As we posted last month, the inimitable and unstoppable Robert Pollard continues to rock. One of his two latest projects is Ricked Wicky, whose first (and if this one matches the longevity of previous Pollard-led bands other than Guided By Voices, also last) release is I Sell The Circus. Pollard, joined on this project by […]
What generation of shoegaze are we on now anyway? I suppose it depends when you start counting, but for me, the venerated-yet-oft-derided genre begins in The Year of Our Lord Jesus and Mary Chain 1985, with the release of “Psychocandy” – and I won’t hear any argument from you Gnostic Cocteau Twins fans out there. […]
If you spent the better part of your youth being shunted from one rural Florida town to the next, you’d wear all-black, smoke clove cigarettes, and dream of rainy days in London Town, too. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and for sensitive North Florida teens battered by the sun and […]
In Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs, Joshua Wolf Shenk identifies the primary characteristics shared by such dynamic duos as Lennon and McCartney, Parker and Stone, and Jobs and Wozniak. Among these characteristics is what psychiatrists call a “folie à deux,” a madness shared by two. Two people against the […]
Kingston, NY’s O+ Festival shines brightly at a time when it’s getting harder to find a music festival outside the usual touring-promotion-merchandising wheelhouse. Held this past weekend and traveling next month to Petaluma, California, O+ works like this: musicians and artists perform in exchange for healthcare and wellness services provided by doctors, physical and mental […]
Far removed from the irony-soaked (though extremely satisfying) stylings of his erstwhile band The Walkmen, Peter Matthew Bauer‘s debut solo effort seems to be all about the earnestness. And, different though it may be, it’s no less satisfying. Take, for instance, the single “You Are the Chapel” – it’s nothing short of a revival meeting […]
Simple Minds were more than a trendy new wave band. Their songs were lush and nuanced with lyrics vague enough so that they could apply to any situation, as long as it involved yearning. As an aspirational teen, “Promised You A Miracle” could easily be about my dream boyfriend or a completed term paper or soccer […]
There is a beautiful future ahead of us—one in which the infinite variability of gender, sex, and sexuality is recognized and accepted with love, love, love. You can see that future glimmering on the horizon in Turning, Antony and the Johnson’s collaboration with filmmaker Charles Atlas and thirteen of downtown New York’s reigning queens of […]
I am grateful for guys like King Tuff who rock hard but don’t take themselves too seriously. Dude isn’t trying to change the world, he just wants you to know that he loves vinyl and rock music and drugs. He seems to have a hit-and-miss love for the ladies, but that kind of rocks in […]
Is there anything more satisfying than a broken heart story as told via the anguished yowl of a rock song? If you’re on the fence, Hundred Visions will have you saying “no” in approximately three minutes and 35 seconds. That’s how long it takes to listen to the Austin outfit’s second single off “Spite,” their […]