influenced synth pop band have a singer that floated somewhere between Morissey and Meatloaf with sprinkles of death metal snarls worthy of Glen Benton. It was even more surprising to see him strut and pantomime in sensible [...]
I was about half way through Sharon’s opening song before I realized she wasn’t Sarah Jaffe. I’m not sure how I got their latest releases completely confused, but I did. It was hard to peel myself away from football and a new episode of Walking Dead to attend a show I thought might be a [...]
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is one of my favorite bands of recent years. From their DIY beginnings to their more recent rock ‘n roll drama, Alec Ounsworth’s David Byrne meets Dylan vocals in front of their grooving indie pop possesses a certain allure for me. Despite their line-up changes they took the stage at [...]
With M83 still touring on their breakthrough double album, Hurry Up We’re Dreaming, and a year long assault by singles like “Steve McQueen” and the ubiquitous “Midnight City” I’ll admit I wasn’t giddy like a school girl to see the band – especially since I saw M83 at the Beacham last November. So I brought [...]
Built to Spill‘s sound always reminded me of Dinosaur Jr. meets Modest Mouse with a propensity to use crushing guitar interspersed with jangly riffs and a drunken, sad humanist perspective. They also have the same northwestern vibe that MM does with a low-fi approach to live shows that puts an emphasis wholly on the musical [...]
KISS is heading to Orlampa as part of “The Tour” with opener / co-headliner Motley Crue. I’ve been a KISS fan since I was a kid. My upstairs neighbor in Brooklyn was 10 in 1979 and I was 4. I remember walking into his room and every inch of wall space was covered with KISS [...]
Refused was a short-lived Swedish band of incredible talent. Their penchant for blending scream-o punk with heavy metal and dashes of electronica and alt rock was progressive and unmatched in the mid to late 90s. Fourteen years after calling it quits in the midst of a nightmarish tour for The Shape of Punk to Come, [...]
Aaron’s Amphitheater formerly Hi-Fi Buys, formerly Lakewood hosted some sort of metal festival, but alls I knows is Slayer, Anthrax and Motorhead played. Anthrax again got a much lower slot on the totem pole than deserved. This is Anthrax with fucking Belladonna! They headlined the smaller Jagermeister stage and summarily kicked ass with the less [...]