Though she may appear polite and placida brief chat reveals that she doesn't do drugs and loves her dogsMarnie Stern is a surge of sugary meth, a million-notes-a-minute rush of guitar bliss. Released in February, her Kill Rock Stars debut, In Advan...
On a Sunday morning, long before sunrise, dancers gather downtown at Club Shelter, New York's most respected house party. No one is dressed up or looking for loveinside, they head straight for the dance floor with three changes of clothes in a duffe...
Some folks say Cinematic Orchestra play acid jazz, a/k/a downtempo, a/k/a middling, vanilla sushi beats. This stems from an association with the Ninja Tune label, and it's crap. Saying that Cinematic Orchestra play downtempo is like saying Can played...
"I don't wanna be alone," sings Billy Corgan on "Tarantula," the first single from the first Smashing Pumpkins album since 2000's Machina discs. Thank Mellon Collie for that: Two years ago, on his disappointing solo debut The Future Embrace, Corgan ...
Image-wise, few male singers have less in common with Bob Dylan than Bryan Ferry. The former Roxy Music crooner's dandified stagecraft, elegant decadence, gleeful irreverence, scrappy irony, and consistent refusal to anchor his art in politics, relig...
Pharoahe Monch is a word surgeon. In the early '90s, as a member of Organized Konfusion, he and counterpart Prince Po released three tragically slept-on albums before it was cool to be slept on. With Desire, the Queens MC's first project in damn near...
If you want to get a good idea where Slough Feg singer-guitarist Mike Scalzi is coming from, check out the graphic novel Slaine: The Berserker, whose main villain, based on a demon lord from Irish oral mythology, is named the Lord Weird Slough Feg. ...
SYNOPSIS In which Uncle LD bids loyal and devoted listeners adieu with a panoply of lovely noises and words. What a year it's been, he muses, half to himself]. He urges all lovers of music and life and liberty etc. to protest the dumbing down of o...
SYNOPSIS In which Uncle LD plays more chaotic trash for your delectation in an extended mix of honoring Queer Pride in all its glory or whatever. Actually, Uncle LD wants you to know that while you're keenly listening to this, he's away down south ...
Ryan Adams has always convincingly played dress-up, whether portraying the blue-collar balladeer, the petulant if corrigible bad boy, or the corduroy-country star. Granted, his authority on "dime-store gin" and double-shifts at the factory can feel a...
Lesley Arfin and I are having coffee the night after her Dear Diary book-release party, which she deems a success. "I had an emergency therapy session yesterday and we meditated, so I was able to just wear my emotions and feel vulnerable," she says....
At My Age, Nick Lowe's fourth straight utterly fantastic sad-sack country record, has a benevolent, whimsical, grandfatherly air that's both sincere and devilishly deviousa jovial wink to distract you as he reaches around to pinch your ass. Daughter...
Pick Hits Wolfgang Muthspiel Bright Side Material This Austrian guitarist is hard to characterize. He avoids power chords and single-note bebop runs, and does without a funk lick or even a blues move. He gets a soft, metallic tone, sometimes tw...
Da Shop Boyz "Party Like a Rockstar (Totally Dude)" From Rockstar Mentality (Universal Republic) "Party Like a Rockstar" Official remix featuring Shop Boyz, Jim Jones, Chamillionaire, and Lil Wayne (Universal Republic) "Rock Star" Un...
Brian Hughes, a/k/a B-Money, is feeling pretty sharp for 6:45 in the morning Tokyo time, considering that he just staggered back from a Kyoto party in honor of Golden Week. One of Japan's biggest holidays, its celebratory milestones include Showa Day...
"With me, a change of trouble is as good as a vacation." David Lloyd George The Polyphonic Spree "Running Away," from The Fragile Army (TVT, 2007) [Music listing for July 1] Action Painters "456," from Chubby Dancer (Girl Group, 2007) S...
Though electronic music royalty, Kieran Hebden likes him some drums. Real drumsnot machines. His past handful of solo records as Four Tet have thumped around with an implicit promise: "We beat and strummed this shit ourselves! Look, Ma: no computers...
New York began for me, a Philly schoolboy, the same way it did for out-of-town skaters and college students, graffiti artists, sculptors, stockbrokers, gym teachers, sanitation workers, B-boys, DJs, carpool dads, White Castle burger-flippersbasicall...
Kelly Clarkson's label's rumored hatred of her new albumtheir disapproval of her decision to hire fewer songwriters, coupled with the abrupt cancellation of a too-optimistic tourmakes this a moment of reckoning not just for Clarkson, but for an emp...
Electroclash never promised to cure loneliness. As two-thirds of now-defunct U.K. psych-poppers Simian, James Ford and James Shaw kinda did. Remixed by French electro duo Justice, Simian's "We Are Your Friends" (ne "Never Be Alone") has kept clubgoe...
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