Drop the Needle

Even before Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy joined a band, women were lining up to show him body parts they usually keep under cover. McCoy served as a tattoo artist in upstate New York for several years, and during that time, he inked designs and illustrations on or near…

Mushroomhead

The band wears ghoulish masks and uniforms, has an eight-man lineup, and plays a metal mashup that incorporates elements of hip-hop, industrial, and hardcore. Sounds a lot like Slipknot. But people who write Mushroomhead off as a Slipknot rip-off probably haven’t heard about the time Mushroomhead (formed in ’93) almost…

My Chemical Romance

Gerard Way offers his critics plenty to ridicule on the latest MCR CD, including unbridled theatricality, more classic-rock nods than even Lenny Kravitz, and the sort of show-biz shamelessness that hipsters consider terminally uncool. Yet the garish over-the-topness of the entire twisted enterprise is precisely why this disc is so…

Irving Fields/Roberto Rodriguez

The 12 tunes on Oy Vey! Ole! are joyous junctures; it’s a place where Afro-Cuban rhythms, traditional klezmer/Hebraic melodies, pop immediacy and economy, and jazz-enriched élan coalesce into convergences of cool. Ninety-something pianist Irving Fields wrote songs performed by Dinah Shore, Xavier Cugat, and Sarah Vaughan and had a hit…

Danava

While purists continue splitting hairs over what makes “true” heavy metal style, Danava combs the genre into a weave of fantastic art-rock wizardry that leaves the stick-straight by the wayside. For its full-length debut, Kemado Records’ dark horse moves between kohl-cloaked glam and by-the-misty-bog Zeppelin hallucination fantasies. Gargantuan stoner rhythms…

Feathers

We considered running for this review a roll call of every genre and reference point that Feathers touches upon in this five-song EP. But then we realized we simply don’t have the space. Yes, this is merely an album of music. But it distills so many far-flung and arcane touchstones…

Mo Mule

No group in the jam-band genre polarizes fans the way Gov’t Mule does. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either the best Southern rock band of all time or the living embodiment of everything that’s wrong with pointless noodling. But there’s one thing everyone can agree on: Warren Haynes, the…

Gnarls in Charge

So the Bang! Music Festival features Gnarls Barkley on the bill. That raises the obvious question: What’ll their get-up be? The character-assuming psych-funk duo of Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse can’t show up as, you know, Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse; they’ll have some manner of alter ego in place, whether it’s…

Next Century

Why are there so few drummer-led rock ‘n’ roll bands? After all, the drummer is not only the “timekeeper” but — excuse the automotive reference — the sparkplug that crackle-starts the pistons of a song. Marc Bell, better-known as Marky Ramone, kept the beat for his namesake group for more…

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Psyched-Out But Rocking On

I was freezing my ass off, standing in front of the stage at the overly air-conditioned Hard Rock Live. But it was OK: The Dictators version of “California Sun” was blaring over the P.A. while a line of Halloween-costumed go-go dancers shook and shimmied their stuff before a giant, carnival-styled…

Mixin’ Up the Meyer

Having managed the Brooklyn-based La France Promotions for ten years, Micheline Conde has the credentials (and the connections) to book one hell of a show. And this Saturday, she’s bringing the party to downtown West Palm Beach, for the Palm Beach Music Festival. Now a PBC resident, Conde knows what…

Emo Disco

Panic! at the Disco’s teenage members sport anachronistic ’60s-squire haircuts, an apt look for a group that generates Beatlemania-caliber frenzy. But while the Fab Four spent years playing R&B covers at unheralded gigs, Panic emerged fully formed, like an adult Athena springing from the head of Zeus. A Fever You…

New Found Residence

New Found Glory founding member Chad Gilbert has never seen Elizabethtown. He’s not alone, of course. Plenty of folks have chosen to skip what may very well be the worst of all Cameron Crowe-directed movies. But Gilbert has another reason. “I don’t plan on it because it touches too close…

Fight to the Def

Journey and Def Leppard perform Tuesday, November 7, at Hard Rock Live, 5747 Seminole Way, Hollywood. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets cost $60 to $125. Call 954-523-3309, or visit www.ticketmaster.com.

Scissor Sisters

The members of New York-based band Scissor Sisters admit they were feeling the pressures of a “sophomore slump” when they headed into the studio to begin recording Ta-Dah, the follow-up to the Sisters’ critically acclaimed 2004 self-titled album. One of the things that made that first record so outstanding was…

Badly Drawn Boy

No one’s more British than Damon Gough, which may explain why he hasn’t broken through in the States. If his brilliant score for the Hugh Grant film About a Boy failed to entrance Yanks in sizable numbers, the Springsteen nod contained in his new CD’s title probably won’t reverse the…

Suenalo Sound System

It’s tough to encapsulate the sounds of a city into one medium, let alone an 11-track disc. However, through the mixture of Colombian cumbia, Cuban rhythms, Caribbean steel drums, good ol’-fashioned rhymes, and melodic vocals, Suenalo Sound System smacks any wannabe jam band right in the grill with its multicultural…

Januar

The music on Januar’s latest can be hazy, indistinct, and difficult to pin down — and that’s generally a good thing. Rather than present their material in straightforward ways, the performers create a series of aural moods in which mystery and merit are joined at the hip. The Januar lineup…

Dude, You’re Getting a Melvin

Focus isn’t exactly what comes to mind when you think of the Melvins, a group that has indulged its every outlandish whim for more than a decade. Despite often fascinating results, even the most devoted fans’ patience must have limits. On the flip-side, even if the Melvins pile on the…