If memory serves, Aaliyah is dead — killed in what appears to have been one of the most preventable plane crashes ever. So it’s something of a shock when a new tune called “Who Is She 2 U” kicks off with an intro by Timbaland, Aaliyah’s favorite producer, that’s remarkably…
A while back, Pearl Jam issued a slew of cheap, generically packaged live CDs, supposedly as a treat for its fans. Of course, Vedder and crew, who haven’t exactly been raking it in lately, were just trying to beat the bootleggers at their own game. What’s great about Fugazi’s similar…
Talk on the streets is there’s a backlash against the Casualties (appearing on Sunday, July 18, at Invesco Field as part of the Vans Warped Tour) by self-righteous old-schoolers armed with accusations of “sell-out” and, of course, the perennial standby, “poseurs.” Those knee-jerk slanders should be laid to rest, however,…
The term “college rock” implies that the post-high school educational experience is the same for most Americans, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Depending upon the student, life as a collegian can involve everything from anarchy to alcoholism. As a result, the brand of college rock practiced by Mission19,…
Few things outside of puberty or the oratory of George W. Bush are as awkward as a waltz. Like an amputated square dance, the waltz’s three-count cadence and stiff formality represent the ultimate triumph of social order over the organic rhythms of the human body. It’s no wonder, then, that…
Whitney Houston is a mess these days, a crack-addled, emaciated shell of her former self. The last time I caught her on TV, she was wading in the River Jordan, about to be baptized alongside her trouble-magnet other half, Bobby Brown. Seemed a little ill-conceived to me, but, whatever. Brown…
Pioneer of the English space-rock underground, Ozric Tentacles has been rearranging brain cells since 1982, when its expansive, instrumental workouts drew comparisons to better-known space cadets like Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. Champions of the pretentious album title (Pungent Effulgent, anyone?), the merry minstrels have nonetheless racked up an impressive back…
Harry Connick Jr. (right) began performing at the age of five. His accomplishments since then should inspire awe and envy in almost anyone. Training under luminaries like Ellis Marsalis and establishing himself first as a brilliant jazz pianist and arranger, the New Orleans native went on to earn acclaim as…
After forming in 1997, the Blood Brothers — co-vocalists, Johnny Whitney and Jordan Billie, guitarist Cody Votolato, bassist Morgan Henderson and Mark Gajadhar on drums — released two speeding blasts of discordant noise-punk, 2000’s This Adultery Is Ripe and the following year’s March on Electric Children. The group (right) then…
Don’t let the black outfits and stenciled skulls fool you; Alkaline Trio doesn’t exude a fraction of the ghoulish atmosphere of similarly-adorned goth-punks such as the Misfits and AFI. Angst, though, it’s got in spades. Since 1997, the Chicago threesome has plumbed the sticky, half-scabbed depths of bloodshed and heartbreak,…
In a review of a November 1999 Ricky Martin appearance at the Pepsi Center, I described opening act Jessica Simpson, whose debut disc had been released three weeks earlier, as “a cross between the first woman to die in a slasher flick and a third-rate Mariah Carey: Mariah Scary, if…
When a band’s lead singer goes by the name “Blackie Lawless,” there’s bound to be a little trouble — a premise W.A.S.P. rarely strays from. Lawless has been the mainstay member of this ’80s metal act that’s known more for its antics than its music, serving as singer and frontman…
Tommy Thomas carries a business card that poses the question, “What can’t the working man do?” Up until the mid-’80s, a total smartass might respond with: “Keep a band together” or “Stay off the sauce and nose candy.” But as the cold sober and respiritualized Thomas already knows, any blues…
House music, an American underground phenomenon in the ’80s, has become a worldwide institution since its inception in seedy warehouses in urban Chicago. One of the key innovators responsible for staking house’s substantial claim on the global music landscape is Chicago legend Derrick Carter, whose first experience as a DJ…
In my neighborhood, in the early ’70s, there was always talk of uprising,” John Bigham recalls. “I grew up in the era of the Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers in Chicago. And they weren’t gangs in the sense of destroying property and terrorizing people. They were gangs in the…
There’s a man lying near death at your feet. His body has been punctured by seven slugs of enemy fire, and your compatriots — the ones who don’t bolt out of fright — try frantically to plug the gushing leak in his neck. But it’s all in vain, and you…
The Cure’s new record is its first since Robert Smith disbanded the group following 2000’s underrated Bloodflowers, and it was produced by Ross Robinson, whose resumé includes work for Slipknot, Korn and Vanilla Ice. But worry not: The self-titled return sounds almost exactly like a Cure record should — almost,…
Once he was “ushered” out of the phenomenal underground crew the Arsonists, many wondered if Freestyle would be able to carry an album by himself. Three years in the making, his debut album, Etched in Stone, puts all speculation to rest. And not much has changed since fans last heard…
Plenty of scribes have unloaded on The Printz, and it’s easy to see why. This compilation of two EPs is often a mess, with Aussie provocateur Chris Colonna and one-named helpers such as Pia and Surya gleefully engaging in unnatural acts of rock, hip-hop and plenty more, without the slightest…
Echoes are cool. You know, the way they lap against your skull like waves, slapping faster and faster until they start to run into each other, clipping their edges off and ultimately collapsing into a clunky, recursive stutter. Rock-and-roll history is full of them; in fact, the progression of ’60s…
Ever wonder what would have happened if Fugazi had retroactively developed fetal alcohol syndrome and became addicted to wearing rattlesnake codpieces and huffing gold-glitter spray paint out of plastic Safeway bags on the corner of Park Avenue and California? Well, wonder no more. Eaglemaniac, the second full-length release by Black…
Out of the Darkness is one of a kind — an acoustic-folk concept album about the power-grid failure in the Northeast last year. (Why on earth a group from Fort Collins would feel compelled to tackle such a topic is a bigger mystery than the blackout itself.) In the end,…
