Buffalo Tom, Three Easy Pieces (New West). Buffalo Tom returns with its first album in seven years. Three Easy Pieces finds the act mixing pop rock and Americana values with hints of alternative jangle and grungy riffs. Trouble is, it’s seven years too late. The question here isn’t really who…
Weedeater: It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate handle for this North Carolina-based power trio, whose bass-heavy metal is marked by droning repetitive riffs and augmented by indecipherable monster-sized vocals. On its most recent effort, the Steve Albini-produced God Luck and Good Speed, the act burns through eight tracks of…
Noise as an art form has been embraced in basements, garages and warehouses ever since Russolo’s 1913 “Art of Noises” manifesto and Schoenberg’s “Emancipation of Dissonance” proclamation. Philadelphia-based artist Mark Price is helping secure the movement’s future with his homemade noise-generating devices. Price drives his current vehicle, appropriately named Cars…
There’s nothing better on a sweltering summer night than a set of steamy, sexed-up house music. The heat, the sweat and the sense of freedom summer inspires all work together to bring out the hedonist in everyone. And if house music isn’t about hedonism, what’s the point? House specialist Nick…
Tom Morello, the virtuoso guitarist from Rage Against the Machine, has taken to calling himself the Nightwatchman and has been stealthily slipping in and out of coffee-shop open-mike nights. But don’t get your hopes up. With his new project, Morello leaves all of his prescience and talent behind in favor…
All right — let’s just get this out of the way, right off the bat: There isn’t anybody named Jacob Fred in the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. But the whole jazz part, well, there’s some truth to that. Much like the Bad Plus, the Tulsa-based trio uses jazz as a…
Desperately in need of a nightcap, I pop in to the Satellite Bar (308 East Colfax Avenue), which has been open for about three weeks now. Things are a little slow, but hey, it’s around midnight the night after the Fourth. Instead of watching skaters on half-pipe ramps on the…
The Green Fuse is known for ardent DIY aesthetics — specifically, its handsome homemade record covers and its soon-to-be-impractical cassette tape releases. And such crafty projects are telling of the truly underground nature of the trio, which has yet to — and may never — establish a MySpace page. More…
Gravy Train!!!! July 10, 2007 hi-dive Better than: Watching drag queens lip-synch to Cher. The Gravy Train!!!! show at the hi-dive featured flamingly gay men dressed in tighty-whiteys, plenty of silver lamé and kitschy, juvenile sexuality resulting in the type of campy theatrics rarely seen outside of a drag-queen revue…
In Westword’s July 12 profile of Chris Cornell, the erstwhile lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave proves to be an energetic conversationalist, and those qualities come through even more clearly in the complete transcript of the interview, which is reproduced below. Indeed, he has a tendency toward filibustering — quite…
Von Südenfed Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino) The Fall’s Mark E. Smith doesn’t seem like the natural kin of Mouse on Mars’ Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner — yet their teaming on Von Südenfed’s striking debut presents them as compatible members of a memorably nasty family. On tracks such as “Speech…
Coheed and Cambria Slide Show At certain times, a reviewer should completely tune out fans in search of total objectivity. At others, the people most into the music should drive the critical train — and for this look at the thirteenth annual Warped Tour, which stopped at Invesco Field at…
Slide Show The Tanukis, Ukulele Loki and Chairlift July 7, 2007 The Larimer Lounge Better Than: Eating dinner. Seriously, I skipped dinner to see this show. Sometimes the best shows are the ones that you go to on a whim, where you’ve never heard any of the bands before and…
Portugal. The Man Church Mouth (Fearless) There’s no denying that John Gourley and his two musical pals take themselves mighty seriously. Fortunately, they manage to merge artsiness with whimsy, cheek and good beats. The likes of “Sugar Cinammon,” “Oh Lord” and the title track are herky-jerky alterna-rockers with willfully curious…
Yerkish and Something Underground July 5, 2007 The Soiled Dove Better than: Whatever passes for “Must See TV” these days Slide Show 99.5 the Mountain’s Homegrown Showcase got underway with Yerkish burning through an invigorating set of heavy art rock as a bizarre video reel projected on either side of…
Westword’s July 5 profile of Yellowcard frontman Ryan Key only scrapes the surface of the wide-ranging interview that forms the backbone of the article. Key has a lot to say, as you can see below. Among the major topics: Speculation that Paper Walls, the latest Yellowcard CD, was rushed into…
Remember in Almost Famous when Penny Lane recounts the advice she gives to fellow band-aids, that whole bit about not taking things too seriously to avoid getting hurt, and how if they ever get lonely they can always go to the record store and visit their friends? That scene always…
Sometimes on Sunday night, I just want to lay on the couch and watch TV, but I can’t because I have to go entertain the people.” Ian Williams laughs as he makes this remark, but the fact is, he can barely find time for himself these days. Speaking via phone…
The tastemakers at Spin treat Florida’s Yellowcard as something of a running gag. As an example, lead singer Ryan Key cites an item about a post-MTV Video Music Awards party that was shut down by fire marshals; in it, the writer expressed surprise that bandmembers weren’t allowed to enter due…
By now, you most likely have fully absorbed Double Up, the latest chart-topping treatise from crazed/brilliant R&B lothario R. Kelly. Which means that, despite the current attention lavished on lead single “I’m a Flirt,” you have discovered the record’s true emotional core: the slo-jam ballad “Sex Planet.” “Sex Planet” is…
At my age,” Jason Walker declares, “I don’t know how to approach a band anymore.” At 28, Walker’s not being glib. He’s spent the last half of his life behind a drum set, sweating it out in cramped practice pads and even tighter quarters in vans while on tour. “More…
Interpol’s major-label debut isn’t as monochromatic as its two predecessors. “Pioneer to the Falls,” which channels the stormy textures of the Cure’s Pornography, is possibly the richest song the act has ever recorded, with death-march piano and a giant quivering mass of strings adding counter-melodies that swell in the mid-section…
