Flying under the hippie-esque banner of “Yeehaw! Love Everyone!,” “Big” Kenny Alphin and John Rich — the singer/songerwriter/production duo that goes by the all-American moniker Big & Rich — has blazed a trail into uncharted country music territory. Hanging with a gaggle of hard-partying yokels known as the Muzik Mafia,…
“Rap these days is like a pain up in the neck/Cornier and phonier than a play fight.” Seems Danger Doom’s mumble-mouthed MC MF Doom would turn back to some bygone, fantasy hip-hop era, evoking the age when he was in footie pajamas, munching cereal, rotting his brains on Scooby-Doo, G.I…
For the last ten years that the Grateful Dead hauled its gypsy-rock caravan across America — that golden decade of 1985 to 1995 — the band was the highest-grossing touring act in the country, outselling pop superstars like Michael Jackson and Madonna. After head Deadhead Jerry Garcia went the way…
So you’re a big Billy Joel fan and you feel the sincerity of Elton John, yet you haven’t checked out local (by way of the world) phenomenon Brendan O’Hara and the Humble Ones? Stop sleeping it! O’Hara has had a long trip from the outskirts of NYC to Portland to…
Age, they say, brings wisdom. It also brings Social Security checks, which Delbert McClinton will qualify for when he turns 65 next month. Hell, the Texas-born singer is so unapologetic about growing older that he’s adorned the CD sleeve of his latest, The Cost of Living, with past driver’s licenses…
For a while, it seemed that emo might be the only kind of punk germinating in Long Island, but Latterman meets at the post-hardcore/pop-punk crossroads those crybabies are trying to get to. Bringing their own spin to suburban teenaged pain and the injustices of the world, the four boys of…
I wonder what Metric (and sometimes Broken Social Scene) frontwoman Emily Haines was like in high school. Like most emerging indie-rock icons, she was probably socially awkward, the only sort of pre-adult state of mind that allows for a future of musical talent (no dates = more time alone with…
Trent Reznor is not unhappy. He’s not tortured, distraught, deluded, strung-out, miserable, or bitter. The Nine Inch Nails auteur is, however, angry. The bile that seethes through With Teeth, his first record in six years, which debuted at number one in May, is the emotional link to his first three,…
Among the hundreds of musicians who exploit occult imagery, few have cultivated a more profound aura than Glenn Danzig. From the trashy sci-fi horror of the Misfits to the pagan mythology of Samhain to his current, eponymous incarnation as Danzig the dark lord, he has always aspired to artfulness through…
It must be hard to be Hanson — you know, the brothers who “MMMBop”ed their little-boy androgyny onto the walls of many a preteen girl’s bedroom in the late ’90s. Guess what? They grew up, like even the most unwilling adolescents have a tendency to do. Checking into their just-released…
You didn’t ask for it, but you got it. To accompany the upstart Nocturnal and the granddaddy Space, Downtown Miami is now home to a third big-budget übersupermegaclub called, fittingly, Metropolis. You can actually count Metropolis as numbers three through seven, since the 35,000-square-foot monster is home to five distinct…
Two albums and three EPs into his career, the Miami boy known as Iron and Wine is still plucking songs from his original 2001 home demos, and his latest release is further proof that there’s not a clunker in the bunch. On In the Reins, Sam Beam realizes his dream…
In 2002, Broken Social Scene didn’t have much to prove. Most members of the Toronto collective were already playing in other Canadian indie bands (Stars, Metric, Do Make Say Think), and because they were a ragtag group of relative musical unknowns, their second album was likely to be as forgotten…
With a barrage of lurid lyrics, NYC’s Cage spits the sort of storyboard rhymes on Hell’s Winter that sound as if they’re ripped from an underground graphic novel. The dreary war-zone backdrops come from El-P, RJD2, and Blockhead, and their nimble, diesel-charged compositions help drive Cage’s reckless imagination over the…
On their 2004 debut, Hell Yeah!, the Horrorpops weren’t exactly Fugazi. The album was like No Doubt’s early, embarrassing ska minstrel shows, only the ‘Pops promulgated a schmaltzy shockabilly act — complete with colored mohawks, skull tattoos, and leather pants, a pose that afflicts many Rancidites who still think such…
Of all the big Kahunas at the Hukilau, the third-annual gathering of tiki fanatics that just wrapped up October 9, none stood taller than the diminutive, white-haired Robert Drasnin. Pushing 80, Drasnin is a musician unknown outside the tiki circuit. Within it, though, he’s so revered that during his Friday-night…
Last we checked on Fall Out Boy, the post-punk, pop-culture-infused poster children from the Chicago suburbs, the band was cruising the metaphorical fast lane. Its critically acclaimed 2004 debut, Take This to Your Grave, was paid for by Island Records and released on the Fueled by Ramen label to maintain…
After founding member and lead guitarist Mikey Houser succumbed to cancer in the summer of 2002, many a Widespread Panic fan (call ’em Spreadheads) figured the ride was over. But the hard-touring, hard-rocking Georgia six-piece brought in a new axman and followed Houser’s directive to keep going without him. Earlier…
It bills itself simply as that “Little Ol’ Band from Texas,” but considering that its pedigree stretches back some 35 years, ZZ Top might be the best-known power trio since Cream. The band’s videos pass off a slapstick image — two front men boasting huge amounts of facial hair, wide-eyed…
Maybe you missed its Cinco de Mayo show at SpiderPussy, but if you like dangerously catchy, keyboard-driven tunes, Elkland is your band. The synth-poppers formerly known as the Goat Explosion bring their brand of hook-laden electro back to South Florida after finishing a stint opening for Erasure. Formed in the…
Remember that time you made out with the chick that was really a dude? The Brazilian Girls are that sort of gender switcheroo times three. Although singer Sabina Sciubba definitely has ovaries, the rest of the New York-based group are, ironically, not girls. Nor are any of them from Brazil,…
You can’t really soften up the image of a train, but you can power a train on 4/4 and 6/8 rhythms and keep it rolling on tingly mandolins, chilly violins, and the rollicking ramblings of dobro, guitar, and banjo. A big powerhouse train with an enormous heart: that’s Railroad Earth…
