Bright as a whistle and smart as a fox, Big Brooklyn Red’s entire demeanor is old school: from the way he combs his long, Michael Bolton-style hair to the hats he wears at a slant. When he sings his voice flows as easy as breathing, but the force of his…
If hip-hop is indeed “the proverbial sad clown of music,” as New York rapper J-Live proclaimed on 1999’s unreleased and unofficial anthem, “The Best Part,” then J-Live himself is quite possibly the art form’s Emmett Kelly. Despite personal and professional heartache, he’s managed to maintain his optimism and love for…
On paper, it’s an intriguing concept: Two of punk’s best-known bands cover each other’s material, with Rancid injecting street-smart credibility into NOFX’s snarky melodicore tunes and NOFX adding levity to Rancid’s titanic Clash-inspired sound. While reworking NOFX’s “Stickin’ in My Eye,” Rancid’s virtuosic bassist Matt Freeman adds a hyperkinetic undercurrent…
It would be tempting to lump Spanish singer Malú in with the Britneys, the Mandys, and the Jessicas. At first glance Malú seems eligible for the post-Mickey-Mouse-Club-on-the-road-to-stardom world: She’s another pretty nineteen-year-old who lives with mom, has no discernible vocal technique, and sings about love and heartbreak in the adolescent-cum-adulthood…
Hip-hoppers made their mark by fashioning art from unusual source material. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that Slick Rick, one of the genre’s most hallowed forefathers — who will be featured at Beyond 2002 — gets a lot of ideas from the movies. But not from the ones…
We’re in a recession. We’re coming out of a recession. We may never have been in a recession, just a slump. These are the kinds of conversations bandied about in the music community, following one of the worst years for the industry in a long time. But a little economic…
Old tech and tackheads from back in the all-vinyl day surely recall “drum drops,” those groovy discs of nuthin’ but the drums, cut after cut of basic beat played by pro-session stickmen and women. Used primarily for movie and TV cues, as well as basic, pre-sampling looping, drum-drop records were…
Rising up from the ever-growing Philadelphia underground, 40th Dimension has spent the last several years building a strong rep through various self-released projects. After treating listeners to their outstanding debut EP, The Clarence Beeks Project, and dropping two quality singles, the duo are now releasing their first full-length. 40D’s approach…
Dave Bazan may have graduated from the Doug Martsch School of DIY musicianship, but he still plays well with other kids. Since he released Winners Never Quit as a one-man band in 1999, he’s added Casey Foubert on bass/keyboards and Trey Many on drums. On Pedro the Lion’s latest release,…
Just after midnight on the bus that runs across the MacArthur Causeway from Miami to Miami Beach, aspiring Kentucky trance DJ Soren LaRue and unknown Indiana breakbeat jock APX are sprawled across the handicapped section, backpacks full of promo CDs balanced on their knees. They’ve come to the twelfth annual…
Not much these days lives up to the idea of the present we’ve sold ourselves through the culture of the past. Didn’t it seem ten years ago, when alternative rock was just beginning to elbow its way onto radio playlists — when weird shit like dancemeisters My Life with the…
Living in Miami since 1987, Cuban-born Carlos Gomez and Canary Islander Marta Ramirez have been offering audiences a rich blend of traditional and original trova interpreted with impressive authenticity. This weekend the husband-and-wife duo celebrate the release of their much-awaited debut CD, Trova Bolero, with a series of shows serving…
Ho-hum. Classic reggae and Indian film music. Tell us something new. Decades after their big breakthroughs in the late 1960s, reggae and filmi have become marginalized by their popularity. Stuck in their respective niches, the genres haven’t gained appreciable momentum from the sputtering but occasionally lively world-music bandwagon. Innovation has…
Touring musicians, by the nature of their jobs, usually have a couple of ZIP discs’ worth of colorful tales. That goes several times over for anyone who has spent time on the road with Miami’s still-so-horny Luther Campbell. That’s why, despite a brand-new album of their own and big-time recognition…
“Just when I was thinking of getting out of the business … ” begins Beres Hammond. Before he can finish a chorus of boos breaks in, letting the Jamaican soul crooner know exactly what the audience thinks of that idea. The singer lets the response stand as an explanation of…
Dan Bryk, a frumpy Canuck who refuses to give his age but looks to be in his twenties, sits on an outdoor patio behind his Yamaha keybs and sings his ass off, which isn’t such an easy task — the dude’s heavy, literally. It’s 9 p.m. on a Thursday in…
All you Kruder & Dorfmeister fiends, take heed: Some new shit has arrived from those illustrious Austrians. But don’t get too worked up — this isn’t exactly new new. Each album is a remix of the 1999 album Suzuki by Tosca, a duo made up of Richard Dorfmeister (the “D”…
If university music departments offered a survey course on the history of hip-hop, lazier students would be advised to use the X-ecutioners’ new album, Built From Scratch, as their Cliffs Notes. More than a vehicle to showcase the quick hands of X-members Rob Swift, Roc Raida, Mista Sinista, and Total…
Right next to the cash register, there it is — shiny foil wrapping gooey hummability. Plop it in your gob, the hooks and melodies vibrate in your mouth. Then the acid hits. Imperial Teen’s dark charm derives from earthy boy-girl harmonies, spacious synth and guitar, and Saturday Morning phrasing of…
Nearly half the song titles on Andrew W.K.’s debut contain the words “party,” “love,” or “puke” — a sure sign that this is the best party metal the Eighties never gave us. Formerly a one-man show, W.K. built I Get Wet into a dual-ax, kick-drum assault chocked with shout-along choruses…
Merge may want to re-examine the status of “Nashville’s Most Fucked-Up Country Band” as an altcountry outfit. Lambchop’s latest is markedly different from its comparatively lush, heavily orchestrated predecessors (most notably 2000’s commercial/critical hit Nixon). Principal songwriter Kurt Wagner’s amiable croak and pianist Tony Crow’s Vince-Guaraldi-in-Vegas lounge trip wind comfortably…
Forward motion drives Chocolate Industries. “Because people were so attached to the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, no one got to do anything new,” complains Seven, the owner-operator of the Chicago-based label, as he looks back on the past decade. “When bands like Oasis come out, the first thing people say…
