A gigantic UFO descending to the stage that puts P-Funk’s Mothership to shame. Huge inflatable aliens and Santa Clauses. Dancing bears and rabbits. Gyrating strippers. Balloons galore. Silly String shooting out of cannons. Giant foam fists. Roadies dressed as superheroes. Nearly as much confetti as Times Square on New Year’s…
Aw man, I love challenges like that!” It’s a Sunday morning, and Pigeon John is piloting his tour van toward Memphis, Tennessee, and gleefully recalling his gig two nights earlier — a South by Southwest Festival showcase during which he and his threepiece backing band opened for such disparate acts…
During a President’s Day weekend show last month in San Francisco, Michael Franti and his band, Spearhead, temporarily ceded the stage to a handful of fans who had won a “Letters to the President” contest sponsored by the group. There was plenty of vitriol in the air, and one letter,…
Evan Dando has gone missing. That might not be surprising news to anyone who’s followed the 39-year-old singer/guitarist’s frequently brilliant, frequently maddening two-decade career, both as leader of the Boston-bred punk-turned-alt-pop trio the Lemonheads and, briefly, as a solo artist. For a while there, Dando had a penchant for not…
Case. Case… hmmm, is that the rapper who kicked it with Diddy for a while, quit the music biz to become a preacher, and then returned to the game a couple of years ago? No, wait, that was Mase. Case… oh, now I remember. Kind of. He was that supersmooth…
In addition to fruitcake and Carrot Top, the list of history’s true horrors includes the advent of the slideshow party — how many tortured souls have been subject to the interminable boredom, bordering on complete madness, of three carousels of Uncle Morty’s trip to the Grand Canyon? Thank heavens for…
The last time I saw Circle Jerks live was in the very early ’90s at a now-defunct hole-in-the-wall club in Trenton, New Jersey, during their first “comeback” tour. The show was great, but even then, people were referring to them as the crusty old farts of punk rock. So what…
The brainchild of Kansas-born, Brooklyn-residing singer/cellist Melora Creager, Rasputina is like an Edward Gorey wet dream come to life: a captivating combination of chamber music, doomy goth-metal textures, corsets lifted from a Victorian boudoir, and loads of twisted black humor. An in-demand session cellist who’s worked with Nirvana, Bob Mould,…
A good friend of mine in Los Angeles who’s extremely tapped into the music scene and underground goings-on swears up and down that ska is making a comeback and that it’s happening all over the country. If she’s right — and I haven’t yet seen or heard any proof for…
With the recent takeover of Congress by the Democrats, it’s possible that the title of Peaches’ latest disc, Impeach My Bush, could be rendered prophetic. Chances are, though, it will be business as usual up in Washington, D.C., just as it is in the Peaches camp. If electroclash is soooo…
From Scottish Highlanders scaring their enemies with bagpipes to American tanks blasting Metallica to ward off Iraqi insurgents, music has long been used as a weapon in combat zones. Most bands in the corny nü-metal movement used their music as a weapon too — against our collective eardrums and intelligence…
Kanye West may have delivered one of the biggest punches after Hurricane Katrina, but New Orleans rapper Juvenile took one of the biggest hits — his mansion was destroyed by the storm, forcing the former face of Cash Money Records to relocate to Atlanta. He expectedly took some shots at…
After all these years, after all the whispers and rumors, Paul Stanley has finally come out… with his second solo album. “I’ve actually got two new babies now,” the Kiss frontman chuckles quietly over the phone from his home in Los Angeles on a recent afternoon. One of them is…
On the evening of April 20, 2002, three members of Alice in Chains — singer/guitarist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Inez — walked toward the International Fountain at Seattle Center, where hundreds of people had already assembled in the chill air, bearing flowers, notes, and candles. The…
If you head over to the venerable All Music Guide online database and enter the name Electric Six, you’ll find the following “themes” attributed to the Detroit sextet: “Cool & Cocky,” “Guys Night Out,” “TGIF,” and, of course, “Party Time.” Those are fitting topics for a group that blends cock…
There are plenty of bald white dudes still plugging away in the music biz long past their artistic and commercial prime: Michael Stipe, Moby, Scott Ian… and Aaron Lewis. It’s a fairly safe bet that Lewis’ band, Staind, will never again enjoy the sales or status that 2001’s Break the…
It’s a few hours before showtime in Detroit, and Flogging Molly frontman Dave King is on the phone with New Times. He’s polite but a bit aloof — apparently not all that interested in answering questions from a nosy journalist. He’s road-weary, as his publicist says the next day. Fair…
Emo — the all-purpose label given to bands that, well… there really is no conventional way to define the emo sound. It’s attitude, countenance, and clothing style. And the four bands coming to Ray’s Downtown this Sunday — Kansas’ Koufax, New Jersey’s ActionReaction and the Finals, and Illinois’ the Forecast…
Either it’ll die down eventually, or, uhhh, I’m gonna die down!” Speaking over his cell phone from a beach just north of San Diego, Head Automatica frontman Daryl Palumbo chuckles at his gallows humor. He’s musing over the fact that you usually can’t get too far into any article about…
It’s the day before the release of Jurassic 5’s third, and much-anticipated, full-length album, Feedback. J5 producer/DJ Nu-Mark is on the phone with New Times, calling from the group’s home base of Los Angeles to explain the group’s current direction. “The last couple of records were about establishing the core…
One decade and eight albums after its 1980 formation, long-running Australian combo the Church fell from American prominence just as quickly as it rose – not an unusual occurrence in pop music, sure. But Steve Kilbey, the band’s good-natured, 51-year-old frontman, offers a rather unique explanation. “The way I see…
Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell have been down the reinvention road before. Back when they were the core of the British shoegaze group Slowdive, the pair concluded that the noisy, swirling sound they’d helped advance was a creative dead end, and they’d better try something different. The result? 1995’s much-maligned…
