The collaboration between French composer/producer Hector Zazou and American vocalist Sandy Dillon is dilletantish musical experimentalism best described as “difficult.” Zazou (who has worked with Björk, John Cale, and Dead Can Dance) and Dillon, an avant-pop chanteuse, have teamed up to create a piece that’s challenging in the extreme but…
Good songwriting never goes out of style, even when style itself can become dated. That’s a point lost on many singer/songwriters, who think adding a little sob here and a little regret there instantly makes them bona-fide artistes. Portland’s Sean Croghan, who has fronted such obscure Pacific Northwest bands as…
Having grown up in New Orleans, center of the jazz universe, Nicholas Payton can’t even remember his first Mardi Gras, his first visit to Preservation Hall, his first jazz concert. It’s not his fault, though: The 28-year-old trumpeter attended each event before his first birthday. “I was doing that kind…
Truly amazing that this bratty bunch of New York scenesters was able to foresee the future and aptly title its debut. All the hype, all the rumors, the waiting… then a paltry 36 minutes later you ask, “Is this it?” To add to the disappointment, the Helmut Newton-esque album cover…
This Washington, D.C., group (which takes its name from an old Brian Eno song) took off at the end of 1998, continuing the momentum — and one-half of the personnel — of the beloved band Jawbox. Blending shades of Gang of Four, Pixies, and even XTC into a wiry, angular…
When it rains it pours. Last week it seemed as if worthy concerts became like puddles, unavoidable, clustering so close you couldn’t help but step in a few. Some were muddy messes: Hank Williams III did the unthinkable on Thursday, October 24, at the Culture Room as he made it…
Scratch a punk rocker and you’ll find a metalhead underneath. Scratch Seattle punk superheroes Zeke and you’ll get laid out cold for shredding the 15-year-old Iron Maiden shirts its members have been wearing all week. Zeke are Beavis & Butt-Head’s big brothers. They sold nickel bags in your high school’s…
Ben Folds is a piano man with an addiction to character sketches — his ’97 hit album, Whatever and Ever Amen, had two: “Kate Army” and “Steven’s Last Night in Town.” He outdid himself last time out with An Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, a full LP devoted to a…
It all started with a dress. A white dress with black polka dots and red trim. Crinoline skirt. Red belt. Red shoes. Like Minnie Mouse wears. Only this is TMarie, at age six. She is competing for Tiny Miss Miami 1994. Her hair is pulled back in a poof. Her…
You’d think that, being the target of a federal probe and all, Seminole Chief James Billie would be overseeing a benefit concert (or two) just to pay off his many debts — and legal fees. But instead the big man’s band is hosting a show this Sunday to help scare…
Not only is Abstract Rude one of the West Coast’s biggest and busiest underground heavyweight MCs; he’s also willing to take extremely wide risks in a field known for its conservative approach. He may not always succeed, but his work with his own group, Abstract Tribe Unique, and with many…
Given that this year’s Family Values Tour offers a typically execrable smattering of pedestrian cheese-metal (Staind? Who asked for that nonsense?) you’d be within your rights to ignore it, but the first band on the stage deserves consideration. Deadsy, captained by Elijah Blue Allman, son of Cher and Mr. Whipping…
Pinback affirms that music created just for the thrill of it, under no self-consciousness or pressure to sell records, can be just as catchy as anything on commercial radio. When guitarist/vocalist Rob Crow and bassist/vocalist Armistead Burwell Smith IV took advantage of free time from other musical projects in their…
From 1967 until Jerry Garcia’s death in August 1995, Mickey Hart played percussion with the Grateful Dead. He also regularly succumbed to an uncontrollable urge to uncover and bring to light music from all over the world. He recorded The Music of Upper and Lower Egypt during a Dead tour…
Listening to Okeeblow, the final release on Mike D’s now-defunct label, Grand Royal, is akin to sampling an audiophile’s eclectic mix of son-of-the-’70s classic-hit favorites or a nostalgic Rhino Records best of the name-your-era compilation. The cover features a photo of a fellow hangin’ on the sun-drenched corner of Fourth…
Never a band to enjoy a stable lineup, the Damned has reshuffled again and again but this time around has hit on a formidable combination: original singer Dave Vanian and guitarist Captain Sensible at the helm; Vanian’s goth-diva wife, Patricia Morrison (Gun Club, Sisters of Mercy), on bass; Pinch (English…
Dude, your package is so suspicious: Mail delivery being what it is nowadays, technicians inside Fortress Bandwidth feel lucky to still have any parcels to open in advance of Christmas. Even better, local CDs seem to be a hot ticket this time of year, arriving at an unprecedented rate and…
While defying the barriers of his preceding albums, Spiritualized mastermind Jason Pierce cleaves to a few signature elements. He’ll always dwell obsessively on lyrical themes of Jesus and existentialism, as well as both love and drug addiction. The guitar work consistently has an interstellar/psychedelic vibe, recalling Pierce’s legendary former group…
I don’t want to be known as “Cancer Boy’ for the rest of my life,” sighs Eric Alexandrakis. “You know, “That musical cancer guy.’ But it is marketable.” Alexandrakis, a Miami-based multi-instrumentalist who produces homemade pop songs in relative isolation, doesn’t make his bouts with Hodgkin’s disease the subject of…
By the sound of it, Migala considers music as much a visual experience as an aural one. Thank goodness, because the results are spectacular. The band’s third full-length sets the scene for a lush, cinematic dream world to be seen with the ears, which makes for inspiring listening. The music…
One of the few acts in the tattoos/piercings/baseball cap/drop-D-tuning set that actually seems to deliver something “nu” is South Florida’s own Nonpoint. This MCA signee and Ozzfest darling is much tougher to pigeonhole than its heavy brethren. Andrew Goldman’s relentless rhythm-guitar work references Helmet — without all the egghead jazzy…
I don’t know about you, but the lowly infidels hidden away deep in the Bandwidth bunker have always been nonbelievers in the band Tool. Not because of Tool’s silly pseudo-intellectual take on heavy metal and prog-rock but largely because of its legion of overzealous, fanatical followers. These people just never…
