Didja happen to notice those breasts on the cover of this issue? Many a local band would be far better off if they had a rack like that. Forget talent, drive, and ambition — it’s the milk pillows that matter. OK, wee exaggeration. Try this: An old and mostly true…
Like most rockers, most rock critics drink. At night, they get dopey on the tonsil polish, but during the day, journalists get smashed on hype. And everyone — from writers to readers, musicians to fans — knows that hype, like hooch, has the unfortunate tendency to make you fall in…
In the streets of Barcelona, Spain, the word barí means gem. Barí is also the name that alternative combo Ojos de Brujo (“Eyes of the Wizard”) gave to its second album before critics all over Europe began using the same word to describe the songs on it. Shiny and pure…
It’s one thing to hit all the right sonic touchstones; it’s something else to balance your influences with a unique artistic sensibility. Led by Kylee Swenson’s bold, breathy vocals, San Francisco dream-pop fivesome Loquat floats on faraway synths, glistening guitars, and tiptoe drum programming; images of an Edie Brickell-lead Church…
Blessed with exquisite musical taste and an enviably large record collection, Four Tet (British producer Kieran Hebden) has maximized those assets over four increasingly accomplished albums since 1999’s Dialogue while incidentally becoming the foremost proponent of “folktronica.” Four Tet’s mastery of the laptop and sampler culminates on Everything Ecstatic, a…
Plenty of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden buffs have been hoping Audioslave would produce a great album on its second try, but they’ll have to settle for pretty good. Although Out of Exile is solid and listenable, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk, and Tim Commerford are ultimately pushing…
Of all hip-hop wünderkind Madlib’s multiple identities, Quasimoto remains the most compelling — a Munchkin-voiced dope fiend who’ll say and do just about anything. But the real marvel is that his creator finds equally colorful settings for this comic-book creation: first on the 2000 classic The Unseen, and now, upping…
Just in time for Father’s Day, Broward MC Bloody Phill arrives with this EP, featuring six tracks — three originals and instrumental versions of each. The focal point is the male-empowerment anthem “Baby Daddy,” giving big-ups to all the real-deal dads who put time, money, and love into raising their…
For the first time in his life, Beatcomber is running without anybody chasing him. About a month ago, he trotted around his neighborhood heart trail, dismayed at the lung butter he coughed up and the strange euphoria that arose from the exertion. He’s as shocked as you are that it’s…
After spending years jamming on elegant sushi and dishing out raw blues, it’s no surprise local Renaissance man Kenny Millions is going to the source of both. This week, Millions teams up with Akikazu Nakamura, an esteemed Japanese musician who’s a recognized master of the wooden shakuhachi flute. After a…
If you thought Iron and Wine’s sleepytime hush was out of place coming from Miami, you’ll be shocked at the true-blue, back porch country wail of the Down Home Southernaires. Composed of members of part-time experimental jazz-rockers Pygmy, the Southernaires’ boot scoot boogie creaks and twangs with old yokel vocals,…
Country! Rock! Alternative! Pop! Acronym them all together and you get CRAP — that is to say, the CRAP Festival, an annual compendium of Southern bands, local and nonlocal. The 18 Wheelers specialize in the back catalog of big-beat honky tonk and rockabilly. Will Thomas perpetuates the recurrent yet somewhat…
We’re 30,000 feet over the Atlantic, going down fast, about to crash, and Keith Michaud of Summer Blanket has just gotten me slammed in the balls by an attractive young blond of surprisingly muscular build. That’s how he suggests this article start, punning off a scene from Almost Famous, with…
More than 30 years after Jim Morrison’s death, original Doors Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger are still banging away at history. As the Doors of the 21st Century, they headline the Strange Days Festival in West Palm Beach this Friday. The two are aided by a new drummer (skinsman John…
Uhh… Err… Umm… Wha??? I’m at a loss for words. Funtymz’s revelatory, six-song CD Love Factory is so devastatingly atrocious that it enters the rarefied realm of the superlative. As in: this is the most unlistenable music I’ve ever heard. In its own ridiculous way, it’s perfect. Like Cheetos. Am…
Outrageous but true statement of the week: Keane is Coldplay without guitars. Ridiculous! you argue. A lie! you say. Just check out the English trio’s 2004 release, Hopes and Fears, and you’ll hear for yourself. Front and center are vocalist Tom Chaplin’s rosey-hued voice and Tim Rice-Oxley’s melodramatic piano. All…
It’s remarkable that after a half-decade of audacity, eccentricity, and pulverizing hype, the White Stripes still genuinely surprise us. Get Behind Me Satan begins with the blasé single “Blue Orchid,” but from there, it gets infinitely better, not to mention weirder. “The Nurse” is a delicate shaker-and-marimba lullaby periodically and…
In a span of five years, Chris Martin has gone from being an irritating bloke mewling about yellow stars to his current role as movie-star boinker and fruity-name bestower. Inside the music business, he’s also seen as the man most likely to resuscitate the industry, and X&Y, the latest from…
Los Bros. Gallagher return after their Heathen Chemistry produced not a banging wallop but a fizzling so-what. Perhaps it was their master plan all along to lower the bar and then leap over it when no one was expecting it, unless they were making bad records on purpose, in which…
“I feel like an old railroad man,” Mark Everett, a.k.a. E, sings during one of the many forlorn weepers on the Eels’ indie-label debut. He sounds like one too, because his vocal filters work like reverse purifiers, enhancing grit and sediment. After two ill-fated ventures into rocky territory, Everett returns…
When I say the words Las Vegas, what musical acts pop into your mind? Wayne Newton, Elvis Presley, and Dean Martin all sound about right, huh? Well, you’re dead wrong, sonny. Collective Soul is what Vegas is about. Oh, you didn’t know? That’s OK — neither did anyone else on…
While some might assess the recent breed of jam bands as successors to the Grateful Dead, this Mr. Know-It-All maintains that the worthiest heir to the Dead legacy is just another band from East L.A. Los Lobos measures up where it counts: musically. Like the Dead, they embrace roots music…
