“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” […]
Matt Carney
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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 […]
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The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
Being Swedish, director Göran Olsson inherently carries an advantage over most American historians when it comes to documenting domestic cultural phenomena, such as the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. Because who’s more objective than a foreign visitor? Olsson makes this point early on in “The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” when Swedish […]
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Craig Finn — Clear Heart Full Eyes
“Clear Heart Full Eyes” (yes, the title’s a play on the catchphrase from “Friday Night Lights,” of which Finn is admittedly an enormous fan) really seems to follow the groping, narcotized and promiscuous teenagers that characterize The Hold Steady’s discography, as it moves away, discovers integrity, grows up, and/or finds Jesus. It follows pretty logically […]
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Lynne her your ears
While plenty of industry honors, roles in film and television, and appearances on late-night shows have all come Shelby Lynne’s way over her two-plus decades’ career, she’s never forgotten the fundamentals of her craft. “With acting, I pretty much just use my singing credentials,” said the 43-year-old contemporary country singer-songwriter, who plays The Blue Door […]
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‘Slow’ your roll
With decidedly repulsive band names like Alabama Thunderpussy, Eyehategod and Goatwhore, it’s no wonder that underground Southern metal remained a subgenre largely unexamined — until the documentary “Slow Southern Steel,” that is. “This was something we felt passionate enough to put out there, because there is no comprehensive documentary about this scene, and we felt […]
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Raekwon — Unexpected Victory
The guy’s so old, he got his nickname from Chuck D, but now that he’s signed to Cash Money Records, Busta’s probably going to be all over 2012, starting with a really fun guest verse on Raekwon’s “Unexpected Victory” mixtape. The track’s called “MTV Cribs” and opens with the Wu-Tanger doing what he does best: […]