I’m usually a beer drinker. I’ll drink Belgian imports in places where I’ve got to put on one of those fancy shirts with buttons, or I’ll chug Buds elbow to elbow with seedy guys at dives. Either way, a good time will be had. It’s a rare occasion when I…
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…
When Nirvana released Nevermind in 1991, hair-metal bands like Poison seemed hopelessly irrelevant. “The pendulum swung,” Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille recalls. “The backlash was strong, instant, and venomous. But time changes things.” That it does. Nirvana is long gone, along with most of the bands that followed in its flannel-flying…
Get these motherfucking emo bands off this motherfucking album. No, really — get these motherfucking emo bands off this motherfucking album. The soundtrack accompanying what’s arguably the year’s most-anticipated cheese-horror flick is a giant mess — namely because it’s full of pounding, stuttering dance remixes of songs by new-punk kingpins…
No metal band has stayed good as long as Slayer. Maybe Motörhead, but that’s all. Christ Illusion improves on its predecessor, 2001’s clunky God Hates Us All, the low point of Slayer’s 24-year run. The band’s ninth studio album is comparable to its earlier standouts, but its relentless frenzy lacks…
The concept of a track-for-track reggae version of Radiohead’s OK Computer seems like the bong-hit daydreams of a lonesome stoner in a murky dorm room. But thanks to the Easy Star All-Stars (the masterminds behind 2003’s Dub Side of the Moon), modern rock’s most experimental and introspective band is paid…
Renda Writer’s personal motto, according to his website, is “pimp yourself.” It’s a constant theme throughout the 33 tracks on his second full-length, Eclectic Poetic, an album that is half hip-hop and half spoken word. Writer’s beat-backed tracks like “We’re All Connected” and “3:15 am” outshine the a cappella ones…
If Melissa Etheridge has proved anything in her long career, it’s that you don’t have to write fluff to win a Grammy. The Kansas-born singer/songwriter has two of those awards to her name. And though she won both Grammies more than a decade ago (in 1992 and 1994, both for…
It must’ve been at some point in the early ’90s that Dirk and I were driving around looking for action, somewhere between Liberty City and Little River. Well, we got action, all right — we got 2 Live Crew, live and uncut. Whether it was our awkward teenaged demeanor or…
On the de facto title track of Ten Tiers’ latest, group leader Jonathan Tiersten sings about slipping “into the comforts of drunkenness” — an appropriate phrase, given the intriguingly woozy, off-kilter tenor of the EP as a whole. The disc stumbles at times but somehow manages to remain upright. Take…
Electric Frankenstein’s not the first band you’d expect to hear in a PS2 game, much less one that caters to mall punks. But sure enough, the New Jersey-based foursome has a track featured on Tony Hawk’s Underground. Then again, EF has popped up in stranger places, namely Garry Sharpe-Young’s book…
If such an album existed, Pat Boone’s Punk Rock Party would be a G-rated collection of classic punk tunes reworked with family-friendly lyrics. Imagine the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” as “I Wanna Pet Your Dog (Not Your Date)” or the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go”…
The Smashup plays the type of post-hardcore that all the kids seem to be eating up nowadays. And that’s fine. The Brooklyn-based band makes a nice racket, and it has the decency to back it up with lyrics about real issues (addiction, abortion, etc) instead of sappy love songs. Before…
There he sat center stage, his long, jagged beard hanging over his guitar, his sock-covered feet busy pedaling the kick drum and high hat. His cowboy boots were on the floor next to him, his railroad conductor’s hat still on his head. Audience members danced to his upbeat, bluesy twang…
When I finally hit that glorious age of 21, my friends and I made the trek from West Palm Beach down to Fort Lauderdale for a very specific reason: Beach Bar. If you’ve been to the beach at the end of Sunrise, you know the place. It’s that corner open-air…
It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Monday — not the most ideal time for a local band to be taking the stage. But even at this unrockly hour, the Freakin Hott is playing to a bigger audience than it would normally get at the average Friday-night bar gig. The Delray Beach-based…
In 1978, England’s unemployment soared to new heights as railroad and coal-mining strikes paralyzed the economy. Birmingham’s disenfranchised youth gathered at church dances where DJs played the latest Jamaican reggae and at blues dances throughout the city and at uptown clubs such as the Rainbow and the Mecca Ballroom. That…
How did Diplo, a dinosaur-loving, crunk-spinning white kid from Florida, become the hottest party DJ in Philadelphia (if not the world)? It sure as hell isn’t through answering questions with complete sentences. You can’t blame the superstar producer/remixer/label head/indie music darling for being busy, especially during his current tour with…
Cut Chemist’s The Audience’s Listening could be from a time capsule buried in 1998, when epic instrumental albums like Return of the DJ and Q-Bert’s Wave Twisters were all the rage. And that’s a good thing. Unfairly maligned in recent years as a province of bedroom geeks disconnected from mainstream…
To paraphrase Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine: Peace sells, but who’s Brian? Even if Posehn’s name is unfamiliar, you’ll likely recognize the balding, heavyset, bespectacled comedian from Mr. Show and innumerable VH1 I Love the… specials. The pothead pop-culture pundit describes himself as a “stoned, angry-looking heavy-metal geek,” though he surprisingly has…
Golden Smog, a group featuring moonlighters from several rock and roots combos, has lingered for a long time, particularly by side-project standards. On Golden Smog, an amusingly sloppy EP, arrived circa 1992, with two enjoyable full-lengths following in 1995 and 1998. There’s been plenty of radio silence since then, but…
It’s only fitting that Pharrell Williams has finally jettisoned collaboration for a solo career. The hallmark of his six-year chart reign as half of the superproducer team the Neptunes has always been reduction, stripping down urban music to its essence. That genius remains on In My Mind — most definitively…
