In the world of hip-hop, mixtapes are the currency of the street, the vehicles that many underground artists use to create exposure and build their names outside the confines of major-label marketing campaigns. By creating a street-level buzz, such artists as 50 Cent have forced mainstream tastemakers to take notice…
In 2008, the whole dance punk phenomenon, with few exceptions, seemed worn out and irrelevant to anything genuinely exciting. But it was in the spring of that year that The Don’ts and Be Carefuls started putting together its songs and playing its first show shortly after solidifying its line-up. Although…
It’s turning out that Zach Tipton, the man behind the “apocalyptic pop” of I Am the Dot is not only crazy talented but somewhat prolific. His debut self-titled EP just came out November 4 and here, on the very first day of December, he’s released another one. This new release…
Starkville, Mississipi is known for a lot of things: the arrest of Johnny Cash for public drunkenness, which inspired the song “Starkville City Jail.” Real life American gangster Machine Gun Kelly lived there while studying agriculture at Mississippi State University. Starkville also gave us local vinyl slanging, non-request taking, DJ…
Every Friday we spotlight the hottest cats behind the decks in the MHC, grilling them to gain some insight on what it takes, exactly, to get the party rocking, to find out about their most treasured crate digging experiences and what they really think when we stumble up to them…
There’s something to be said about a group that boldly calls itself, CunninLynguists. Since 2001, the Kentucky-bred group, which consist of rapper Natti and producers/rappers Deacon the Villain and Kno, has redefined what it means to be courageous with their music, during a time when cookie-cutter groups are getting all…
Rachael Yamagata released her critically acclaimed debut disc Happenstance in 2004 only to be dumped by her record label, RCA, shortly thereafter. Last year the singer-songwriter and pianist finally resurfaced, on Warner Bros., with the wonderfully ambitious double album Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart. Richly textured ballads dominate the first disc…
Take two parts freak folk and one part New Wave, filter it through a dying Gameboy, then melt shards of sampled hip-hop into the mix and allow to congeal into something weird. That should give you some idea of what to expect with Hideous Men, one of the latest and…
Metal fans rejoice, for you have much to be thankful for this week, especially tonight! In case you happened to miss it last week, we published two in-depth Q&As with two of metal’s most revered acts, both of which just happen to be playing our great state tonight. Down south,…
Recalling the frayed pop sounds of New Zealand indie-rock bands of the ’80s and the angular, contorted psychedelia of Pavement, Pacific Pride has always focused more on quality over quantity. Beginning in 2004 after the dissolution of the original lineup of the May Riots, Pacific Pride played few shows and…
Every Friday we spotlight the hottest cats behind the decks in the MHC, grilling them to gain some insight on what it takes, exactly, to get the party rocking, to find out about their most treasured crate digging experiences and what they really think when we stumble up to them…
Sleeping with band dudes doesn’t make you famous.” The words scrawl across a closed door after the stock “band slut” walks in behind the drummer in All Time Low’s new video for “Weightless.” Just a few years back, the four Baltimore-based post-punkers wouldn’t have known anything about that sort of…
Yesterday’s news that the Monolith Festival is in financial straits and in need of a rather large infusion of cash just to continue wasn’t completely shocking, especially given the modest turnouts and the fact that AEG Live opted out of helping produce and promote this year’s fest, which seemed to…
Nitzer Ebb, from Essex, England, helped to define the musical style called EBM with its heavy industrial rhythms and stark vocals. As with emo, another much-maligned genre, EBM started out as a vital and relevant music whose pioneers never chose to name with a blanket term to encompass a music…
Cannibal Corpse didn’t invent death metal, but it has become one of the genre’s definitive bands. Forming in Buffalo, New York in 1988, Cannibal Corpse quickly came to prominence due to its decidedly brutal music and horrifically detailed lyrics to match. From the beginning, Cannibal’s album covers were a source…
Maynard James Keenan is tough to pin down. Over the years, he’s fronted a variety of different bands — most famously Tool, but also A Perfect Circle and, currently, Puscifer, a wild and sometimes wacky ensemble that headlines on November 20 and 21 at the Paramount Theatre. But Keenan’s interests…
Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way from the get-go: we love The Rock. We can’t explain it but there it is. That said, we also hate Hans Zimmer with a passion usually reserved for evil dictators and ex-patriots. So what better example of Recast then…
Although tagged by some as “this generation’s Black Flag,” Converge vocalist Jacob Bannon is a long way off from becoming Henry Rollins — off stage anyway. Onstage, Bannon is a whirling dervish of emotion, complete with violent fist pumps and blood curdling screams. Offstage, however, the singer is quiet, introspective…
Electric Six have been bringing the party to the unwary for six albums in as many years, starting with 2003’s Fire and leading up to the brand-new Kill. The group’s songs combine ’80s rock, disco and New Wave into a cranked-up, ultra-catchy sound all its own, with lyrics that mix…
Every Friday we spotlight the hottest cats behind the decks in the MHC, grilling them to gain some insight on what it takes, exactly, to get the party rocking, to find out about their most treasured crate digging experiences and what they really think when we stumble up to them…
Isaiah “Ikey” Owens is better know these days as the keyboardist of the Mars Volta. His versatile and creative musicianship, though, was honed in the ’90s when he played with Sublime and later Long Beach Dub Allstars. Ikey first played with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala in the dub project…
Micky and the Motorcars, led by Micky Braun, bring their rowdy brand of country rock to the Grizzly Rose tomorrow night. On the surface, the young Texas band’s success might appear to have come relatively easy but ask any hardcore Micky and the Motorcars fan and they’ll point out every…
