John La Briola

"When people meet us, they think we're gonna be shootin' LSD into our eyeballs," Ween guitarist Mickey Melchiondo says. "Or that we're a lot crazier than we actually are. I'm actually a fuckin' sports junkie. And I love military history. That's pretty much exclusively what I read." As eager to...

Once an irresistibly goofy Brit-pop trio with ungainly mutton-chop sideburns, Supergrass has reached a point of maturity where it finally seems more interested in studying the menu than in making goo-goo eyes at the waitress. On their fifth full-length, Oxford's retro-groovers have outgrown monosyllabic teen anthems to embrace the emotional...

When death pulls into most towns, sadness permeates everything and everybody it touches. In the Big Easy, however, grief is as unwelcome as a vice cop in a brothel. "In New Orleans, we celebrate death," says Efrem Towns, the exuberant trumpet and flugelhorn player for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band...

Christian-irking until its dying breath, Slayer has been the face of thrash music for more than 20 years. In 1986, the band -- pioneers of a breakneck, full-throttle sound that combines demented guitar solos; thunderous, double-bass-drum kicks; and toxic bellowing with surgical precision -- released Reign in Blood, a work...

Considering that John Vanderslice's jagged pop and conceptual story-songs have stranded him everywhere from the loneliest tips of Antarctica to Mommy's cluttered basement, it's hardly surprising that his fourth album explores brooding territory. But surpassing previous efforts in terms of sonic design, craft, and coherence, Cellar Door (the two words...