Girl in a Coma :: Clumsy Sky

Female rock trio Girl in a Coma formed in San Antonio, Texas in 2001. Their first show at Sin13 that same year left their audience in awe of the group’s extraordinary sound (courtesy of childhood friends Jenn Alva on bass and Phanie D. on drums) and Nina Diaz’s jaw-dropping vocals, which have been compared to those of Bjork and Patsy Cline.

Girl in a Coma’s history began in 1993 when Phanie and Jenn found themselves seated next to each other in an art class at Longfellow Junior High School and decided to form their first band. The group, called Day Old Rice (D.O.R.), featured Phanie on guitar and Jenn on bass. They played regularly at local clubs in the San Antonio area, but constant lineup changes took a toll and the group disbanded after only Read the full story

Nachtmystium is a psychedelic metal band from Illinois that has featured members from other american black metal acts such as Weltmacht, Krieg, and Judas Iscariot.
Formed in 1999 by guitarist Blake Judd (aka Azentrius), Nachtmystium debuted with their first demo, Holocaust of Eternity, and a split with USBM band Zalnik. Their first full-length, Reign of the Malicious, was released in 2002, and since then, they have released 4 EPs, Nachtmystium (2003), Eulogy IV (2004) , Worldfall (2008) and Doomsday Derelicts (2009), and 4 full-length albums, Demise (2004), Instinct: Decay (2006), Assassins: Black Meddle, Part 1 (2008) and Addicts: Black Meddle Part 2 (2010). Nachtmystium has had various splits with the major USBM bands, including Xasthur and Krieg, and an upcoming split with Leviathan.
http://www.myspace.com/nachtmystium Read the full story

Brutally intense, unrelenting and outright savage are just a few ways the metal community will describe the new offering from Montreal’s hottest export DESPISED ICON as their new full-length effort, Day of Mourning, is a true lesson in violence. The material contained on this disc should come bearing a caution label stating: “Is known to evoke extreme erratic and violent tendencies coupled with a desire to kill.” The dichotomy of the dual vocal assault of Alex Erian and Steve Marois adds the depth and dynamic that few bands can attempt to replicate. The addition of new bassist Max Lavelle quickly proved his skills keeping up with the maniacal drumming of Alexandre Pelletier who delivers his most impressive performance yet, raising the bar for his peers within the genre. Longtime guitarist Eric Jarrin and newcomer Ben Landreville round everything out with a blistering, frenetic barrage of cut-throat riffs. Read the full story

Thee Oh Sees :: Ghost in the Trees

Thee Oh Sees are the latest incarnation of songwriter, singer, and guitarist John Dwyer’s ever-evolving pop-folk psychedelic group. Dwyer, who hails from Providence, RI, has been active on the San Francisco indie scene since the late ’90s, working with several bands, including the Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, Yikes , Up Its Alive, and Swords & Sandals, among others, and he formed OCS (which is an acronym for Orinoka Crash Suite, Orange County Sound, or whatever Dwyer decided it was on any given day) initially as a vehicle for the experimental instrumentals he was producing in his home studio. In time OCS morphed into an actual band, and worked under the usual flurry of names, most notably as the Oh Sees or the Ohsees , and eventually as Thee Oh Sees, featuring Dwyer on guitar and vocals, Brigid Dawson on vocals and tambourine, Petey Dammit (sometimes listed as Petey Dammit! on bass, and Mike Shoun on drums. Sounding a bit like the Mamas & the Papas run through a seriously bent garage blender, the band released Sucks Blood on their own label Castleface Records in 2007. In 2008 the band released The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In on the German label Tomlab, and 2009 will see the release of Help on In The Red Records. Read the full story

David Bazan :: Bless This Mess
The Mynabirds :: Numbers Don’t Lie

Known for his work fronting the enigmatic rock band Pedro the Lion, David Bazan’s emotionally charged narratives, eye for telling detail, and mournful voice have more in common with J.D. Salinger’s ‘Nine Stories’ or Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Wise Blood’ than with the usual lyrical slant of popular music. Bazan is a gifted storyteller, weaving parables of spiritual conflict, suburban ennui, and personal surrender into magnetic, well-crafted songs.

His debut solo full-length album, Curse Your Branches (out now on Barsuk), is a masterwork by a modern American poet at the height of his powers. Paste Magazine called him one of the ‘100 Best Living Songwriters’. This record is the deepest and most explicit exploration of his struggles with faith and a meditation on all things passed between the Read the full story

Matt & Kim :: Daylight
The So So Glos :: Isn’t It A Shame

First off a note of warning: Matt and Kim aren’t a typical band and this isn’t going to read like your average biography. For example, although Matt and Kim know they met while taking classes at Pratt Institute in New York, Kim’s not sure what year she graduated, let alone when they decided to start playing music as a two-piece. What they do know is that when Matt and Kim started out approximately four years ago, they had no idea how to play their respective instruments—a fact that makes the band’s success story almost as unique as their distinctive brand of synth-and-drums dance punk.

After being forced to play their first show by a friend months after picking up their instruments, keyboardist/vocalist Matt Johnson and drummer/vocalist Kim Schifino played their first show as Matthew and Kimberly in October of 2004—and after slightly altering their name they spent the next year Read the full story

This isn’t about us.

It’s about how we like you, music, and art.

What we like the most are stimulating compositions that translate both on recorded mediums as well as live. We also like the artists that create them. A lot. All of the artists we like are electronic music producers in various capacities, emitting forms of downtempo, hip-hop, techno, house, ambient, dubstep, drum & bass and abstract beats.The artists on the roster connect with us and masses of listeners using innovative techniques to produce un-ordinary music. The results are new expanses of sound: they’re defining trends in Detroit, North America and around the world, breaking boundaries and suprising ears whenever their art is discovered. Whether you’ve heard of artists we like or not, let us take you on an adventure into the future within the comfort of Detroit’s friendlest spaces. Expect crystal clear sound and stunning visual effects throughout the entire event, complete with interactive live art exhibitions. We Like Music Festival is as simple as it sounds. Here is a selection of music and art that we like, and hope you will too.

Magic Stick lineup: Jimmy Edgar / Eliot Lipp / Kraddy (The Glitch Mob) Read the full story

“There’s a certain uneasiness to the Toadies,” says Vaden Todd Lewis,succinctly and accurately describing his band—quite a trick. The Texas band is, at its core, just a raw, commanding rock band. Imagine an ebony sphere with a corona that radiates impossibly darker, and a brilliant circular sliver of light around that. It’s nebulous, but strangely distinct—and, shall we say incorrect. Or, as Lewis says, “wrong.”

“Things are done a little askew [in the Toadies],” he says, searching for the right words. “There’s just something wrong with it that’s just really cool… and unique in a slightly uncomfortable way.”This sick, twisted essence was first exemplified on the band’s 1994 debut, Rubberneck (Interscope). An intense, swirling vortex of guitar rock built around Lewis’s “wrong” songs—like the smash single “Possum Kingdom,”subject to as much speculation as what’s in the Pulp Fiction briefcase, it rocketed to platinum status on the strength of that and two other singles,“Tyler” and “Away.” Its success was due to the Toadies’ organic sound and all-encompassing style, which they aimed to continue on their next album.

Perhaps in keeping with the uneasy vibe, that success didn’t translate to label support when the Toadies submitted their second album, Feeler. Perhaps aptly, things in general just went Read the full story

Tokyo Police Club :: Breakneck Speed
The Arkells :: Ballad of Hugo Chavez

For a band that burst on the scene with an ecstatically received 16 minutes of music (2006’s A Lesson In Crime EP) followed in rapid fire succession by additional EPs and singles (Smith, “Your English Is Good”) and a debut album (2008’s Elephant Shell) all in under two years time, you’d think 26 months between albums would be an interminable wait. And it might well have been for Tokyo Police Club, had they not toured relentlessly in support of that first album through August of 2009-and started writing new songs virtually the second their previous record was put to bed.

So the nine month gap between the close of that tour and the June 8 release of Champ, Tokyo Police Club’s second full length album and first for the mom+pop label, has been anything but boring or unproductive. Quite the opposite in fact: The Newmarket Ontario quartet ended up happily immersing itself more fully in its craft than Read the full story

Since forming in 1988, Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys have emerged as one of the world’s most respected practitioners of American roots music—western swing, rockabilly, and traditional country—playing it like they invented it. “I think of us as just a rock and roll band—a rock and roll band that’s letting the roots show,” says bandleader Big Sandy. Whether they’re playing the Grand Ole Opry, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, or simply climbing out of a bus after rolling into your town, these guys are bringing us some great old-time rock and roll.

The first lyric on their newest Yep Roc Records release, Turntable Matinee, commands us to “Drop the needle in the groove and start to move!” That opening track—”The Power of the 45, Part 1″—is a dance call to arms as well as a love song to the group’s musical influences. Big Sandy sings a rapid roll call of diverse musical heroes: Junior Parker, Ronnie Dawson, Little Esther, Chuck Berry, Glen Glenn, Etta James, Johnny “Guitar” Watson. The list goes on, showing the Read the full story

Best Coast :: Boyfriend

Combine the sophisticated chill of a New York City winter with the girlish, laid back romance of California in the summertime and what to you get? The answer is Best Coast, the latest musical endeavor by perennially cool, self-described “weird girl” Bethany Cosentino. Best Coast was born when Cosentino decided to come home to LA after a time in New York City, to get a fresh start at living in the place she knows best—California. Quickly garnering praise from critics and listeners with the single “Sun Was High (So Was I),” Cosentino was approached by UK-based label Blackest Rainbow, who released her now sold-out tape Where the Boys Are. Also in the works are two new 7-inch’s, one being released by San Diego-based Art Fag Recordings and the other, the debut release from brand-new Brooklyn label Group Tightener.

A Los Angeles native, Cosentino grew tired of what she had grown up with and did what so many have done before—she picked up and left for the East Coast, specifically Brooklyn, with the intention of going to art school for Creative Writing. “I was like, I hate the beach, I hate flip flops. I want to go to Read the full story

Foals :: This Orient
Esben and the Witch :: Lucia at the Precipice

What links the minimalism of American composer Steve Reich, guitars that sound like insects and tennis player Andy Roddick? The answer is one word: Foals. The explanation is a bit more complicated.

Let’s start at the beginning. Foals are a five-piece dance-rock band currently living in Brighton. Yannis Philippakis (20, vocals/guitar), Edwin Congreave (22, keyboards), Walter Gervers (23, bass), Jimmy Smith (22, guitar) and Jack Bevan (21, drums) met in their native Oxford, where they bonded over a shared sense of humour and a desire to distance themselves from the city’s art school/university scene. Bored with the interchangeable electro records they heard at every party, they decided to make the kind of music they wanted to dance to. “We wanted to make music that was very technical, that wasn’t just party music, but at the same time you could Read the full story

Holy Fuck :: Stilettos
Indian Jewelry :: Oceans

If opposites really do attract, it makes perfect sense that Holy Fuck would chose a barn in rural Ontario to record a series of dynamic electro-noise pop that compose their latest full-length release, titled Latin. Where Holy Fuck in the past were a rotating cast of musicians, Latin showcases for the first time their consistent touring line up. Drummer Matt Schulz and bass player Matt McQuaid provide a complex rhythm foundation that at times feels like an invisible hand leading you through a dark hedge maze. Perhaps an excessive feat for most, but this provides the ideal underpinning as Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh merge a twin effects/feedback tangle that is equal parts entrancing and inspiring. The band had an absurdly busy touring schedule in 2008/2009 and Latin undoubtedly benefited from the near nightly shows. There is an added dimension of song craft on the album – Latin brings noise and melody together with an uncanny sense of optimism – but at the same time Holy Fuck have not lost the chaotic and euphoric energy that they are known for. When it came time for Holy Fuck to record, songs were cut live off the floor during their brief downtime at home. Delivered in trimesters, Latin was engineered by Graham Walsh and mixed by Dave Newfeld (Broken Social Scene), D. Sardy (Johnny Cash, NIN), Eli Janney (GvsB, Wilco,), Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Primal Scream) and Holy Fuck themselves. It’s the follow up to 2007’s simply titled LP which Filter described as Read the full story

Women :: Eyesore
DD/MM/YYYY :: Digital Haircut

On their debut self-titled album, Women embraced sonic brashness that deeper examination revealed to be tinted with sly pop melody. With “Public Strain” the band have honed a sound truthful to that reverb drenched noise while allowing the pop sensibilities to surface into clearer focus.

In fall of 2009, Patrick Flegel (vocals/guitar), Matt Flegel (bass/vocals), Chris Reimer (guitar/vocals), and Michael Wallace (drums) went into the studio with an abundance of ideas, working around conflicting schedules and graveyard shifts. With Chad VanGaalen again on production duties, the band laboriously crafted a timeless sounding recording over the dead of winter in Alberta, Canada. The result exploits their usage of harsh, grating dissonance in smaller and controlled doses, using noise as the foundation for richly structured, layered Read the full story

Klaxons :: Echoes

It’s fair to say that Klaxons have a weight of expectation upon them. Just over a year into their existence the kids love them, dress like them and go glowstick-wielding mental at their gigs. The media can smell something molten hot going on but are bemused as to what it is. For the music consumer and MySpace addict there’s the mad energy of the three singles – the latest, ‘Magick’, a frenetic paean to occultist Aleistair Crowley, plays regularly on daytime Radio One but stands out a country mile from the mass of regulation indie. For the more casual observer there’s a lot of talk about ‘nu-rave’, a term bassist Jamie Reynolds coined many months ago to describe the way his band occasionally reference the era when dance music ruled the UK. It’s a phrase that, for a fiery guitar band, is misleading and yet sometimes bizarrely appropriate.

Jamie Reynolds (26) grew up on the council estates of Bournemouth and Southampton. By age twelve he was already drinking and smoking weed and, by thirteen, hanging out with lads five years older. A group of them asked him to be bassist in their nascent indie band, Thermal, and a few bass lessons later Jamie’s band were supporting heavy-hitters of the time such as Mansun and Heavy Stereo. The big break never Read the full story

Fireworks began in 2005 in the Metro Detroit area of Michigan, where they signed to the independent label, Run For Cover Records, who released their debut EP, We Are Everywhere, and 7″ Adventure, Nostalgia, and Robbery. From there on, the band toured extensively, until 2008, when they were signed by the well-known independent label, Triple Crown Records, home of other popular bands such as As Tall As Lions, Fight Fair, Hit the Lights, and Honor Bright. There, Fireworks re-released We Are Everywhere, and in March 2009, they released their debut full-length, All I Have to Offer is My Own Confusion produced by Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory.

During the Summer season of 2009, Fireworks supported Four Year Strong and Set Your Goals through America on the Giglife tour.

In December 2009 Fireworks set out on their first European tour, supporting Set Your Goals. Read the full story

Envy
From Tokyo, Japan

http://www.myspace.com/officialenvy

Trash Talk is an American hardcore band from Sacramento, California, formed in 2005. Trash Talk combines classic hardcore punk with the aggression of its descendants. They have toured all around the world including Japan and Europe, as well as performed in many festivals in support of their releases which helped give the band recognition from publications including Rolling Stone
http://www.myspace.com/trashtalkfu Read the full story

Dungen :: Satt At Se
The Entrance Band :: Grim Reaper Blues

Dungen (Swedish: “the grove”, pronounced [ˈdɵŋən]) is a Swedish rock band based in Stockholm. Often classified as psychedelic rock, Dungen is also influenced by Swedish (and other) folk music, classic rock, progressive rock and indie rock. The band is fronted by singer/composer Gustav Ejstes, who writes all music and plays the majority of instruments on the band’s records. Despite this, Dungen plays live as a four-piece. Gustav, who in his teens started his songwriting with hip hop, is backed live by Swedish progressive rock veteran Reine Fiske (Landberk, Morte Macabre, Paatos, The Guild) on guitar, bassist Mattias Gustavsson (Life On Earth!), and drummer Fredrik Björling (The Guild)— all of whom have played parts on Dungen’s studio albums.

Following two vinyl album releases on Swedish record label Subliminal Sounds, Dungen briefly signed to Dolores Recordings (a subset of Virgin Records) in 2002, on which they released the CD Stadsvandringar and Read the full story

Stars :: Wasted Daylight

Love and death have always been the twin engines of the popular song: the pursuit of love and the mourning of its passing; the havoc death wreaks upon love; love’s survival in the aftermath of death; death as metaphor for the loss of one’s identity to the consumptive power of love…

Few bands of recent times have understood this as completely as Stars. And fewer bands still have so eloquently articulated, in words and in melodies, the seemingly countless ways love and death fill our days and rule our lives. Ten years after singer-lyricist Torquil Campbell and keyboardist Chris Seligman conceived of Stars in a decrepit New York apartment, one can listen back through the band’s discography and hear dozens of songs that find new ways to contemplate these ancient, ageless subjects.

To that end, The Five Ghosts, Stars’ fifth full-length album, would seem to be business as usual. Indeed, a scan of its song titles — “Dead Hearts,” “I Died So I Could Haunt You,” “The Last Song Ever Written” — would suggest as much. And yes, the band whose previous Read the full story

Les Nubians :: Africa For The Future

“Music is every moment of our lives,” says Helene FAUSSART, one half of the Afropean hip hop/R&B duo Les Nubians.  Helene and her sister/bandmate, Celia, found that this feeling connected them with people in Jamaica, EGYPT, Cameroon, Chad, London, their native Paris and other locales around the world as they embarked on the journey that led to their newest album ‘One Step Forward.’

In the time since their 1999 U.S. debut ‘Princesses Nubiennes’ (Higher
Octave/Virgin) became the most successful French-language album in more than a decade of Billboard charts, Les Nubians’ singing sisters have traveled the world, soaking up the sounds of reggae, afro-beat, pop and electronica while collaborating with a host of respected musicians. “Everywhere we went, we looked for music that spoke of the local culture,” says Helene. The sisters met and worked with traditional folk musicians, as well as artists at the apex of every genre from Read the full story

Cotton Jones :: Glorylight and Christie
Pepper Rabbit :: Red Wine

The music of Cotton Jones speaks of transition: the passage from one form, state of mind, style or place to another. Songs become doorways to the past, or windows that open on some unnamed future, where innocence can still exist and perfection is thrown to the wind. The Glowstream is a place centered between North and South Cumberland. It’s not really called the Glowstream – just a stream that rolls to a dead end by the train tracks downtown. A place to sit, undisturbed in the cool shade, and see the interstate bend around glowing steeples, as cars and trucks break their speed – it’s beautiful – how the city materializes, an oasis, after driving many miles through the mountains along I-68 – to this private spot, where it’s possible to witness all the paces change.

Michael Nau & Whitney McGraw skipped town months ago, leaving the old haunts in Cumberland behind… To sift through the old noise, they walked off the edge of their world… To sound the depths, the songwriters relocated, to Georgia, far south of the Glowstream. “We spent a lot of time on the bank of Read the full story

The Walkmen :: In The New Year
AA Bondy :: I Can See The Pines Are Dancing

The Walkmen is a rock band formed in New York in 2000. In the late 90’s, the guys constructed an analogue recording studio in an abandoned Nash Rambler factory in west Harlem, where they self-recorded their first album, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone. Three of the members now reside in Brooklyn, and two have moved on to the cheaper pastures of Philadelphia. The band has released 4 albums of original material–including 2008’s You and Me, which still sounds as fresh as the day it was conceived. The band has travelled extensively around the world in the last 8 years, but has always called New York home. They are currently in New York recording a 5th album, which is slated for release in early Read the full story

War of Ages (sometimes abbreviated WOA, formerly known as Point Zero) is a Christian metalcore band formed during the summer of 2002 in Erie, Pennsylvania. They are known for fusing Power Metal influences with their Metalcore sound.

They often played alongside the then more famous band Jesus Wept. They played over 250 shows in 2005 with bands such as Bury Your Dead, The Acacia Strain, As I Lay Dying, and Throwdown.
http://www.myspace.com/warofages

Read the full story

Justin Townes Earle :: Ghost of Virginia
Jessica Lea Mayfield :: For Today

“I have a feeling that in a few years we’ll need backstage passes at the Ryman auditorium to get anywhere near him. He’s just THAT good.” —Chattanooga Free Press

“It seems every time we encounter Justin Townes Earle live, the guy has peeled another layer off himself revealing another astounding bit of his promise. Barely three years into his career, Earle is seemingly moving at an accelerated rate, even if the casual listener or viewer can’t quite discern what it is that shaping up.”—Houston Press

*****

Justin Townes Earle’s age belies his experience. Growing up in Nashville he mis-spent his youth playing in bluegrass/ragtime combo The Swindlers and the louder, more rocking The Distributors and developing some very bad habits. During tours as guitarist and keyboardist (“…and not a very good one,” laughs Earle) in his father Steve Earle’s band, his problems became untenable and he was fired. Ultimately he cleaned up his act, dropped his Read the full story

High on Fire is a stoner metal band originally formed from the remnants of the legendary stoner band Sleep. Matt Pike, from Sleep, sings and plays guitar in High on Fire and founded the band with George Rice (bass) and Des Kensel (drums).

http://www.myspace.com/highonfire

Torche is a band from Miami, Florida, United States, they play a distinctive style of stoner/ sludge metal. The band categorizes their music as ‘’stoner pop’‘.
http://www.myspace.com/torche Read the full story

Triptykon is the most recent musical project of Thomas Gabriel Fischer, founding member of the pioneering heavy metal bands Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Apollyon Sun. Fischer announced his departure from Celtic Frost in May 2008 and shortly afterwards revealed that his new project would be entitled Triptykon. Fischer commented: “Triptykon will sound as close to Celtic Frost as is humanly possible, and the album I am working on will feature all the material I envisioned for the successor to Celtic Frost’s Monotheist. I desire the album to be a darker, heavier, and slightly more experimental development of Monotheist.” The first audio sample, for the song “Crucifixus” can be heard on the band’s official Myspace page.

On August 5, 2009, Triptykon issued a press release indicating that the recording of their debut album, Eparistera Daimones, would commence in the middle of August and continue through November, with a release in the spring of 2010.http://www.myspace.com/triptykonofficial Read the full story

For the first time in his career, Greg Dulli will embark on a solo tour which will see him make stops in five different countries for a total of 29 shows. Beginning in New Orleans on October 8th, An Evening With Greg Dulli will feature Greg along with long-time Twilight Singers guitarist Dave Rosser and multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson (Polyphonic Spree) performing a stripped down set.  Dulli will lead his band through a wide selection of songs encompassing his entire career. An Evening With Greg Dulli will be a limited run tour with only fourteen US shows along with stops in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Belgium.

These shows will also mark the debut of several brand new songs from the forthcoming Twilight Singers album scheduled for release on Sub Pop Records in early 2011. The new Twilight Singers album will be the first release from the group in five years. More details on the new album will be announced later this year.

The Felice Brothers :: Frankie’s Gun
Adam Haworth Stevens :: The Cities That You’ve Burned

The Felice Brothers and their long time friends and band mates Greg Farley and Christmas Clapton, come to us from the Catskill Mountains, where a homegrown sound has been working its way through the bloodlines for generations. Their rambling journey so far has brought them from busking in New York City subway stations, to tours across the world that have included enthusiastically received performances at major music festivals including Bonnaroo, All Points West, Outside Lands, and Langerado.

A defining memory to date might be their appearance at the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. A summer afternoon thunderstorm rolled in and began to douse the land. While it electrified the atmosphere, the rain had the adverse effect of cutting power to The Felice Brother’s stage. After many assurances that power would be restored, The Felice Brothers were informed it was a lost cause, and that they’d have to make due. Without hesitation the band jumped down off the Read the full story

Originally based out of Chicago Illinois, Screeching Weasel is best known for helping to spark the early 1990s “pop-punk” movement. Formed by a teenage Ben Weasel in 1986, the band has released 10 studio albums, two outtakes compilations and a best-of anthology. Featuring a line-up led by Weasel and longtime guitarist Danny Vapid, Screeching Weasel is again performing live after a decade-long hiatus.

http://www.myspace.com/officialscreechingweasel

http://www.screechingweasel.com/

The Riverdales are a Chicago-based band which formed in 1994 in the wake of prominent Chicago punk band Screeching Weasel. At a time when pop-punk was breaking through to the mainstream, Screeching Weasel front man Ben “Weasel” Foster elected to end the band and get back to his Ramones-based roots. Foster shared vocal and songwriter duties equally with co-frontman Dan “Vapid” Schafer (a proven frontman in his own right from his days in Sludgeworth). Foster elected to write riff-based songs with fun themes, while Schafer tempered this goofiness with catchy, oldies-themed pop songs, as well as a few goofy themes of his own.

1995 saw the band recording their self-titled debut, and touring extensively with the Mr. T Experience in smaller venues, and with Green Day in stadiums. Although a Screeching Weasel reunion put the Riverdales on the back burner for a short while, they came back strong with the phenomenal Storm the Streets in 1997, a record which saw the band hit their stride despite the fact that they had stopped performing live after the Green Day tour. After another hiatus during which Foster pursued a solo career and Schafer formed the Mopes and later the Methadones, the Riverdales released the Read the full story

Blonde Redhead :: Here Sometimes
Pantha du Prince :: Stick To My Side (feat. Panda Bear)

Blonde Redhead is an alternative rock or indie rock band. It was formed by Kazu Makino, Maki Takahashi and Italian twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace. They take their name from a song by DNA, a 70’s and 80’s no wave band from New York. Kazu Makino is married to Amedeo Pace.

Amedeo and Simone Pace were born in Milan and grew up in Montreal, but moved later on to Boston to study jazz. After earning their Bachelor’s degrees, they began playing in the New York City underground music scene. The Pace brothers and Kazu Makino and Maki Takahashi – Japanese art students – formed the band in 1993 after a chance meeting at an Italian restaurant in New York.

Blonde Redhead caught the attention of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who produced their self-titled debut in 1993. Shortly afterwards, Maki Takahashi left the band, and the remaining band members continued as a trio. On their third album, Fake Can Be Just as Good, they were joined by Read the full story

Avi Buffalo :: Remember Last Time

Avi Buffalo was once just the kid named Avi (short for Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg). He’s now singing and playing guitar, but was then a vaguely aspirational skateboarder living in Long Beach, who figured between hip trauma and a never-quite-conquered fear of dropping into a half-pipe that he might need to come up with something else to do with the rest of his life. (Maybe journalist If there were gonna be any left) His parents never got around to getting him the Game Boy he wanted, so he turned to a handily local guitar. Years of 12-hour days attacking that (plus lessons-to-mentoring with seriously iconoclastic local blues guys) revealed a pretty preternatural talent for making a very special kind of bent but lovely pop song. ‘You know why it’s good Because it sounds OLD, but it’s NEW!’ said Blues Mentor, sparing the world more labored analysis. And that is the connect-the-dots story of how Avi Buffalo became a band-boy meets guitar. It’s a good old story.

Then boy meets rest of his band at Millikan High in Long Beach-Sheridan Riley on drums, Rebecca Coleman on keys and piano and Arin Fazio (the old man at almost 21, whose dad was a session musician during L.A.’s glossier days) on bass. By the time you read this bio, they will pretty much all be out of high school. And that means we can push past the age thing into the music thing-yes, they’re young, and yes, says Avi, they can effectively metabolize even the most ill-advised tourslops, and yes, many an article is gonna haul out a word like ‘wunderkind.’ But what can you do They’re Read the full story

Deerhunter :: Revival

From Atlanta, Georgia, Deerhunter are a band who soon should need no introduction. Their genesis can be traced back to when Bradford Cox first met guitarist Lockett Pundt at high school. Over the years, drummer Moses Archuleta, bassist Josh Fauver and guitarist Colin Mee (now replaced by Whitney Petty) were all recruited and the band realised.

Their first album – a lo-fi, just-for-fun debut – appeared in 2005 on a local Atlanta label, Stickfigure, and although being untitled, it has since also become known as Turn It Up, Faggot; a phrase that doesn’t actually appear on the sleeve but is an insult that Cox claimed was often thrown at the band during their early gigs.

With their next album (some argue their first proper), Cryptograms (2006), things started to get serious for the band. They had moved to fêted Chicago indie, Kranky (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low, Stars Of The Lid), and the world outside was starting to take serious Read the full story

Suicide Silence perform an extreme metal musical style known as deathcore, which is a fusion between death metal and metalcore. The band perform this style as well as gain influences from several other extreme musical genres such as black metal, grindcore, and mathcore. The mathcore elements can be seen in the varied speed changes and complex time signatures in the band’s music. The vocals of Mitch Lucker are frequently fluctuating between death growls and high-pitched screamed vocals used in black metal. The drumming is very fast-paced, grindcore influenced, and employs a liberal use of double bass drumming and blast beats.

K-OS :: Zambony

K-OS, born Kevin Brereton, is a genuine neo-crossover rap n’ roller who’s music, much like your Ipod, might speak to hipster club kidz, pop chart gazers, Canadian indie rockers, dirty south electronic rap renegades, or reggae rude boys simultaneously. As it should –his rhyme and crooning skills took root in arguably the most polyglot and multi-cultural city on the planet, Toronto. And he’s quite vocal about his not belonging to any one genre – he belongs to them all. Says k-os: “I’m a historical opportunist who’s grown up on everything from Dylan to Marley to KRS-One… I’ve never seen myself as just a hip hop artist”.

On Yes!, his 12 song deep fourth album, released in Canada on Nettwerk/Universal, the now Vancouver-based upstart has consolidated everything he’s done before, and chimed in where his head’s at now, like a more musically seasoned audio auteur would, despite his past successes. “As cliché as it may sound, this record really does take the best elements of my past work” he explains. “Strangely, three albums later, it feels like I’m starting new again, with a new label, manager, and agent. This album is a return to me picking up drum machines, guitars, keyboard and going for broke!”

The opening track “Zambony” is an electro-revivalist dance floor number where M.I.A meets Justice and The Cool Kidz in Amsterdam to dance and get Read the full story

When punk rock judgment day comes, everyone knows which side of the fence BAYSIDE will be on… the legitimate one. The current state of rock music has left acts in a never-ending sea of “genres,” and this current state of affairs has resulted in numerous bands tailoring their look and sound into something that can be labeled. Artists are unjustly pigeonholed and careers are shortened as a result. But amazingly, BAYSIDE has prevailed as rock’s leading indefinable, working class, relateable rock heroes.

Since their inception on Long Island one fateful winter day in 2000, BAYSIDE has become the voice for the misanthropic and the hopeful alike. Having released four studio albums with Victory Records since signing on in 2003, BAYSIDE has sold over a quarter-of-a-million records and has become one of the most likable bands in the industry. The non-fickle foursome remain loyal to their long-time fans, dubbed “The Cult”, yet they manage to convert new followers every day. The loyalty extends not only to their fans, but also to each other, as BAYSIDE stays together like a band of brothers, even during times of tragedy. Read the full story

The Legendary Pink Dots are a Netherlands-based rock band formed in August 1980 in the UK who, although distinctly underground, have been musically influential over the years. The band name was derived from pink dots of nail varnish on the piano in their squat, where founding members Edward and April lived. The band has as its focal point vocalist Edward Ka-Spel, who is, along with Phil “The Silverman” Knight, one of the original remaining members of the band. In the mid eighties the band resettled in the Netherlands, where they still reside today. Apart from Edward and Phil, the line-up has gone through many changes. Members such as Ryan Moore, a Canadian bass player, who joined in 1991 after the recordings of the Last Man to Fly with the Tear Garden (he joined as a session musician), went on to form their own labels and musical projects. See Twilight Circus and M Records. Their music is nothing if not original and it is difficult to categorise, but comparisons may be drawn with bands like Pink Floyd and Can. Their sound has been described as an amalgamation of psychedelic rock, industrial, synth-pop and avant-garde. They have released over 40 records and continuously tour the world.

Designer Drugs (Michael Vincent Patrick and Theodore Paul Nelson) lead lifestyles of the rich and famous, but are really just poor boys who love helicopters and pop banger music…and a few other things that will not be noted. Currently, Designer Drugs is releasing new material with Iheartcomix Records. They’ve also been found partying on the couch at the Iheartcomix office.

With one member attending med school and the other drinking whiskey across the globe, to keep from going crazy last year – the DD boys produced over 23 remixes and DJ’d over 100 shows around the world. This year, to keep from going crazy, Designer Drugs is putting the focus on original material while continuing to tour the galaxy and party harder than Read the full story

Bear In Heaven :: Lovesick Teenagers

Bear in Heaven have trapped echos, tremors, winds, and fading light. Theyve redefined time, and folded it. Theyve unbuttoned sound, and realigned it. Within four walls in Brooklyn, Jon Philpot, Adam Wills, Sadek Bazaara, and Joe Stickney mined the democracy of their collaboration, plus the endless hours of streamofconsciousness recorded documentation of rehearsals over the past years, to conceive the crystalline form of Beast Rest Forth Mouth, their second album, their exaltation.

A seed planted in the Southern US years ago (all members hail from Georgia or Alabama), Bear In Heaven began as the musical arm of Jon Philpot in 1998. Time eventually brought in a slew of players, like rickety scaffolding, that grew the sound and guided the group to morph from a 6to5to4piece. As a fourheaded organism, Bear In Heaven has now found a sonic stride unlike any in their history. Freely acknowledging the importance o Read the full story

Matt Costa :: Yellow Taxi

In Matt Costa’s world, the only constant is change. Every album is a chance for him to push boundaries, explore uncharted waters, and try something new. Never has this been more apparent than on Costa’s stunning third album, Mobile Chateau.

Mining his longtime love for ‘60s psychedelic superheroes like Donovan, 13th Floor Elevators, the Zombies, the Electric Prunes, and the West Coast Pop Art ExperimentalBand, Mobile Chateau is a bold step forward into the kaleidoscopic beyond. “I’ve alwaysbeen drawn to that sound,” Costa reveals. “I’ve been hearing songs like these in my headfor my whole life and Mobile Chateau is the closest I’ve gotten to getting those songs outof my head and onto a record.”

Costa’s latest effort comes in the wake of his critically acclaimed 2006 debut, Songs We Sing, and 2008’s well-received Unfamiliar Faces. His sophomore set yielded thebreakout single “Mr. Pitiful,” which featured prominently in the hit comedy I Love You,Man and an iTunes ad campaign, and sent Read the full story

The Vaselines :: Son of a Gun
Dum Dum Girls :: Bhang Bhang, I’m A Burnout

Twenty years in the making, the second Vaselines album is here. Behold…

…Sex With An X

THE PAST

Formed in Glasgow in 1987, The Vaselines released two singles and one album, Dum Dum, on the 53rd & 3rd label. Splitting up in 1989 (in the same week their album was released), they might have faded into obscurity but for the intervention of a certain band from Seattle. Nirvana covered three Vaselines songs, helping to fuel a growing after-the-fact appreciation of their seedy, two-and-a-half chord, garage pop manifesto.

Founding members Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee remained musically active throughout the intervening years: the former with Captain America aka Eugenius and finally as a solo artist; McKee with Painkillers and Suckle.

Eugene and Frances collaborated intermittently in the intervening years. They toured jointly and played a few Read the full story

Born Ruffians :: Sole Brother

The music industry convention of calling a second album a “sophomore record” makes it sound like rock is some kind of college, which is weird. If Born Ruffians’ 2008 debut album Red Yellow and Blue was the result of a talented and precocious gang of freshmen, their 2010 follow-up, Say It, would be the project they left school to finish ? a declaration that they’re smart and ambitious enough to make it on their own, and furthermore, that they’re in it for the long haul. Read the full story

After breaking up Guided By Voices in 2004, Robert Pollard is reuniting the “classic” Guided By Voices line-up for just one brief US tour.  Tobin Sprout (guitar) Charles “Mitch” Mitchell (guitar), Greg Demos (bass) and Kevin Fennel (drums) will be joining Pollard on classic GBV songs from 1992-1996 from the albums Propeller, Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes and Under The Bushes, Under The Stars.

Since GBV’s breakup, their 1994 album Bee Thousand  was heralded by Amazon.com at the top of their list (#1) of the “100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums Of All Time” and Spin magazine picked the record as #26 in the “Top Records of the Past 25 Years.” Read the full story

Psychopathic Records presents the official Hallowicked after party. After ICP rock the Fillmore they’re heading to the Majestic Theater to celebrate. You know the wicked clowns know how to throw a party! More details to come…

Frightened Rabbit :: Nothing Like You
Plants and Animals :: Tom Cruz

With their sophomore outing The Midnight Organ Fight a fixture on 2008’s Best Of The Year circuit, a fanbase increasing in both size and devotion, and multiple sold-out tours of ever-larger venues under their belts, Glasgow-based Frightened Rabbit are releasing their third LP to towering expectations.

The Winter Of Mixed Drinks – a collection of ambitious, moving, and gloriously accomplished songs – more than meets this challenge.

Written during singer/songwriter Scott Hutchison’s self-imposed exile to secluded seaside hamlet Crail, on Scotland’s Fife coastline, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is speckled with nautical metaphor and imbued with themes of human isolation, resilience, and the mournful triumph of mortality. Though its subject matter often skews toward the dark, redemption – in the form of a joyful choral burst, chiming guitar line, or orchestral swell – is never Read the full story

Conceived in the spring of 2007, The Ghost Inside emerged with a vengeance from the Los Angeles music scene where dreams fade just as fast as they are born. The band was a fresh new start for friends Jonathan Vigil, Aaron Brooks, and Tyler Watamanuk who’s former band, “A Dying Dream” had recently disintegrated after half of the members moved on. This left Vigil and company quite discouraged as they had just released an EP with hardcore heavyweights “Mediaskare Records.” Fueled by their frustration, and determination to never give up, they founded The Ghost Inside and enlisted drummer KC Stockbridge, and guitarist Soyer Cole to round out the all-star lineup.

With the roster solidified and plans to conquer the world, The Ghost Inside began crafting their own unique brand of aggressive yet melodic metal/hardcore. Their collective goal was to write music that would transcend genres without boundaries, and set them apart from their peers putting them into a league of their own. All of the hard work paid off when in April of 2007; the band released their debut album entitled “Fury And The Fallen Ones” on Mediaskare Records. Read the full story

Azure Ray :: If You Fall
Tim Fite :: We Didn’t Warn You

It’s been six years since celebrated female duo Azure Ray released their critically acclaimed album Hold On Love. The highly anticipated new full length from Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor is a sublime future classic titled Drawing Down the Moon, set for release on Saddle Creek on September 14, 2010. The record was produced by Eric Bachmann at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, North Carolina, mixed by Michael Patterson in Los Angeles, CA, and features guest appearances by Andy LeMaster and Liz Durrett. With three prior full-lengths and an EP, the duo drew fans from around the globe with their transcendent songwriting and stunning vocals, and Drawing Down the Moon is an even more impressive and beguiling delight. Their undeniable talents lie in balladry so breathtakingly visceral that it soars straight through the ears into the veins until it pumps firmly into the heart. Azure Ray are famed for their bittersweet melancholy and Drawing Down the Moon is a perfect ode to their Read the full story

Dawes :: Love Is All I Am

It was just about the last song Taylor Goldsmith wrote before Dawes hit the studio: “When My Times Comes,” a rousing declaration of his hunger to be better, wiser, sharper—as a writer, as a person, as the singer in a band. But now that Dawes’ debut album has arrived, it’s fair to say that Goldsmith’s time is coming sooner than he’d planned.

A graceful and poetic set of Southern-tinged yet firmly El Lay rock’n'roll, the Jonathan Wilson-produced NORTH HILLS is an electrifying and accomplished freshman effort. From the ruminative opener “That Western Skyline” to the joyous twang of “When You Call My Name” to the harmony-soaked “Take Me Out of the City,” NORTH HILLS makes it easy to hear why Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller has already called it “hands down one of the finest records of 2009… Dawes is a perfect band.”

The Los Angeles quartet—Goldsmith, 23, (vocals, guitar), his brother Griffin Goldsmith, 18, (drums, vocals), Wylie Gelber, 21 (bass) and Alex Casnoff, 22 (piano, vocals) […however, Tay Strathairn plays piano, vocals on the record] —shares DNA with Read the full story

Brendan Benson :: A Whole Lot Better
The Posies :: Licenses To Hide

Late afternoon, Miami, and Iggy Pop and I were standing watching for a manatee that occasionally swims up along the river at the end of his garden. Pop was bare-chested in cerise trousers, talking about Brendan Benson. “Well you know Brendan,” he said, “you how Brendan is, how Brendan sounds…” and as he spoke he waved his hand, stirring the warm air.

He was telling me why he had invited Benson to sing on a track on the Stooges’ 2007 album the Weirdness. “I wanted a sweet, clean, effortless American voice on that particular chorus,” he explained, as we looked down the river. “And Brendan had the voice.”

It wasn’t until this moment that I truly realised the Americanness of Brendan Benson. I’d long had him pinned as an Anglophile; heard in the glint of his lyrics, in the texture of his music, the influence of Elvis Costello, the Beatles, Bowie.

But as Pop pointed out, it was an Americanness lay in that voice. Benson’s voice has a gleam to it, a West Coast shimmer, the shine of a sleek new fender. When I hear Brendan Benson sing I think of the furl on a Coca Cola bottle, of broad Midwestern skies and Read the full story

Kate Nash :: Do Wah Doo

“An artist should be someone who’s sticking it to the man,” Kate Nash explains emphatically. “It’s about rebellion. It’s about your mom being like ‘turn that down’ and you slamming the door and being like ‘whatever, I need this music to help me get through my emotions!’” The 22-year-old singer has always had strong opinions but in the months since the 2008 release of her smash debut Made of Bricks, she’s found a new kind of fierceness in expressing them. After a whirlwind rise-to-fame that involved multiple world tours and more than a million albums sold, Nash is back with her sophomore effort, My Best Friend Is You. “I went from being really young and naïve and positive, like ‘oh my god I love life, everything is so fun, to being like ‘I hate the world, everyone’s shit, I want to die,’” Nash says of her ride to the top. “My Best Friend Is You is about trying to find a happy middle.”

Born and raised in London, Nash started playing music as a kid, but her creative interests didn’t stop there. She studied theater at the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology. Nash was contemplating a future as an actor when, after a freak fall down a flight of stairs, she found herself Read the full story

Josh Ritter :: Change of Time

Josh Ritter is from Moscow, Idaho.  The son of two neuroscientists, he was on his way to follow in their footsteps when he discovered Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” in high school.  He has since released five studio albums and has been recently named one of the 100 greatest living songwriters by Paste Magazine, alongside Dylan, Springsteen, and Neil Young.  Joan Baez has covered one of his songs; Stephen King named one of Ritter’s albums the best of recent years and David Letterman has requested him twice, so far.

Ritter’s constant touring has established a robust, fanatical base both in the US and overseas (particularly Ireland and the UK). He and his band can fill theaters throughout the USA, in many major markets: DC and San Francisco but also in smaller cities as diverse as Spokane, WA and Northampton, MA.  Ritter and band have performed with the New York Pops and the Boston Symphony Orchestra and many critically acclaimed artists have requested Ritter to share stages. This list includes Swell Season, Ray Lamontagne, and John Prine. His fans have a special, unique bond with Ritter that goes beyond that of other singer-songwriters; he is always there at the merch desk after shows, hugging fans and Read the full story

Shearwater continue to explore the beauty, menace, and fragility of the natural world and that increasingly rare species, the indivisible album on The Golden Archipelago, the band’s most absorbing and accomplished work to date. The new record is the third panel of a triptych that includes 2006’s enigmatic Palo Santo and 2008’s acclaimed Rook, albums linked by themes of environmental and personal decay and humans’ impact on nature. In The Golden Archipelago, Shearwater turn to a portrait of life on islands a world of alternating lushness and austerity, numinous silences and sudden cataclysms, and the strange flowerings of plant, animal, and human life that only arise in isolation. These are intimate subjects for songwriter Jonathan Meiburg. As a researcher, he’s camped on islands at the edges of the world, including the Falklands, Tierra del Fuego, the Galapagos, Madagascar, Nunavut, and New Zealand’s Chatham Islands, and once spent a few surreal months in a remote Aboriginal settlement in northern Australia. Adding his grandfather’s WWII experiences as a radio operator in the South Pacific to these travels gave Meiburg plenty of fodder for the songs of The Golden Archipelago, in which he weaves these times and places together with common feelings of wonder, grief, and defiance. The Golden Archipelago opens with the first strains of the anthem of Bikini Atoll, sung by Bikinians in exile on the islet of Kili, where they’ve lived since atomic tests left their Read the full story

Small Black :: Photojournalist
Class Actress ::  All The Saints

Formed at the tail-end of 2008 as a bedroom recording project, Small Black first made waves with their eponymous debut EP. Recorded in the attic of singer Josh Kolenik’s uncle’s remote Long Island beach-house/surfboard workshop, it served as an ideal introduction to the group with its pulsing patchwork synths and addictive, stay-gold hooks that seemed to unfurl themselves gradually over repeated listens. Slightly more immediate and polished than its predecessor, Small Black’s new album “New Chain” remains a continuation of this contrasting ethos – a delirious smudging of the lines between melancholy and nostalgia, tension and celebration, unabashed pop music and experimentation. Read the full story

In the beginning, it almost seemed like a terrible mistake, but it was destiny that heavy metal and punk would eventually crossover. In the early 90s, heavy metal was bloated and uninspired while punk rock was becoming more and more pretentious and disgruntled. Aggressive music needed a rebirth; moreover the two styles needed a renaissance. It was this marriage of thrash/speed metal’s power and the savagery of hardcore punk that would ultimately spawn a new age in heavy music.

Bands like Venom, Exodus, Discharge, Cro-Mags and Integrity took that initial spark of the crossover ethos and reinvigorated the sound each and every time, thus continuing the legacy and inspiring countless followers.

Fast-forward to 1995 in Washington DC, (what many would consider the home of modern hardcore music) where another chapter of both hardcore/punk and metal history would be written. Classically unassuming and, in many ways, keeping in true punk spirit, DC gave birth to the band that would bring both Read the full story

No Age :: Teen Creeps
Lucky Dragons :: Complement Song

No Age: the name alone suggests multiple meanings and possible interpretations—timeless, ageless, anonymous, free from restriction, something positive from something negative… a profound strength in its simplicity. Likewise, the Los Angeles duo consisting of drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt and guitarist Randy Randall is many things at once even as it embraces its minimalism.

Spiritual heirs to both Thurston Moore’s wide-eyed experimentalism and the all-encompassing, stark DIY art-is-life aesthetic of the Crass collective, No Age is the kind of band that inspires its audience without affectation, without cynicism. Its live shows are an exploration of possibilities: a guitar laid over a resonating drum head, effect loops woven together like beautiful harmonies, pop songs as performance art, a duo that sounds like the gale force of rock history delivered through a wind tunnel.

The pair’s powerful force, both as a band and Read the full story

The Gories :: Chick-Inn

The seminal Detroit garage band returns to the Majestic Theatre for one night only. Formed in January of 1986 over a six pack of Budweiser and “Scum of the Earth” on the record player. Played dives around Detroit for six and a half years with a couple of trips to New York City and Chicago. Released three LPs and a handful of singles. Toured Europe in the Spring of ‘92. Broke up. Reformed in 2009. Played sold out shows. Blowing your mind post-Thanksgiving at the Majestic Theatre. Read the full story