To call experimental rocker Pere Ubu an acquired taste is an understatement. For more than four decades now music writers have struggled to properly classify the Cleveland musician, tossing out terms like Post Punk, New Wave, Art Punk and taking on every imaginable prefix and suffix to the term rock in a futile effort to find a shorthand for the group’s sound. Lady From Shanghai, the band’s 15th album…
Based off the raunchy, but equally hilarious, British series of the same name (and not the weak, watered-down American version on MTV) The Inbetweeners Movie proves this quartet of (almost) loveable losers can sustain the humor for the length of an entire feature film. Much like American Pie and Porky’s before that, but with a far cooler accent, the movie mines the well-trodden, but no less funny territory of young…
Over the past year, the label 429 has been building a reputation as a safe haven for 90’s musicians exiled too soon from the majors (Lisa Loeb, Camper Van Beethoven, Soul Asylum, etc.), but if their latest signing, the Scottish indie rockers The View is an indication, they have a hell of a knack for picking the next big thing as well. Cheeky For a Reason, actually the band’s…
Somewhere between Big Star and Urge Overkill records, you’ll find Count it In, the first full length from Thorcraft Cobra. Comprised of Billy Zimmer and Tammy Glover, each a refugee from other bands, and a handful of guests including Steve McDonald of Redd Kross, Thorcraft Cobra is a pop/rock band stripped of pretentions, crammed with a myriad of influences, and amazingly satisfying. There is not a weak track out the…
As a black woman raised on a steady diet of metal music, Laina Dawes is used to getting stares in the mosh pit. So as music writer and cultural critic is was just a matter of time before she looked to herself – and fans like her – as an ideal subject to write about. What Are You Doing Here? is a fascinating look at the double outsider status black…
It’s hard to be a rebellious punk rock teen in the U.S. in 2013. When even suburban fourth graders have mohawks (courtesy of lame moms and dads who want everyone to say, “Man that kid must have cool parents”), you know a subculture has been tamed. But being a punk in Communist China, well that Punk Rock! As the rest of the world was tuned into the 2008 Olympics…
Though not as top-of-mind to most as peers like Bryan Ferry and Kate Bush, Scottish ambient/soft rockers The Blue Nile built up a tight cult following thanks to an impressive collection of songs in the 80’s spread out over two solid albums: A Walk Across the Rooftops and it’s follow up Hats. They had a comeback album of sorts in the mid 90s and again 10 years after that, but…
Probably the most surprising revelation from Jacob Tomsky’s Heads In Beads, the highly entertaining behind the scenes look at the hospitality industry, is the fact that he’s still working in it, (at least by the end of the writing of the memoir he was. No idea if he left the hotels game for good after publication). Head In Beds reads almost like fiction thanks to Tomsky’s knack for first-person story…
Man, if you were/are a fan of the90’s Brit pop band Blur, 2012 was your year. They started it off by getting the Outstanding Contribution to Music award from the Brit Awards, headlined a show at Hyde Park for the 2012 Olympics, re-released every single one of their studio albums with a ton of extras, and entered the studio to start recording new music. They ultimate scrap ped plans for…
Charlie Sheen supporters – the few that still remained after his very entertaining implosion in 2011 – were quick to point to the ratings of his new TV show, Anger Management, that he was back on top again. Well, they were sort of right. The ratings for Sheen’s new FX series were pretty damn good for cable that first episode, but quickly came back down to reality once folks realized…
The years have done their best to temper the controversial story teller in Todd Solondz. The writer/director’s 1995 debut Welcome to the Dollhouse and his pitch dark follow up Happiness, made him a critics’ favorite and the go-to filmmaker to chronicle white suburbia’s seediness. His latest, Dark Horse, still finds him mining suburbia for quirky leads and plot lines, but he has stripped away a lot of the shock…
Those expecting an exhaustive memoir or even a semi-complete bio on the Red Headed Stranger are out of luck with this latest book by the country legend. Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die is exactly as stated in the subtitle, a collection of musings. Everything from one-off fleeting thoughts and bad jokes, to political views and thoughts of his family and friends are collected in the slim,…
From Gang of Four up to Phoenix, Europe has been consistently been churning out one impressive dance rock band after another. Well, it’s time for the U.S. to finally start getting credit for their contributions to the genre, and what better band to lead the revolution than the anthem-ready Denver-based group The Epilogues. With the aptly titled debut Cinematics, the foursome sound like they are scoring a picture that fails…
The folks at the Montreux Jazz Festival have been cleaning out the faults lately, reaching up to the high shelves and releasing decades old performances on DVD. The latest, and one of the most impressive, is a Stray Cats set from 1981. The 15-song long DVD set was recorded just months after the Long Island Rockabilly trio released their debut…
It’s almost shocking to think that HBO could take a show about a group of truly unlikeable douche bags and make it so thoroughly compelling. All eight season (96 episodes!) of one of the ultimate Hollywood insider shows is finally available in one massive set. Not to give too much away, but rising movie star Vince (Adrian Grenier) and his hanger-on buddies “from the neighborhood” all manage to…
I’ve always been a little troubled that little was made of the fact that Rage Against the Machine, a rock band that was known for scathingly anti-corporate lyrics (even heading down to Wall Street for their, well anti-Wall Street rant “Bulls on Parade” video), chose not to turn to an established independent label to release their music, or even take the Ani Di Franco/Fugazi route and start their own label,…
The timing of Alan di Perna’s bio on Oakland’s favorite pop punks is a little ill-timed. The hardcover coffee table book is well-researched, impressively chronicled and features everything from pics of programs and old tour posters to t-shirts and rare flyers. But the book leaves the Green Day story in early 2012, just as the band is going into the studio to record what would be an ambitious three-album project…
Though the UK ska band Madness may always be trapped in 1982 for many of their U.S. fans, thanks to the wildly popular “Our House,” the two-tone group has continued to build up their resume since reuniting in the early 90’s. Though the success has mainly been limited to Europe (they were tapped to play the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics along with a number of festivals), the…
For anyone who’s ever carried around the “Woe Is Me” banner, bitching about how boring your job is or how much your back hurt, blah, blah, blah. Take an hour and a half and watch the powerfully engaging High Ground and then you’ll realize what struggle and perseverance really looks like. The documentary profiles 11 wounded vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (along with the mother of one soldier killed overseas)…
There is no getting around the fact that British novelist Danny Wallace is going to be compared to Nick Hornby. A lot; which is a disservice to both writers, each talented and possessing a knack from writing sympathetic, slightly flawed character. Both write compelling fiction set around young men living in the UK and struggling to make sense of relationships with the opposite sex… wait, maybe there is a connection…