Britney got married. Ashlee was caught lip-synching. ODB died. Congress continued to wring its hands about the legality of downloads, which flourished anyway. Conservative groups condemned sex in popular culture, while Usher’s sultry Confessions shot to number one. A major label signed a guy who can’t sing, can’t dance, and…
In 2004, the line between indie and mainstream rock disintegrated even faster than Britney Spears’ quickie Vegas marriage. Vinyl obsessives mingled with white-hat-wearing fratheads at Modest Mouse shows, Taking Back Sunday debuted at number three on the Billboard charts, and Death Cab for Cutie earned O.C.-sanctioned buzz and a major-label…
Ever find yourself missing the word alternative as a concept, a signifier, a lifestyle? Nowadays, any dudes-with-guitars collective either has to do the Creed butt-rock thing, the whine-incessantly-about-your-ex-girlfriends emo thing, or the get-beat-up-incessantly-by-your-ex-girlfriends indie-rock thing. It’s harder and harder to find the best aspects of each combined: the fist-pumping intensity…
It’s difficult to survey the hip-hop of 2004, more bloated and self-referential than ever, and not imagine the mythical AOR wasteland of the mid-’70s. Like rock before it, hip-hop has easily won a cultural acceptance once unthinkable, and our reward is a parade of Jadakisses and G-Unit solo projects, preaching…
It feels weird rooting for the sparkling-new, pre-fab festivities at Seminole Paradise out west while downtown Lauderdale’s Revolution struggles to keep a viable local music night, but you can’t fight the rising tide. After all, South Florida loves a strip mall, and the immaculate, brand-name entertainment complex out on State…
Even as it shirks the drug-binging, groupie-banging, therapy-seeking responsibilities of a full-fledged band, Popvert has managed to construct a remarkably slick, sophisticated EP. The band’s press sheet is insistent: “Popvert is not a band… It’s a project!” Apparently, core members — producer/bassist Jose Tillian and guitarist/keyboardist Marthin Chan (of Volumen…
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…
For its Speed of Surround tour this past October, Perpetual Groove decided to push sound technology further than it had been pushed before. At concert halls up and down the East Coast, the band staged the first completely 5.1 Surround Sound tour in history. Wielding a stylus and digital input…
This ten-song compilation from Latino-loving producer Chris Allison’s Sonic360 label offers a full-body rubdown of slick Argentine electronica. Allison is responsible for bringing edgy Mexican outfits like Kinky and the Nortec Collective north of the border, and though most tracks here fit neatly into the standard funky house niche (which…
What with all the recent ’80s disinterment, it’s good to see a young band looking beyond its older brother’s generation for influence. Heralded in their native Liverpool, the Zutons ply earnest ’60s hindsight and work some eerie déjà vu juju on their stateside debut. The quintet is a garage band…
A street hustler turned jillionaire entrepreneur, Jay-Z doesn’t need to sell records. And while rap-rock is one of the few holes in his résumé, his semicollaboration with Linkin Park is less easy payday than image rehabilitation: After a few weeks on the road with R. Kelly, Jigga could stand to…
As everyone now knows, Nirvana started out merely great and wound up, well, godlike. Not that With the Lights Out is meant as some kind of bible, unless you’re talking about the particularly gruesome parts of the Old Testament. Every manner of misfire and fuckup is immortalized on this boxed…
A consummate showoff, Rufus Wainwright has never had reason to doubt his gorgeous voice, his lush arrangements, his coy sense of romantic drama. Substance, however, presents a bit of a problem for him. Last year’s Want One addressed that deficiency in bracing terms — Wainwright celebrating his 30th birthday with…
In a place like Miami, it’s not unusual to find supermodels frolicking on the beach in thong bikinis, vapid celebrities doing shots at the club du jour, or cops hassling drunken drag queens. One of the things you won’t find very often is a true-blue rock band. For whatever reason,…
The cantankerous, deep-pocketed giant known as the Recording Industry Association of America is on the move in South Florida. Last month, more than a dozen record companies brought suits against 30 local residents for illegally downloading music files, according to the Miami Herald. Many of the defendants are parents of…
On the surface, Massive Attack’s inaugural soundtrack effort, which was written for a Jet Li thriller scheduled to be released next April, sounds rather atypical. Orchestral strings swell and heave only to be undercut by tense excursions into electronic rock. There is even a motif, a melancholy suite that floats…
Despite solid songwriting, burning fretwork, deep grooves, and an earnestly dark outlook, Warren Haynes and company can’t seem to achieve liftoff on Voodoo, the group’s first studio release since the loss of bassist Allen Woody. The retooled four-piece, which puts on intriguing live performances, serves up a mostly lackluster collection…
According to Mr. Webster, the word sellout means “one who has betrayed one’s principles or an espoused cause.” That’s an interesting idea when pondering how loosely this term is used to condemn bands who refuse to do what’s expected. Black Tape is nothing like the Explosion’s previous work. True, it…
There’s nothing more annoying to a music geek than an ad exec who’s ahead of the curve. How many indie rockers cringe when they see that McDonald’s commercial that financed the Shins’ last tour or hear Isaac Brock’s tortured bark in the background of an ad for minivans? Metric shills…
San Diego hardcore boys gone sensitive, Pinback has been a well-kept secret for years. Duo Rob Crow and Zach Smith originally did time in bands Thingy and Three Mile Pilot (two of whose members went on to found Black Heart Procession) before taking on Pinback full-time in 1999. After a…
Two outs, bottom of the ninth, and our team is getting its ass thoroughly pounded in what has been a disappointing season for South Florida music festivals. It’s 11 months into the year, and there hasn’t been a single, all-encompassing rock ‘n’ roll fiesta — something that caters equally to…
For a guy who takes the Christian Right to task on his new album and refers to Dubya as “Monkey Boy” on his website, Travis Morrison doesn’t seem terribly dismayed by last month’s election results. “I’m fine,” he insists, speaking by phone from the bluest of states, New York. Fine?…
