Despite playing a fairly straightforward, unpretentious type of music, a lot of modern- and alt-rock bands treat the stage like a political platform and the microphone like a bullhorn. Hurt front man J. Loren Wince has no patience for such abuse. “Honestly, I wish they would shut the fuck up. They have no idea what […]
Matt Carney
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Days of Lives
“Let’s just say we kept our shit together,” singer Jesse Tabish said of performing for Radiohead, in the very pub that hosted the Grammy-winning alt-rock giants’ first conventional performance in 1986. Added Jonathon Mooney, who plays piano, violin, guitar and a host of other instruments in Other Lives’ intricate, baroque arrangements, “Having them in the […]
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Poliça — Give You the Ghost
Winning an NFL Championship (last season) and a couple Grammys (for Bon Iver) probably has a lot of those folks high on life, which could possibly also explain why they’re so unafraid to strike out in weird sonic directions. Enter Channy Leaneagh (formerly Casselle). Previously fronting Minneapolis folk ensemble Roma di Luna, her new vehicle, […]
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Steve Aoki — Wonderland
The guy’s earned some cred. However! “Wonderland” stumbles right out of the gate when Rivers Cuomo gets as banal as he does on “Earthquakey People” with the late-song climax, “Don’t be afraid to dance / Don’t be afraid to take a chance!” line. Yes, I realize that it’s been a long time since the Weezer […]
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Carter Sampson — Mockingbird Sing
The album’s 12 tunes brim with crystal-clear, country guitars celebrating all the joys of rural life — and not necessarily just the whiskey-related ones. It’s a dusty gem of an Okie-born album (Sampson’s now based in Fayetteville, Ark.), spiked with the occasional blast of organ and glimmering pedal steel from Chris Moore. Wanda Jackson and […]
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Revolt!-ing
“Fuck, yeah, we’re garish!” Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! singer Neil Fridd shouted on the phone, from somewhere in Minnesota. If nothing else, the man’s concise. “There are a million bands I can go see. We’re gonna do the opposite of that,” he said. “It’s only garish because there’s a ton of really boring bands.” “Overt” […]
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Laura Gibson — La Grande
It’s called “listening to Laura Gibson’s new album,” because this eerie, simple singer from Portland is everything the plastic-lipped Hollywood pop/sadcore (note: these are tags that have been following Ms. Del Ray around every corner, but what the heck do they mean?) isn’t, and then some. For one thing, Gibson knows how to gently arrange […]
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Steady as he goes
It’s hard work writing songs with characters vivid enough to fit a movie script or a novel. Bespectacled rocker Craig Finn’s been doing it for a little less than a decade as the front man for The Hold Steady, Brooklyn’s beloved bar band. Although he’s recently taken a brief detour as a solo artist to […]
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Music Made Me: Nicholas Ley
The Zombies — “Odessey and Oracle” (1968)I remember the night my best friend and lifelong band member, Colin Fleishacker, brought me this record. I was at a party and he burst in, dragged me out to his car and made me listen to the first four or five tracks. We were recording vocal tracks at […]
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Two Suns — Dream Familiar
While it might be tempting to write this enterprise off as another of many Radiohead tributes, the album’s far too nuanced and interesting to squarely categorize. After “Not the End”’s shoegazey, textured drumming and “Nostalgia”’s chiming Americana, “Dirty Industry” slurps and sizzles with guttural, low-end bass and synths that approach learned dubstep. Davidson’s songwriting isn’t […]