Heroine Sheiks The Heroine Sheiks dwell somewhere in the miasma between post punk, no wave, and alt metal. Thankfully, the band isn’t relegated to the shadows of front man Shannon Selberg’s flashy madman persona. When he was singer for the Cows, Selberg could always be counted on to do things…
Cave In Though Cave In certainly started out playing a blurry kind of speedcore/math metal, the band’s newer stuff might tempt you to call them pop. Those in disbelief over the Dillinger Escape Plan’s latest stylistic expansions need look no further than Cave In for an example of how it’s…
When legendary Brazilian rocker Rita Lee was admitted to a São Paulo hospital for exhaustion last July, her fans feared the worst. But, according to Lee, the event was foreshadowed long ago. “During the ’70s, I wrote a song with [The Alchemist author] Paulo Coelho called ‘Superestafa’ (Superstress), so feeling…
Ben Kweller doesn’t resort to irony the way that Steven Malkmus and Rivers Cuomo — both of whom Kweller is compared to — do in their respective bands. Kweller’s photographs in music magazines, and his somewhat tongue-in-cheek album cover imagery (which he oversees himself) may suggest self-conscious geek chic, but…
If Jean Grae’s last album, The Bootleg of the Bootleg EP, was a stiff middle finger to the male-dominated rap game (the chorus to the song “Hater’s Anthem” was just the phrase “fuck you” repeated over and over), the New York MC is a little more reflective with This Week…
With Euro-heavyweights Múm and B. Fleischmann on its roster, Berlin-based Morr Music has been a consistent crucible for upbeat glitch since 1999. Its latest offering, the Go Find’s Miami, is no exception. More accessible than its other esoteric labelmates, the Go Find is committed to bridging the gap between indie…
This album is essentially a cool experiment that actually works. London DJ Sam Zaman, a.k.a. State of Bengal, went to Paris and tapped Paban Das Baul, an Indian street singer who belongs to a group of gypsy-like mystics, to sing over his beats. Together, they fashion a record that isn’t…
From Pussy to penises, Sally Timms really covers all her bases. The English-born, Chicago-based performer has played the roles of musician, author, actor, and activist since joining the legendary Mekons in 1986. Pussy, the King of the Pirates was the Kathy Acker-inked lesbian opera that Timms starred in nine years…
After more than a decade of delays and a few million blunts, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, and Warren G have re-formed what was — before the three MCs found individual fame in the early ’90s — their original, Long Beach-based trio, 213. Nate Dogg and Warren G haven’t been relevant…
The punch heard ’round the music world may have catapulted the Von Bondies into the spotlight, but their sophomore album Pawn Shoppe Heart puts to rest any doubts that the Detroit foursome’s talent is superceded by a smackdown from their one-time supporter and White Striper Jack “Cold-Cock” White. With new…
eL (Revolution by Popular Demand) Once upon a time there was a band called Vinyl. Unbeknownst to it, another band had already called dibs on that name. So they changed the name to Sevens. Oops, that was taken too, and they had to change it again. After a few months…
DJ Monk DJ Monk sure is scary. With his waterfalls of dreadlocks and tribal septum piercing, he looks like he could surely scalp you and stick your head on a spit as a sacrifice to some drum and bass tiki god. Monk got his start in the industrial Florida group…
Go ahead and say heavy metal musicians are arrogant assholes, dirty longhairs, and social outcasts who live with their parents and worship Satan, sniff glue, and set fires. It may even be true. But according to Alex Suarez, guitarist for the instrumental metal quartet Centipede, they’re “just normal-looking dudes playing…
Philly rap demigods the Roots established themselves long ago as the most exciting live hip-hop group around. It was only with 2002’s Phrenology that the group made an album that even held a candle to the energy that drummer ?uestlove and the rest of the band exude onstage. The Roots…
A few years ago, you couldn’t throw a bag of fast food out a car window in Fort Lauderdale without hitting a bar or club that Hashbrown had played or was currently playing. Early this year, the ubiquitous funk/soul band of brothers moved to the Big Apple, but they can’t…
Overheard The following conversation was heard between a salesperson and a client on a recent Saturday at Jezebel, 1980 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale: Client: I just don’t understand. The government is spending all this money, like, exploring the moon. Why can’t they use some of that money to stop…
Gospel Gangstaz? That’s the oxymoronic name of a hip-hop group — a Christian hip-hop group. If it seems strange to reconcile gangstas and Jesus, travel to the low end of the radio dial some Friday night for the Jam Session on Palm Beach’s WAY-FM (88.1). The jams in this session,…
When Josh Gabriel first met Dave Dresden, Gabriel thought Dresden was full of shit. It was March of 2001, and the Winter Music Conference was in full glittering swing. Gabriel was staying at the Royal Hotel in South Beach, where Leon Alexander of Hope Recordings was spinning records at a…
Let me know if you’ve heard this one before: Three hipsters walk into a bar in Williamsburg, bond over a fondness for post-punk and Prince (the obligatory post-punk deviation from post punk), form a loft party-ready band, throw in a touch of safe politics from time to time, open for…
Whether you consider her a peddler of precious, pretentious twaddle or an endless font of pure Icelandic genius, you have to give Björk credit for eschewing the safe option. No other platinum-selling diva has had the guts to forge such idiosyncratic paths as this charismatic singer has done over the…
Fuck the Strokes, fuck the Hives, and fuck every other slicked-out, overhyped rock band on the planet. If you want real rock ‘n’ roll, the kind that makes you wanna get all hopped up on booze and dangerous amounts of adrenaline and run around like a maniac bringing glorious chaos…
A few years ago, Shyne was set to take the place of the late, great Biggie Smalls at the top of the Bad Boy roster. His self-titled debut generated two popular singles and briefly added the phrase “that’s gangsta” to the short list of rap clichés. Then an altercation led…
