Kal Cahoone has always hated spiders. It’s a chilly Thursday evening in luthier John Rumley’s studio/workshop, and the smell of lacquer probably hasn’t driven away any creepy crawlers — spinning webs in the shadows, possibly nesting in that old player piano in the corner. Even so, the members of Tarantella…
Inside Littleton High School’s gymnasium, Craig Finn looks enchanted as he admires a wall-sized collage containing lyrical bits and photo interpretations of his songs. The elaborate montage was assembled by a group of ninth-graders who’ve spent the past few months studying Finn’s New York-based outfit, the Hold Steady. “We’ve had…
Maybe now that Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz is a big star, he’ll get his own place — but don’t count on it. Even though he’s 26 years old, the group’s bassist/lyricist still lives at his parents’ Chicago-area house, and he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to move…
“Rest in peace,” uttered Bauhaus bassist David J. as he left the first generation of fans wanting more. That initial “final” performance, over twenty years ago, was retracted with a 1998 reunion. Now with rumblings of a new album, Mister Moonlight is rising once again. And though the volatile members…
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’s like something out of Hans Christian Andersen: A shy teenage girl is discovered by the manager of the Rolling Stones and billed as the “female Bob Dylan” — but renounces the world of pop to trek across the English countryside in a wagon. Along the way, she makes a…
Built to Spill once told us to Keep It Like a Secret, but indie rock is hardly a mystery anymore. And thanks to the unprecedented success of acts such as Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie, great bands like Rogue Wave may get the attention they deserve. The Bay…
I feel let down, Ash. The cognoscenti dismissed the rock moves on last year’s Autobiography, but I believed in them — and in you! You were tough, and that quality should have served you well in the wake of your recent adversity. So what happened? Why is the “you” in…
When mook rock’s prime minister, Fred Durst, vacated his seat and took up residence in Barelyhasbeenville, the Dude contingent was minus a mouthpiece — and, like, completely bummed, bro. No worries. Now another misogynistic miscreant has happily assumed the role of pied piper. Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger likes to drink,…
On the best recordings, lyrics, vocals and music are all first-rate — but CDs that fail to score in each category shouldn’t automatically be dismissed as losers. Take Premonition, Cryogen’s heavily metallic debut. Although the disc is only one for three from the plate, the hit is pretty damn solid…
Guitar solos have a lot in common with human speech. They can be whispered. They can be screamed. They can be slurred or articulate, concise or long-winded. But, as with verbal communication, they simply need to say the right thing at the right time. 8:05, the debut by Denver’s Bad…
Baumer, Come On, Feel It (Astromagnetics). Did Howard Jones join the Postal Service? Wait, there are also riffs sloshed into the melodramatic mix. This must be emo-electro. Riding the Franz Ferndinand backwash of ’80s dance-rock hybrids, Baumer brings nothing but empty gloss, airbrushed beats and guitar that’s more soullessly boob-jobbed…
Claude Coleman Jr. has sat behind the drum kit for Skunk, Chocolate Genius, Elysian Fields and Eagles of Death Metal. But he’s been Ween’s acrobatic timekeeper ever since Gene and Dean toured in support of Pure Guava. That’s thirteen years, mang. And while Ween’s brand of eccentricity has allowed him…
Folk-soul man Amos Lee has backing. Appearances with TV’s favorite breakfast flakes Katie and Matt aside, he’s got the unpredictable Blue Note Grammy machine behind him, which could easily launch him into obscurity. On the other hand, he could follow Norah Jones into the public conscience. Now’s the time to…
News flash: Henry Rollins is one of the most hilarious comedians on the entire planet. Although the former Black Flag frontman’s self-described “talking shows” are usually billed as spoken-word performances, implying some kind of slam poetry is involved, “storytelling” is probably a more accurate description of Rollins’s actual on-stage activities…
It’s difficult to reconcile why the Adicts draw slews of Generation XYY kids while all-ages sections at the Briefs’ shows are occupied by three claustrophobic straight-edgers. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the loom, after all. But it takes the younger Briefs to get geriatric punks back into the pit…
In addition to being cyclical, pop music is counterintuitive, as the marketing of Early Man demonstrates. The band’s two-person lineup mirrors the Jack and Meg White configuration, yet on Closing In, their new album, guitarist/vocalist Mike Conte and drummer Adam Bennati eschew modern rock for heavy ’70s sludge and the…
You never know which Conor Oberst is going to show up. Last spring at the Ogden, it was the recalcitrant hero, tiny and hidden behind his aren’t-I-tortured bangs and a keyboard, reluctantly forging the indie electronica from Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, backed by members of the Faint. Then,…
The glaring lack of new ideas in indie rock makes 90 percent of the bands that waste their time aping Sonic Youth seem as bright and interchangeable as a forty-watt lightbulb. At least San Francisco’s Deerhoof distinguishes itself from the herd with a dense and distinctive radio-unfriendly brand of art…
Google Kylesa, and the first thing that shows up is www.kylesa.com, with the tag line “We want to play your party.” Now, if the band were touring houses instead of clubs, it’d be like that scene from Weird Science when the post-apocalypse bikers crash through the living room, wielding barbaric…
The Johnny and June Carter Cash biopic Walk the Line hits the big screen this month. But if you want to see some real country-music chemistry in action, put your money on Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell. The North Carolina comrades’ new collaboration, Begonias, is a throwback to the golden…
“We don’t do cool,” reads the Machine Gun Blues website. “We work our asses off to bleed on stage.” Of course, the outfit is wrong on both counts: Its ragged, pounding fusion of the Stooges and ’60s British R&B is infinitely, if not self-consciously, hip. And no matter how much…
