You’d think making a comedy about rock would be easy, but Spinal Tap pretty much used up most of the good jokes. The video store shelves are lined with decent attempts to mine laughs from the world of rock music that never really manage to elicit more than a few chuckles (viewed sober, of course).
The Loved Ones may just be the most underrated band in punk rock today. Despite a handful of stellar records including last year’s stand out Build & Burn, paint by number bands like Fall Out Boy and Paramore manage to snag magazine covers and stadium tours, while The Loved Ones continue to slog it out on the punk rock club tour circuit.
British comedic writers Steve Lowe and Brendan McArthur have made a career of sorts bitching about ‘modern conveniences’ through a collection of books. The best bits have been sandwiched into Is It Me or Is Everything Shit? with additional observations added in by Daily Show writer/American Brendan Hay. For the most, the book has some pretty hilarious, astute observations. Like their straight to the point take on Hare Krishnas: “Hare,…
The White Stripes they aren’t. Though rock duo of Michael Van London and Rhiannon Jones may share the same stripped down guitar/drums lineup and gender makeup as The White Stripes, the comparisons pretty much stop there. The garage rock duo from Los Angeles can turn out sludge rock, but they hardly offer an original take on the genre. From the very beginning, with the rote album opener “Da Bomb,” the…
Dave Thompson is the Andy Rooney of music criticism. Bushy eyebrows aside, Thompson puts his stake in the ground early on in his latest manifesto, I Hate New Music, with the outrageous claim that rock music stopped being good sometime around 1978. Seriously. Like the aforementioned 60 Minutes alum Rooney rambling on about not getting as much coffee in the can as he did in the good old days, Thompson…
Johnny Cash was punk rock before the term was every created. So it’s only fitting that modern punk rockers would honor the man with a tribute album.
There’s something about acoustic guitars that draws former punk rockers like moths to a flame. Frank Turner, former member of Million Dead, unplugged after his band dissolved about three years ago and decided to go the route of Billy Bragg, writing lyrically smart, occasionally politically-tinged folk rock songs.
It’s amazing how desperate label reps get in trying to sell you on their latest signings. From the moment they were added to indie emo label Dog House Records, folks tried to remake these Oklahoma teens into a pop/punk band. Though they put out catchy pop tunes, someone thought adding the suffix “punk,†to every reference written and spoken about the band was a great was to try and add…
Eighteen years and still going for some unexplainable reason. New Orleans party band Cowboy Mouth have managed to take a handful of trite party songs, a strong word-of-mouth live show and shape a pretty decent career as second rate Jimmy Buffetts. On Fearless, their ninth full length, the band continues to confound. Filled with 12 mostly novelty songs about everything from big girls (Belly) to Kelly Ripa (Kelly Ripa), the…
Based on interviews alone, it’d be easy to dismiss The Killers as little more than naive keyboard rockers with laughably bombastic quotes about world domination or simply millennials who just discovered Depeche Mode and David Bowie and have a few more minutes left on their fame stop watch.
I’m certainly not the first to compare Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo to Brian Wilson, but the comparison is particularly apt with Cuomo’s second collection of home recordings released in just 12 months. The harmony-loving Wilson created some of the best pop records of the 60’s and Weezer took the stigma out of pop rock in the 90’s; the frighteningly talented Wilson has been rather prolific following a very long…
Joey Cape is certainly not suffering for lack of musical outlets. As the front man for Lagwagon, he also bounces between Bad Astronaut, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Afterburner and The Playing Favorites. You can now add solo artist to his every-expanding resume. Though he had a split record with No Use For a Name singer Tony Sly a few years ago, “Bridge†is Cape’s first full length solo…
Todd Snider has never made a bad record. Sure some have been better than others; some take several listens before they finally click and no two records are ever really the same, but none have ever been duds – his latest, the 8-song Peace Queer, included. Snider has always been comfortable doing his own thing, even when signed to a major label for his first couple of releases, he never…
Based on the past few years, you’d think every grizzled punk rocker wants nothing more than to be a folk musician. Hot Water Music front man Chuck Ragan put his band on ice for a year or two to pick up an acoustic guitar; Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin went rootsy on his solo record last year; and former Avail singer Tim Barry has been unplugged for several records now.
You can go into just about any major city today, toss a bagpipe into a crowd and hit a band playing Celtic punk rock. Over the past decade or so, it seems like everyone wants to marry The Pogues use of traditional Irish instruments and themes with the driving beat and heavy guitars of The Clash. Though not as well-known as The Dropkick Murphys or Flogging Molly, the Chicago-based six piece…
It’s hard to hear the songs off of Asteria’s self-titled EP over the sound of the final nails being loudly banged into the emo/pop-punk coffin. The paint-by-numbers, overproduced, polished-all-the-jagged- edges-until-they’re-shiny-and-smooth sound from this Indiana-based five piece is so mundane that the only thing to distinguish one song from the next is the titles.
Decades ago, Waylon Jennings earned his spot on the Outlaw Country Mount Rushmore, sandwiched somewhere between Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. Anyone wondering if he really deserved that honor just needs to listen to the first few tracks off Waylon Forever, the last album he recorded. His distinctive baritone is as strong as ever and the songs just as memorable. He’s joined on the record by his son Shooter Jennings…
It’s hard to listen to a Snow Patrol record nowadays and think of anything but the weepy, melodrama Grey’s Anatomy. The show may have added a few hundred thousand members to their fan club, thanks to heavy air play, but has pretty much cemented the band’s rep as being lightweight ear candy for those who get their music recommendations strictly from TV commercials – justified or not. There are a…
I’m usually not a big fan of EP’s, seeing them as little more than a record company’s quick way to cash in on a rising band with not enough material for a full length. I am, however, willing to make an exception for Dead to Me’s 5 song offering Little Brother. The effort is pretty much hold over until their next proper album is ready, but the songs on the…
It’s refreshing to hear a band dig further back further in their closest than the last couple of Green Day CDs for musical influences. Ohio’s Two Cow Garage, like label mates Ninja Gun, pay homage to everyone from The Jayhawks to The Replacements and Speaking in Cursive, their fourth full length, is one of their best so far.
