Three names — three lousy names. That’s all I saw listed on the sign-up sheet when I entered Studio A on May 24. It was the Regional Air Guitar Championships, and I was hopin’ there’d be a flood of mullet-headed Guitar Center cronies lined up outside. But no — just…
Kylewilliam Campol, AKA imadethismistake, offers a blend of minimalist soundscapes combined with off-beat samples, nontraditional instrumentation, and spoken-word poetry. On Campol’s second release, The Hypothetical Child’s Hypothetical Situation, the one-man band explores the usual themes of heartbreak, lost love, and existential pondering. The album also has samples that sound almost…
This weekend, the temperature will climb from a simmer to a boil at the inaugural Memorial Fest, a reggae concert that boasts so many topnotch performers, it’s difficult to determine exactly who the headliner ought to be. The festival comes on a weekend that has become known for bringing dense…
On Sunday, May 7, rock music buffs from Miami to Martin County were wetting their pants in anticipation: The Motor City 5 — the band that gave birth to modern garage rock — was scheduled to headline this Sunday’s Little Steven’s Underground Garage show at the Seminole Hard Rock. But…
The Belle Album is the last great secular record Al Green made before giving his life over to preaching the gospel. (He returned to the Hi Records formula in 2003 with I Can’t Stop, but that’s another story.) It’s the first album Green produced himself and the first to feature…
Dr. John, AKA Mac Rebenack, has undergone a number of incarnations in a career that spans nearly 50 years, from the acid-tinged voodoo of his Night Tripper persona to his role as one of New Orleans’ most revered champions of American musical tradition. After several outstanding albums elaborating on the…
Those who remember the glory days of grunge might recall Mark Pickerel as the drummer for Screaming Trees. He’s traded (in part) his drum kit for guitar and lead microphone and signed with Bloodshot, one of the primo outfits for alt-Americana. But any assumptions that he’s “gone country” are swept…
Over the past 30 years or so, Alan Parsons has created a reliable musical brand by recruiting the talents of high-profile contributors and presiding over the proceedings with his name on the marquee. Valid Path follows the same formula, even as it marks Parsons’ continued transition from old school to…
Dr. Mooch (AKA Muchanza Akapelwa) was born in Zambia, post-independence, and has written several books, the bulk of which are poetry and experimental fiction, most pressed on Minerva, a now-defunct vanity/subsidy publisher from Britain. Now, with this self-proclaimed comeback album, the Broward-based vocalist offers a mix of light dub-reggae and…
Before he got down to the rhyme-spitting, J. Hexx had a little request for the audience. “I need your energy so I can get into character and take you to a far-out place,” he said, proudly displaying a T-shirt that read “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” Moving about in a semicircular…
Since rapper Timothy “Gift of Gab” Parker and Xavier “DJ Chief Xcel” Mosely formed Blackalicious in 1987 while attending high school in Sacramento, California, the duo has persevered through one hip-hop generation to another. The two have seen musical tastes change from the trendy youth culture of the late ’80s…
It’s around 2 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and Giant Drag’s Annie Hardy and Micah Calabrese are relaxing in their home away from home, which happens to be the back of a rental van. The Los Angeles-based duo has just begun its latest U.S. tour and is en route from…
No wonder that SSM goes with an abbreviation of its actual name, the tongue twister Szymanski Shettler Morris. Despite the Detroit band’s pedigree — including members of the Hentchman, the Sights, and the Cyril Lords — bluesy garage rock is more of a starting point for SSM than a final…
Lansing-Dreiden, a New York-via-Miami art collective best-known for its avant-garde inclinations, demonstrated a rare accessibility when it released its first full-length record in 2004. Divided into three sections, the surprisingly song-based The Incomplete Triangle showcased the breadth of L-D’s talent — from driving metal to gauzy shoegaze to New Orderish…
When Kamal “Radioinactive” de Iruretagoyena lets loose with a compressed rush of goobledygook here — see “Refrigerator” or “Trouble” — it’s difficult to understand why this Los Angeles-based MC/producer hasn’t yet managed to break out of the backpacker scene that’s home to the anti-con contingent and its malcontented fellow travelers…
An avant-garde effort by two disparate bands trying to bridge the expanse between experimental jazz and neoclassical composition, The Nitrate Hymnal is odd yet ambitious. Punk veterans the Gena Rowlands Band and fusion cooperative Anti-Social Music have pooled their ambitions to create a sparse, idealized narrative about an old woman…
When you throw the new Rayko/KRB release Six in the old stereo, the first thing that comes to mind is the halcyon days of the 1990s — rolling out with your homies, scoping for hotties, rocking out to Sublime, and likely packing that pipe full o’ weed. The mix of…
The sun wasn’t even down, but there was already a sizable crowd of punk rock types pouring into Fort Lauderdale’s Revolution. It was going to be an early show, but she-it… it was only 7 o’clock! Didn’t people understand that punctuality was for losers? It wasn’t like the show’s main…
Less than 60 seconds into Don of All Dons, his comeback album and alleged swan song coming out next week and Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell is already knee-deep in raunch. “How many ladies’ pussies smell good?” he coos to his unseen (and likely nonexistent) female audience. “Give yourself a round…
“I’m sorry I’m drawing so many blanks,” offers Pinback guitarist Rob Crow, en route to a show outside of Cleveland. “I woke up at 3:30 this morning and didn’t fall back asleep.” He sounds tired — of getting little rest, of being on the road, of humoring inquisitive journalists over…
Behold, Pearl Jam! Mighty, embattled purveyors of enduring Major League Rock, quixotic political crusades, and crap album art. Released on the band’s own imprint, Pearl Jam features cover art that’s hellaciously ambiguous, poorly executed, and just plain dumb. So dumb, in fact, that the clip-art avocado adorning the package is…
When George W. Bush’s domestic-wiretapping program went into effect, you can bet that Boots Riley of the Coup was at the top of the surveillance list. But a lot has happened since Tuesday, September 11, 2001 — the day the Coup’s Party Music was released, bearing a cover that portrayed…
