For several years, the San Francisco Bay Area has possessed the most vibrant rock scene in the country. The baroque-pop grandeur of the Loud Family; the lysergic hover-sprawl of the Brian Jonestown Massacre; the falling-down folk-punk cow-flap of Barbara Manning; the demon-fed glam waste-product posture of Vue; the narco-damaged Chuck…
Yes, this is the CD that contains “John Walker’s Blues,” the most misunderstood song since George Will discovered “Born in the U.S.A.” and decided, by virtue of its title, that it was a patriotic anthem. The cut is a first-person account of what made John Walker Lindh forsake America and…
“The sun don’t shine, even when it’s day/Drive all night, just to feel like you’re OK….” Out of nearly anyone’s mouth but Beck Hansen’s, these lines would come off as clichéd and cheaply sentimental. But Beck — emotionally flinty at best, gimlet-eyed and nasty at worst — isn’t one to…
If there’s anything that irritates Fred Sargolini, half of the forward-looking hip-hop/electro duo Ming and FS, it’s artists who think they have to color inside the lines. “A lot of them don’t realize they’re doing it,” he believes. “They say they’re open-minded, but they’re really puritans. It’s like they’re doing…
One could boil down the volumes of press recently written about the Minneapolis hip-hop group Atmosphere and simply conclude: “B-boys from the unlikely location of the Twin Cities make noise with emotionally wrought tales of love gone wrong, at times bordering on misogyny, while simultaneously opening the genre up to…
Does Sam Altman, drummer for the Disco Biscuits, smoke a lot of pot? Well, stoners do tend to tell very long, involved stories; consider his response to the question, “So, how did you guys come up with the name for your new album?” “We live in Santa Cruz, California,” he…
Breakbeat Science, a drum ‘n’ bass record store, an indie label, and presumably a way of life, has all but consumed Reid Speed (born Reid Margolis), who represents the small but loud faction of female junglists. Skillfully blending beats and moods (never too dark or oppressive) into a fluid groove,…
Samuel Beam writes and records his songs at home, in an apartment he shares with his wife and newborn daughter in Miami Beach. The subject matter of most of these songs — searching creek beds for snakes to kill, clearing thorn bushes, selling a car to buy shoes for his…
While one won’t hear the skin-slapping sounds of porn movie soundtracks or the groove of disco on Wondermints’ latest, the ’70s make a comeback on Mind If We Make Love to You. In fact, if it were a TV show, flashbacks of the old NBC peacock logo and au naturel…
Where several of Salif Keita’s former musical endeavors have been hamstrung by unneeded guests (like Weather Report alumni) or deadened by pop-oriented dross, the Malian dynamo’s new album, Moffou, is his most successful yet. Returning to his traditional griot upbringing with swirls of Portuguese and Moorish influences as well as…
The lucky bastards around the rest of the country feel the onset of fall’s temperance movement, but down here there’s no hope. A tease of a breeze isn’t enough to stop the sweaty trickles that begin the moment the air loses its conditioner. Stepping outside during the day feels as…
Armed with only a melodica universally referred to as “battered,” Damon Albarn set off from his London digs two years ago on a Malian sojourn. There, in the capital city of Bamako and its satellite villages, Albarn met and jammed with local musicians, both pro and amateur. Eventually, he compiled…
Dolly Parton has spent the past couple of decades vacillating between roles as country-music doyenne, theme-park financier, and Hollywood curiosity — a wide range, even for a woman who can’t have an article written about her that doesn’t include a reference to her ample bosom (see?). But her latest incarnation,…
Dance music owes a huge debt to British brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll, who in their Orbital guise helped legitimize electronica as both a live performance art on par with geetar-wielding rock and as a style sustainable in an album format, not just as dance-floor fodder. One of the first…
Aspiring songwriters are known to bleed, weep, and sweat while dreaming, praying, of inking a recording contract with a reputable label. Guitar-playing Miami singer/songwriter Samuel Beam recently sealed a deal with esteemed Seattle-based, Nirvana-birthing, indie imprint Sub Pop — without even trying. “I had no real plans for getting signed,”…
Conor Oberst hates to talk. The 22-year-old singer/songwriter behind the ambitious indie-rock success story Bright Eyes halts and hesitates between every phrase during a telephone interview from his Omaha home. As if he’s constantly rethinking what he has to say, his words fade and falter just short of stuttering. His…
If Beenie Man weren’t still smashing it on the ragga circuit, as he has been for nearly a decade, his crossover success in U.S. markets might taint his street cred. But instead, his lyrical skills and charisma just translate, making him a pioneer in bridging the long-puzzling disconnect between Jamaican…
How about something right up your alley? Kim’s Alley, in this case, and the myriad other shops, restaurants, and bars that make up the Shops of Gateway. The old-timey (read: nonsucky) strip mall welcomes an addition to the family as CD Collector opens its doors this Saturday. Not only is…
A pretty wimpy Friday-night downpour was enough to keep a crowd away from the Holy Terrors reunion show at Churchill’s Hideaway in Miami’s Little Haiti on September 13. Even Miamians stayed home. It’s a well-accepted fact that Broward Countians hate driving to the big city and enduring the Interstate of…
If you really know Squarepusher, you’re likely either (a) locked away in the loony bin or (b) in the middle of the drug binge that’s going to land you there. Do You Know Squarepusher is a mind-bending mélange of drum ‘n’ bass, jungle, and psychedelia that outfreaks any previously recorded…
When Mark Stuart name-drops the Man in Black twice on the opening track, “1970 Monte Carlo,” it makes the Bastards feel less like outlaws and more like a new-country galoot stressing that he always listens to Hank Williams but never sounds anything like him. But once Stuart’s “1970 Monte Carlo”…
London trio Morcheeba jumped to the forefront of edgy-yet-accessible trip-hop with its full-length Who Can You Trust? in 1996, continuing the formula two years later with the fine Big Calm. Unfortunately, the hope for more muscular, atmospheric music from Morcheeba faded dramatically with 2000’s weak Fragments of Freedom, and the…
