It takes some balls to call out Tom Waits as a reference point in your band bio; Even more when your music fails to live up to even Waits’ weakest musical output. You can see where the D.C. based indie blues noise band The Torches were going with that comparison; frontman Stephen J. Perron Guidry boasts a purposely off kilter delivery, with a deep baritone matched by a banjo and…
This darkly comical Canadian TV series has yet to really catch on in the U.S., but thanks to DVDs it is finally managing to carve out a small, but loyal following here. The show originally aired on HBO Canada, but can be seen in the U.S. on Direct TV, not exactly mass exposure. Call Me Fitz stars Jason Priestly as a boorish used car salesman battling with the sudden appearance…
If you’re don’t like the latest Willie Nelson record, just give it a couple of months, as there’s bound to be another one just about to come out. That’s actually not hyperbole, when you consider Willie has put out 68 albums to date, and that’s just counting studio releases, not live albums, compilations, box sets, etc. At 80, the legend (and yes, he has definitely earned that title at this…
Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self-Portrait was welcomed by Rolling Stone magazine with the rather succinct review opener: “What is this shit?” Needless to say quite a few Dylan diehards had no idea how to take the troubadour’s tenth album; a double record set featuring mainly covers of old pop and folk hits. It was rightly maligned at the time with it’s puzzling selection of covers and sappy, cluttered string…
Despite being a documentary, the brilliant Stories We Tell unspools more like a fictional family drama. Helmed by actress (The Sweet Hereafter, Dawn of the Dead) and director (Away From Her) Sarah Polley, she turns the camera on her own family for this one. Narrated by her actor/father, the doc examines Polley’s family, specifically her mom and dad and whether or not the man who raised her was her…
Max Gomez certainly isn’t the first to bring together country, pop and folk influences, but he has done a noteworthy job of blending the three seemingly disparate genres for his debut. Like John Prine and Townes Van Zandt before him, Gomez succeeds where many others fail, by being able to turn out interesting lyrics. When you are backed by acoustic guitars and mellow drumming, you can’t hide a weak voice…
The Sidekicks have justifiably been praised by fans and critics alike for writing some of the best pop punk songs to come out of the Midwest in the past decade. But while the band was winning over city after city of supporters, guitarist Matt Scheuermann was quietly working on his much more reserved side project American War. The result is a collection of strikingly beautiful records, the latest being the…
With four releases in four consecutive years, Oregon Punk Bluegrass collective Larry & His Flask are not fucking around. They’re on a mission to spread their banjo/mandolin-fused punk rock from city to city and while no album to date has been able to quite capture their amazing live show, By the Lamplight is the closest so far. Since the band’s grand re-opening in 2008, when they went from being a more traditional…
It’s been about six years since The Blow Monkeys – once one of the brightest spots on the 80’s New Wave movement – reunited and the band has certainly been making up for lost time. Feels Like a New Morning marks the band’s fourth release since getting back on the bike and while they have certainly settled into a much more mellow vibe, they have likely aged right alongside their…
There are some critically-lauded TV shows that just leave you scratching your head at their appeal (Hemlock Grove? The Killing?). The Good Wife is not one of them. With refreshingly creative characters and impressive writing, it’s pretty easy to see why The Good Wife continues to be a favorite outlet for many. Part legal drama and part political series, the show is a mirror of our current and past…
Cherie Curry’s updated 2010 memoir Neon Angel was a compelling, sometimes traumatic look at her childhood and her time with the influential all-girl teen rock band The Runaways. But it was just that, her take on the band. Queens of Noise is an even-handed look at the band, and those surrounding them, specifically the group’s manager and brainchild (depending on who you ask) Kim Fowley. Written by journalism professor…
A lot of the charm from Lena Dunham’s much-talked about Millennials in the City series has started to wear off by season two. The show about kids trying to make it in New York, thanks to hand out from mom and dad, is as much about self-absorption as it is about finding one’s path in life. A bulk of this season focuses on Dunham’s character Hannah…
Atlanta jangle pop rockers the Swimming Pool Q’s were part of the Athens / Atlanta, GA record label gold rush of the 80’s. And while they never quite achieved the status of scene mates like R.E.M., The B-52’s and Pylon, they were still highly influential to a generation of college radio listeners. Thankfully Bar None has collected these songs for the first time ever on CD. The band only recorded…
AMC’s often overlooked middle child, the historical fiction Hell on Wheels, may not garner near the amount of attention of peers like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Mad Men, but this second season shows a series getting more comfortable with itself. Set in the mid-1800’s along the still under construction Transcontinental Railroad, former Confederate officer Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) continues to deal with corrupt politicians, a crew of dangerous…
Ok, let’s get this out of the way upfront. Yes, the production values on the cable TV disaster mini-series are low. Not Sharknado low, but not blockbuster level either; and yes, the story itself is a bit histrionic: A government experiment to harness energy from the sun backfires and threatens to destroy earth! But once you decide to recalibrate expectations and dial down the snark, this Doomsday miniseries (I can…
Blending Latino culture with punk rock is not unheard of. The Casualties have been known to sing in Spanish; The Bronx have an entire side project devoted to Mariachi music, so the fact that San Antonio’s Piñata Protest have fused an accordion and snatches of traditional Mexican-American music with punk rock is not exactly ground-breaking. But the fact that they do it well, is worthy of attention. Their sophomore album,…
Just six months after Levon Helms, the legendary drummer for The Band, died from cancer, a slew of musicians, from My Morning Jacket to Gregg Allman, took the stage at the Izod Center in New Jersey to raise money for a pet cause of his, but more importantly praise and celebrate the life of one of the most adored drummers in rock music. This 2 DVD set does a brilliant…
The mere fact that Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen can even remember his past given the decades of substance abuse (alcohol, pot, speed, acid, heroin and everything in between) is a testament to the resiliency of the brain. He was even acid king Timothy Leary’s genuine pig for a while (and that’s not hyperbole. He was literally fed acid by Leary who would study the effects). Given all that, it’s not…
The most surprising thing about the relatively new Cinemax show Banshee is that it has yet to get its proper due for being a truly great action series. Hopefully the release of the first season on DVD will help jumpstart the band wagon. Created by novelists Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler with help from uber producer Alan Ball (True Blood, Six Feet Under), the series is heavy on adrenaline and…
It’s been almost 10 years since Friends went off the air and the actors (minus Jennifer Anniston) have all struggled to find permanent full-time employment. Lisa Kudrow has had a few false starts, but seems to have finally got a permanent gig on Showtime, which picked up her original Web series about an online therapist (title making sense now?). The series is based around Kudrow’s Fiona Wallice, a wealthy Philadelphia…