Usually, overly long band names point to an irritating sense of self-importance. Why else would you make someone spend a full minute enunciating your name, or force your fans to apply some ridiculous acronym? But somehow, by about 15 seconds into “Glue Girls,” the lead track from Pershing, it’s easily…
Dr. Manhattan is full of youthful bluster, promising musical revolution even while the band reminds you it doesn’t really give a shit. It’s a common rock trope, sure, and usually an unfortunate indicator of pending disappointment. Far better, as put so eloquently by Teddy Roosevelt, to “speak softly and carry…
Murder by Death wants to be taken seriously. The Bloomington, Indiana-based quartet has been at it for the better part of a decade, and its efforts are finally starting to see results exceeding the cult status afforded its namesake. New Times caught up with lead singer Adam Turla to discuss…
For every musical prodigy there’s a horde of rabid critics eager to decry and defame. This is certainly true for Chinese piano virtuoso Lang Lang. His was a troubled career from the start. At nine years old, after winning contests and playing highly regarded public recitals, Lang Lang was invited…
Miami owes a great deal to Arturo Sandoval. Not only is he a great civic treasure as one of the world’s premier jazz trumpeters, but also he is the man responsible for bringing jazz to South Florida. Prior to the 2006 opening of the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club in the…
Imagine that Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody, and the rest of the hot young-adult stars of The O.C. played together in Newport Harbor’s hottest fake band. Then imagine they decided to take the music offscreen and around the world. Translate their songs into Spanish, and you’d have RBD, one of the…
Alanis, this is your time to shine. That whole Jagged Little Pill thing was just a fluke, even if it did give us the greatest moment of meta-irony — your song “Ironic” — ever to be recorded. Despite the nearly boundless sarcastic joy that little ditty brought to music critics…
Bobby “Blue” Bland is anything but. He doesn’t play soul-rending slide guitar; he doesn’t wail away on the blues harp; he doesn’t even play an instrument. All he has is his voice, but that voice is one to make the ladies swoon and the men falter. The excitement offered up…
Juliett Simms wants you to know she’s damaged. Her band, Automatic Loveletter, just released a five-song EP full of loss, regret, pain, and feelings of inadequacy, and now stands poised to capture the imaginations of sensitive, misunderstood 15-year-olds the world over. Automatic Loveletter seems almost purpose-built for this demographic, tapping…
Who says big-name, multi-band music festivals have to be filthy, debauched affairs whose main hallmarks are exorbitantly priced bottled water and a dearth of toilets? Who says they can’t be fun and uplifting events suitable for the whole family? Who says music with a positive message can’t be entertaining? Certainly…
Check subtlety, pretense, and the past decade at the door: 3 Inches of Blood wants nothing to do with them. Eschewing fads and hipster cred in favor of staying true to their message of metal for its own ridiculous, epic sake, these bandmates go straight for the kill. Their weapons…
Better to burn out or fade away? The current musical tendency to fetishize the past, creating new markets through nostalgia, has come up with a fresh answer to this timeless rock and roll question: the reissue. For the second year in a row, David Byrne has chosen this route, and…
