If you’re really good or really lucky (coughKanyeWestcough), you can get both at once. Rocky Business’ seven-song EP, “A Rebel’s Roar,” skews toward the art, with a few pit stops in the nonsense. I mention it because the rap/pop duo is really good at club-thumpin’ nonsense when it wants to be. Non-EP single “Kim Kardashian” […]
Stephen Carradini
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Lenka — Two
The Australian pop ingénue caught my ear with “Roll with the Punches,” a tune that would be at home having a tea party with She and Him, Ingrid Michaelson and Regina Spektor. The plucky vocal stylings of Spektor meets the faux vintage sound of She and Him while the exuberant arrangements of Michaelson cap the […]
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All Tiny Creatures — Harbors
It needs a name, but op-prog seems wrong. Oprog? Oprock? Op rock? I have no idea. If bands keep coming out like Delicate Steve, Adebisi Shank and now All Tiny Creatures, I’ll have to distill this idea into one name. But for now, it’s enough for you to know that All Tiny Creatures’ “Harbors” splits […]
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Mansions — Dig Up the Dead
Mansions’ main man Christopher Browder decided to make a rock album called “Dig Up the Dead.” The best thing Browder could have done was make an acoustic album of the same songs called “Dig Up the Dead.” I’m not just being petulant. His last release, “Best of the Bees,” was a collection of cast-off tracks […]
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Emily Arin — Patch of Land
But Emily Arin’s “Patch of Land” bursts through those categories and creates a mesmerizing album that can’t be pinned down. Her instrument is the acoustic guitar, and she sings in a haunting tone that falls just south of soprano. Her songs incorporate modern singer/songwriter, folk, ‘50s pop, country, waltzes and more. The whole album is […]
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Smith Westerns — Dye It Blonde
The new wave of “it” bands remember good songs and have decided to write some. Like Brits Yuck and New Yorker Luke Rathborne, the Chicagoans in Smith Westerns have put their heads together to make solid guitar rock tunes on “Dye It Blonde.” Nothing new under the sun, for real. But the reason that Smith […]
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Jazzed up
Those are two of the strongest stereotypes local jazz musicians fight when trying to find ears for their increasingly diverse offerings. With Kenny G the farthest thing from their minds, artists are creating a vital, progressive jazz scene in bars, concert halls and festivals. But it’s still a struggle. “It’s not America’s most popular music […]
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From Red to Randy
But his $25,000 vintage metal hollow-body instrument pales in comparison to a former guitar of the National brand that he once owned: Tampa Red’s. In the early 1900s, Tampa Red was a famous and prolific bluesman, making 300 recordings of his own tunes and 400 accompanying other people. In addition, he pretty much invented the […]
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Cello, goodbye
“Every piece has a story,” said Magrill, professor of music at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. “It’s a sonic snapshot of a particular time.” After 23 years at UCO, Magrill has an abundance of pieces and stories to go with them. His latest collection of them is the album “Cello Music of Samuel […]
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O yeah!
After all, this is the group that named a song “Peggy Sue Pepperoni Pants” and seriously considered naming its debut album after a Harley-Davidson T-shirt slogan. So when I asked its members to let their iPods do the talking, they were all about the unconventional interview style. For every question I asked, they answered with […]