Though he started as a drummer with ‘60s garage rockers The Doughboys, Richard X. Heyman has proved albums after album, since his first solo effort in the ‘80s, that his real talents are meant to be at the front of the stage.
Rhode Island’s Deer Tick decided to go big on their latest release and man did it pay off. After a four years absence, the indie band is back with two phenomenal albums, boasting two completely different sounds, quiet and reflective (Vol. 1) and loud and rowdy (Vol. 2).
There’s something amazing about the cyclical nature of influences. A solid two decades after many thought they had head the end of shoegaze, with the mid-to-late ‘90s break ups of some of the genre greats from My Bloody Valentine to the Jesus And Mary Chain, a new generation of indie bands are rediscovering the music and layering on the fuzz and distortion with a new sense of purpose. Among the…
You can’t claim Roger Miret, one of the New York’s hardcore scenes founding fathers, held anything back in his new memoir, My Riot.
Another year, another lineup change, another name tweak and thankfully another record from the prolific and consistently solid Oh Sees (formerly Thee Oh Sees, The Ohsees…).
Dan Wilson is probably best known by most as the front man for Semisonic, and Trip Shakespeare before that. But, he’s been anything but taking it easy since Semisonic stopped recording and touring in 2001.
England may have had Badfinger, but we had The Raspberries. Up there with Big Star and The Hollies in terms of their lasting influence and simply how tragically underrated each band ultimately was, in 2004, The Raspberries treated a hometown Cleveland audience to a remarkable reunion show to open the local House of Blues. The show, captured in this two-CD set from Omnivore, prompted a short tour the following year.
A lot has happened in the 25 years since Jane’s Addiction last released their fantastic, one-time swan song Ritual De Lo Habitual: The band split up and got back together several times; Front man Perry Farrell invented the modern-day touring rock festival with Lollapalooza (an unfortunate side effect, we also had decades of marketing folks tacking the suffix -palooza onto any event in an attempt to make it hip) and…
In a sentence that should be a surprise to many, Corey Taylor – best known for his metal bands Slipknot and Stone Sour – is a published author. Let that one sink in for a moment.
For years now, Legacy Recordings have been raiding the RCA vaults to re-release a slew of Elvis Presley albums. This latest collection, out now on vinyl, is one of their most important Presley releases to date. On one vinyl LP, the label is putting out some of the Memphis singer’s earliest efforts, all produced and engineered by Sam Phillips at his legendary Sun Studios.
Twenty years into their career, Flogging Molly have managed to survive musical fads a slew of weak imitators to emerge as one of the finest bands to ever blend traditional Celtic and American punk rock influences. You’d have to go back to The Pogues to find anyone else who can consistently deliver as reliably as Flogging Molly, album after album.
The term one-hit wonder gets tossed around a lot and often incorrectly, but the song “You Get What You Want,” off of New Radicals debut/swan song album is the definition of one-hit wonder. And it was one hell of catchy earwig.
Since the recent resurgence in vinyl, record labels big and small (but, mostly big) are scrambling to empty their vaults for anything to re-release on wax. The results can be mixed; consider that someone re-released the Space Jam soundtrack on vinyl. But every so often, a gem is found, cleaned up and released back into circulation. The latest jewel from Legacy Recordings is the remarkable fifth album from Roseanne Cash,…
Clearly not a band to shy away from a challenge, the Denver country punks in The Yawpers decided to make their third LP a concept record about a tragedy set in World War I France… including a song in French. Oh, and none of these guys actually speaks French.
The first voice you hear on the 10th album from acoustic punk poet Hamell On Trial is from Donald Trump (“I’d like to punch him in the face,” declares the Whiner in Chief on the opening line, to the album’s opening track “Safe”). And much like Ragan launched a slew of great punk bands in the ‘80s, Trump’s white-pride-and-fuck-the-rest style of leadership serves as fodder for much of Hamell’s latest…
For a two-man band, Brick + Mortar have figured out a way to make an impressively big sound. On “Dropped Again,” their latest album, Brandon Asraf plays guitar, bass and sings; Jon Tacon drums, while both handles samples. The result, though a little sterile at time, for the most part is an eclectically fun mix of Indie pop and electronic rock.
The Refreshments may be seen by many as a 1990s one-hit wonder, but the band is almost a religion to a smaller, but much more rabid group of music fans. And can you blame them? Roger Clyne and his crew churned out two LPs crammed with a slew of fantastic songs that vacillated between roots rock, Americana and dessert boogie.
Noel Monk managed Van Halen from 1978 – 1985, the biggest rock band in the world during that run. And while he was ultimately fired from the band and cut out of millions of dollars, he certainly left the gig with a slew of stories, funny, sad and salacious. Thanks to a 30-plus year NDA agreement that has recently run out, he’s now able to channel the best of those…
With a title like that, you kind of know what you’re in for. Spread across two records, this 28-song, 75-minute opus is a pretty bold experiment for the Athens-based indie pop band just three albums into their career. Surprisingly, it pays off handsomely.
It would be easy to simply dismiss Sammy Brue’s debut LP “I Am Nice” as little more than a novelty. It’s the work of a 15-year-old, so naturally a raised eyebrow or two can be expected. However, that kind of simplistic thinking is moot just one song into the record as you quickly learn, Brue is a fantastic singer/guitar player and an even better song writer.