From the somber opening touches of the first note, played by the veteran alto sax improviser Marion Brown, it’s obvious that Light of Day is quite unlike most jazz albums these days. There are no desperate attempts to make it palatable to a crossover audience, who expect their “jazz” to…
Platinum Bitch is the alter ego of Timothy Lazlo Sandor, a 29-year-old West Palm Beach-based musician who works at a drug treatment center. The 12 songs contained here, recorded at home with not much more than an acoustic guitar and a drum machine, create a mood that’s unsettling and more…
There are few embellishments on the cover of Here I Am: Isley Meets Bacharach. There are neither gold lamé suits nor tuxedos, no silk sheets, and no flashy stage shots. Burt Bacharach and Ron Isley are merely wearing sweaters and smiling in front of a chess board, a testament to…
Wayne Marshall is known in Jamaica as a singjay. The term comes from his ability to croon and DJ on a single track. Dressed in jeans, a T-shirt with Miami mob boss Tony “Scarface” Montana silk-screened across the front and Bob Marley-brand boots, and wearing one of his many trademark…
Ten-gallon hats off to Toby Keith. As the number-one ticket in America, the oil-riggin’ good ol’ boy-cum-new country badass has actualized the great American dream. He was well on his way to solidifying himself as country’s plain-talkin’ top dog even before his less-than-sensitive “Angry American” response to 9/11 kicked up…
(To the tune of “Jingle Bell Rock”): Ra-di-o, ra-di-o, ra-di-o sucks/They’ll play anything/as long as the label’s got bucks/Talent has nothing to do with the climb to the top/Oh ra-di-o sucks/They play famous pro-ge-ny/And stars of TV re-al-ity/shows that just won’t go away/But that’s noth-ing compared to the punk-ies/who just…
By now, Jeff Mangum must be sick and tired of avoiding people. Since dumping his 1998 meisterwork (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) on the ears of a grateful populace, the leader of Athens, Georgia’s, Neutral Milk Hotel has spent the past few years trying to live it down. By…
Almost everyone knows someone like Triumph — no, not a canine puppet chomping on a cigar and leering like a lecherous Bela Karolyi but a friend with a sense of humor so perverted and dirty that it boomerangs from offensive to hysterical. Poop is a comedy disc with more bitch…
El Salvador-born and Hawaii-raised, Keoki Franconi — better known as “Superstar DJ Keoki” (or maybe better recognized as the That ’70s Show character Fez played in the recent movie Party Monster) — made his big splash in the Big Apple. His long, groundbreaking history includes spinning at Danceteria, residing behind…
There are certainly worse ways to end a long and fruitful career at a major record label than compiling 31 hard-to-find B-sides, outtakes, and other rarities. But it’s hard to imagine Pearl Jam, whose decade-plus relationship with Epic Records ends with the release of this new double CD, choosing any…
No surprise these sauntering Northern California upstarts have finally ended up on a major, since, with their whole glam-tart approach, it was obvious they were always aiming for the brass ring. Even as far back as their first, self-titled album, amid the murky Joy Division dirges and new-wave clank, a…
Quitters never win, figures Andrew Kenny. The mastermind behind Texas combo the American Analog Set was basically ready to put the nap-inducing band to bed this year. He’d planned to play a few more shows, maybe wrap things up with an odds ‘n’ sods catchall album, then finish his doctorate…
You know the old story: well-respected cult band achieves mainstream recognition, and the faithful followers go apoplectic. Or, as Morrissey once crooned, “We hate it when our friends become successful.” Well, after existing on the fringes of fame since their mid-’90s formation, New York City’s Fountains of Wayne has finally…
At first glance, you might think the beats on Dead Prez’ Get Free or Die Tryin’ were cribbed from Big Noyd or Keak da Sneak, because the second cut, “Fuck the Law,” sounds as rough and jagged as nails scratching through a metal safe. But check the lyrics: “Write on…
It’s a tall order to remain the biggest badass in the R&B world for damn near 50 years, but living-legend Andre Williams has managed to do it with verve, style, and an impeccable wardrobe. Williams first hit the scene with his 1956 smash hit “Jail Bait,” a hilariously funky jam…
This Canadian trio plays music it describes as “live progressive breakbeat house,” but don’t let this catchall phrasing confuse you: This band is a dance party waiting to happen. Drummer Darren Shearer provides a heavily thumping four-on-floor backbeat, and during a live show, he can occasionally be heard beatboxing to…
As the electro movement’s glitz-addled popularity seems to have waned in the past year, it’s only inevitable that a new form of punk rebellion rides the wave of backlash. With a name lifted from the German translation of a Burroughs short story, Berlin-based artist T. Raumschmiere has buried the genre’s…
These days, any band that ventures into post-rock territory is bound to get compared with Mogwai, which is akin to every trip-hop/downtempo/chillout act being written off as a DJ Shadow knockoff. Although Canadian quintet Do Make Say Think shares its Scottish predecessors’ knack for stop-start commotion, the details in Winter…
It’s fitting that John Lee Hooker’s final release finds him takin’ care of business. The blues legend, who essentially invented the boogie sound as most modern listeners understand it, was still weaving his smoldering spell before he passed away two years ago. His daughter Zakiya put some final, mostly successful…
The sun is setting on the 17th-annual Fort Lauderdale Blues Festival, and funk legend/rap innovator Clarence Reid, a.k.a. Blowfly, is pacing backstage. The lithe, six-foot-one, 58-year-old Reid has spent the afternoon waiting for Solomon Burke, the 400-pound, 62-year-old “King of Rock and Soul.” Burke is headlining the festival and allegedly…
Every now and then, James Balyut has second thoughts about the name he’s chosen for his band. “It’s a publicist’s nightmare,” he worries, for when people see +/- written down, they might not get it. They might mistake it for battery terminals. Complicating matters further, Balyut says, is the fact…
For more than a decade now, hip-hop has struggled to reconcile its “hustla” and activist sides. During much of that time, the music has fostered a simmering ideological tension between outlaw “me first”-ism and communitarian selflessness. Like KRS-One and Rakim before him, West Philadelphia rhymer Baby Blak effortlessly balances street…
