You know punk is dead when New Found Glory hangs out in the VIP section at Gryphon, the ornately decorated nightclub hidden within the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino complex in Hollywood. The Los Angeles quintet was there for an afterparty celebration of its homecoming concert — the band…
There’s a lot riding on singer-songwriter Javier Garcia. Super-producer Gustavo Santaolalla, who has worked with Café Tacuba and Molotov, produced the 30-year-old’s highly anticipated sophomore album, 13, and released it on his Surco imprint last month. 13 is also being distributed through major label powerhouse Universal Latino, which hopes to…
Two years ago few outside Houston’s mixtape circuit seemed to know who Mike Jones was. In fact one of Jones’s favorite anecdotes is how he used to go to local strip clubs and hand out his demo, trying to get people to listen. Often the response would be “Who?” Disappointed…
Oakland’s Zion-I (Amp Live and MC Zion) has few peers when it comes to skillfully integrating samples, original instrumentation, and substantive lyrical content. Unlike others, Amp preserves the essence of his sampled source material, using it to make effective points (as on “Luv”). He’s also known by his fans for…
DJ Z-Trip’s proper debut album tips a Kangol to hip-hop and electro pioneers but lacks the imagination to push those lessons forward, so it’s up to the disc’s dozen guests to generate some traction. Lyrics Born’s infectious party growl (“The Get Down”) and Chuck D’s snarling polemic (“Shock and Awe”)…
Elvis lives … in spirit anyway, as reflected by this retro collaboration between Jon Spencer, leader of his self-dubbed Blues Explosion, and Matt Verta-Ray from rockabilly revivalists Speedball Baby. Vintage-sounding rockers such as “Dark Hair’d Rider,” “Lover Street,” and “The Loveless” take a cue from Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins,…
Garbage’s Bleed Like Me is like being stuck in a flittering concussion. Sure, Shirley Manson remains a pale neurotic who gets emotionally beaten up (or so she tells you) and clings to her not-a-Barbie complex on “Why Do You Love Me.” But now she’s also blowing her lipstick dissonance through…
The IDM-pioneering British pair Autechre is never boring. Its eighth full-length, Untilted, is a simultaneously impressive and intimidating study in rhythm. Barely-there melodies season a succession of ominous beats. Frenetic kicks hit lithely like thousands of points of death, and snares snap like bear traps. The epic tracks are more…
Mexican alt-rockers Cafe Tacuba present their fans with Un Viaje (A Journey), a live two-disc/DVD chronicling their fifteen years in the game. For those who haven’t experienced them live, this is a chance to witness their pleasantly anarchic sound and onstage antics, while the ever-so-animated, raspy-voiced Sizu Yantra chants along…
Mechanical anti-rock? Asymmetrical hip-hop? Experimental electronica? If you can summarize Doofgoblin’s unambiguously weird take on laptop-made music in a convenient catch phrase or two, chances are you’re just as warped and/or adventuresome as the artist himself. In which case, congrats. The man also known as John Gulino has musical tastes…
With all the fuss over the nuptials of Charles and Camilla, it’s easy to forget that one of the longest royal reigns in recent times belongs not to the monarchy, but to music, or namely, Lady Soul — the undisputed queen of R&B, Aretha Franklin. The first woman inducted into…
Inmate, squatter, Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll columnist, educator of developmentally disabled students, and punk rocker: 47-year-old Dave Dictor has been many things. But his insane stamina and boundless inspiration still gives younger punk rockers a run for their money. This year, the leader of MDC (Millions of Dead Cops) is…
South Florida’s veteran gold-throated troubadour, Matthew Sabatella, was born to make an album such as Ballad of America. This low-key, acoustic opus is more a Folkways Smithsonian-style history lesson than a random assortment of wispy, coffee shop folk. Casual listeners, watch out: If you pay attention, you might learn something…
Despite his party’s decline in opinion polls, Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to win re-election May 5 when British citizens take to the voting booths. For Dizzee Rascal, the rapper who declared, “I’m a problem for Tony Blair” on his first album, Boy in da Corner, one might think…
Lone lovers are singing bluesy tunes, reeking of wanton lust and residue. They’ve got their mean streak on. Outlaws lurking, Hotel and VV are on the prowl. “Get the guns out, get the guns out,” they sing together on “Love Is a Deserter,” one of the highlights from No Wow…
Well, it’s April already, and I’m still recovering from this year’s Winter Music Conference. Accordingly I haven’t been going out much and instead have focused on sifting through some of the stories that have flown across my desk. Some of them — including the scandal-ridden Ultra Music Festival, which has…
If you can clear the clutter of a billion girls wanting to throw their panties at Green Day, you’ll find one thing for certain: Those three Oakland, California pretty-boy punks have come a very long way from their 1987 EP Sweet Children. And it can’t get any sweeter than winning…
The Bamboo Kids, the latest New York band to work its way down to these swamps, blows into town on a wave of good press from The Village Voice, NY Press, and just about every Big Apple punk-rock scribe there is. That doesn’t ensure that the Kids’ brand of old-school…
In recent months Awesome New Republic, affectionately known by its many admirers as ANR, has been gigging all over the place, from Wynwood District warehouses and Churchill’s Pub to unnamed spots across the Southeast. What is it about this band, who combines your favorite sounds — crazy skronk-jazz, weird IDM…
Triple-A has been a wee bit quiet as of late … until now. Proving yet again that hard work will get you ahead, Florida’s original ska-tinged, thinking-man’s punks will release two new albums this year. The first is an eight-song split EP with the sadly defunct Common Rider. On AAA’s…
Call him the consummate showman. A veritable South Florida jazz institution, Joe Donato can be found Thursday nights holding court at Coconut Grove’s Tuscany Café, charming the diners with his free-flowing mix of perennial standards such as Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” and George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” as well as innumerable requests from…
We begin with the greatest lyrics ever written: Somber songs of the plaid bartenders Western Unions of the country Westerns Silver Foxes lookin’ for romance With the chain-smoke Kansas flashdance ice pants Beck rapped these words in 1996, the artistic apex of “Hotwax,” the artistic apex of Odelay, the artistic…
