If you don’t know XTC from NOFX or INXS, this is the wrong book for you. But anyone who has heard the sweet thinking man’s pop music created by Andy Partridge and the boys, knows that there are few contemporaries who were able to turn a phrase as deftly as XTC.
The Duplass Brothers have turned in some of the most impressive dark indie comedies of the past decade (The Skelton Twins, Safety Not Guaranteed), but it wasn’t a given that their thoughtful, subtle humor would translate to TV. Turns out it does. With Togetherness, the writer/director/producer/actor sibling team has turned in a remarkably fresh half-hour comedy for Generation X and beyond.
Robert Rodriguez has made a career out of gory, DIY movie fun, taking B-Grade camera tricks and actors and creating hard-to-look-away stories. He’s managed to do the same thing on TV with the adaption of his From Dusk Till Dawn movie. In the second season, the morally-questionable bank robbing brothers Seth and Richie have split up, but are each still dealing with vampires south of the border.
You don’t immediately think funk when you hear the album title “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder,” but from the opening bass lines of “Forces of Oppression” through the next eight songs, funk is front and center in this post punk hybrid from 1980. The short-lived British punk collective The Pop Group combined funk, jazz and industrial rock, long before the latter genre had a name, with…
When folks do the roll call nowadays of bands that stalked the stages at CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City in the ‘70s the Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads almost always get mentions. Sadly, The Miamis, a brilliant five piece that played those venues and helped shape New York punk rock and new wave before the genres had proper names, is too often overlooked. They never signed to a label,…
Satire has rarely hit so close to the truth as it does with the TV series Unreal.
There are some groups that despite universal appeal still seem very much like they belong solely to England and the rest of the world is just borrowing them for a while. The Rolling Stones felt like they belonged to everyone; same with the Beatles. The Who, though they sold well across the globe, seemed very much like a UK-centric band. The same goes for groups like Blur, Suede and The…
While it’s true that the second season of the Nic Pizzolatto-helmed crime noir True Detective never came close to living up to the expectations of the first season, it’s a tad unfair to compare the two. The first season was groundbreaking TV and a pop culture moment (the pairing of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson was simply inspired), but the follow up was a pretty decent effort as well.
Long before Tori Amos started writing about fairies and mysticism, she was one of the ‘90s most original musicians to ever take a spot behind a piano. Judging from her latest, Cure For Dreaming, Jenny Gillespie may be the second coming of Amos. The album manages to combine elements of jazz, pop, folk and ‘70s-era California rock.
Three seasons in, this Liv Schreiber led Showtime drama continues to ratchet up the darkness and in doing so is hitting its stride. Schreiber, playing the title character, is still the go-to- fix it man in Hollywood everything from breaking legs to getting rid of bodies, but with his mentor and boss dying, he finds himself conflicted forced to work with a rich football agent (played brilliantly by Katie Holmes)…
As the press materials that accompanied this record from Athens-based Antlered Aunt Lord so aptly describe it, the band (essentially Jesse Stinnard) is “the missing link between the Pixies and The Byrds if they’d been raised in the Appalachians.” No truer statements has ever been written in a press release. This oddball collection of nearly 20 songs is the perfect anecdote for what passes an “Indie Rock” today
With just four songs, Austin musician – by way of Louisiana – Ben Millburn makes an pretty meaningful first impression. On his debut, Strange Love & Consequences, Millburn blends classic rock with soul and pop for a sound that is instantly familiar.Of the four, the opening/title track is probably the strongest of the batch, but there really are no weak ones here. The production is minimal adding to a realness…
Straddling a thin line between garage rock and space pop, LA-based Mod Hippie turn in a debut that’s as satisfying as it is odd. The band mixes a wide collection of influences from psychedelic odd balls like Syd Barrett, with Beach Boys harmonies and Sonic Youth angular guitars
Within the first 10 minutes of the indie comedy Slow Learners you know exactly how it will end. It’s a traditional romantic comedy, albeit on a much smaller budget, so it doesn’t take that much intuition to know the leads, both seemingly dorky and unlucky in love, will end up together. But even knowing how it ends, Slow Learners is still charming and funny from start to finish.
The German hard rock mainstays, Scorpions, may not the most commonly name-checked band by young metal groups looking to up their street cred when citing musical influences, but the band has been rattling teeth longer than many and has turned in some great albums over the years. In the documentary “Scorpions Forever and a Day,” filmmakers document the band’s three-year long farewell global tour, which kicked off in 2010. As told…
The now defunct Arizona-based roots alt rockers The Refreshments were long ago slapped with the dreaded “One Hit Wonder” label and while technically that moniker is true, like a slew of others before them, it was a distinction that they certainly never deserved.
The first album from the Queens-based Hip Hop collective A Tribe Called Quest was not only one of the best debuts to come out of the ‘90s (released in April of 1990) it is also easily one of the top Hip Hop records to come out of that decade. At 14 songs, the album introduced a wildly imaginative new sound, blending jazz with rap, slowing down the vocals so they…
This compelling doc about 1980s New Wave great Adam Ant shares such intimacy that you can’t help but think you’re witnessing something that you shouldn’t be watching. Far from the run-of-the-mill musician documentary that spends the first half discussing their childhood, rise to fame and move to obscurity, The Blueblack Hussar focuses almost exclusively on the now as Adam Ant tries to climb his way back up through small club…
In her first stand-up special since becoming one of the most talked up-ed comedians in decades, Amy Schumer delivers an impressive set. Directed by Chris Rock, someone who clearly understands the pressure Schumer felt leading up to this taping, the hour-long special is a tad uneven in spots, but is refreshingly original enough, that the weaker material is easily overlooked thanks to actual laugh out loud moments in the set.
Movies based on celebrities are often hit or miss and movies based on literary celebrities even more so, so it’s quite an impressive feat that actors Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg were able to turn in a beautifully engaging movie in The End of the Tour out of what was essentially a profile piece for Rolling Stone magazine.