This year, our sister papers the Dallas Observer and Houston Press teamed up to document the SXSW madness for your amusement and/or edification. Here are the 12 best shows and moments they saw.
By Craig Hlavaty Before I take any trip to Austin and SXSW, I always take more than a few days to peruse the schedule and check out a few of the hundreds of names on the roster and read their bios. Some years there are more bands with "wolf" and "space" in their monikers than usual, and some year ... More >>
Last week, acclaimed movie director Dave Grohl told the 15 people who were accidentally watching him fill in as host on Chelsea Lately that Britney Spears "seems dead inside" to him. Disregarding how weird it is to discuss someone's inner-deadness on the Chelsea Handler set without talking about Ch ... More >>
Kings of the Stone Age
Café Tacvba Irving Plaza Sunday, August 26 Better than: Spending a night with anything else that's 23 years old. Dance is a vital part of Café Tacvba's ethos. A vast number of the Mexican rock legends' songs reference the act, while almost all of them encourage it. Hell, the band's best song ( ... More >>
Dave Grohl had a good time at the Grammys on Sunday. The Foo Fighters won pretty much every rock-oriented award possible, he reminded everyone that he's got the power-ballad game on lock, and he even got to show off his sweet Slayer T-shirt. Once again, everything came up Grohl. The most likable man ... More >>
When past and future collide, does the present win?
This week in the Village Voice, out now: I discuss Dave Grohl's anti-technology Grammy rant and the stunning new album by Mark Lanegan; and Jesse Jarnow talks to the guitarist Dustin Wong about his restlessness and his unorthodox method of learning his instrument.
For the last twenty years, the award for Album of the Year, the biggest Grammy honor of them all, has tended to go to two types of people: young women and old men. Female solo artists under 30 (Lauryn Hill, Taylor Swift) and male veterans over 40 (Tony Bennett, U2) have dominated the category for tw ... More >>
The band closes the book on their legacy
His band may be called the Foo Fighters, but Dave Grohl wants the world to know that said nomenclature does not serve as carte blanche for people to get their conflict on during his concerts. During the Foos' Monday night show in London, he stopped mid-song to eject someone who was causing a ruckus ... More >>
The Foo Fighters' seventh album Wasting Light became the band's first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release in April, following a mountain of pre-release hype that included some of the best reviews of the band's career, a documentary about the making of the album, and the inevitable pu ... More >>
Presenting your All Tomorrow's Parties NY House band. . . In the early 2000's, the shits 'n' giggles folks at snarkier-than-thou Chunklet Magazine plopped recording engineer god and Shellac guitarorrist Steve Albini on its cover, screaming: Is This Guy The Biggest Asshole In Rock? That infamous is ... More >>
On the pointless, entirely necessary reissue of Rated R
That would be "Sing 'Hey Jude' in the East Room of the White House with Paul McCartney, Jack White, Dave Grohl (!), Jerry Seinfeld, Elvis Costello, your wife, and a whole bunch of other people on an evening when BP finally finished sawing through its own oil rig, thus dumping yet still more light ... More >>
Anna Wintour, Diddy, and Oprah got their rap on like it was 1998. MTV's Jersey Shore is being sued for profiting off of... being Jersey Shore. Letterman's extortionist is off to the hoosegow. The SexFraggle now known as Ke$ha played a Bat Mitzvah at Cipriani. These are Wednesday's Gossip Folk ... More >>
Not New York, but you get the idea. Liturgy, Rwake, and Shrinebuilder Le Poisson Rouge Sunday, November 15 Sunday night at Le Poisson Rouge featured a three-band lineup (Liturgy, Rwake, and Shrinebuilder), capping the third and final night of the newborn Blackened Weekend Music Festival. In turn, ... More >>
The nice thing about being John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme is that you're not exactly waiting anxiously for royalty checks off your new goofy side-project band--in fact, some days, you might just say 'fuck it' and give the whole thing away for free. Today, for instance. The trio's ... More >>
Here we have the first single from everyone's favorite Internet-derived hard-rock supergroup -- they probably played it a few weeks back at Roseland, but hell if I can remember it now. Pretty rad through, particularly if you focus on the honorable Dave Grohl, who treats this amiable strut as basic ... More >>
Getting to know a deliciously indulgent, only slightly exhausting hard-rock supergroup
Positively (as opposed to negatively) Springsteenian Jersey-punk rockers the Gaslight Anthem got hosed out of their All Points West slot by lousy weather. As did their fans. But if you bring yer ticket stub to Terminal 5 tonight, they'll buy you a beer. This appears to be a serious offer. (They're ... More >>
The godfathers of emo return to enthrall and possibly embarrass you
--Them Crooked Vultures surprised fans by playing Belgium's Pukkelpop music festival yesterday (check out fan reports here). The band played the second stage between sets by Beirut and Wilco. The night before, the Dave Grohl/Josh Homme/John Paul Jones supergroup played their second gig at a s ... More >>
--A new Radiohead track was mysteriously posted at the fan site Atease yesterday. "These Are My Twisted Words" is a two-minute number that may just well be the sing-along anthem of the summer. Just kidding. It's an eerie, echoey five-and-a-half minutes of noise and Thom Yorke's vocals don't e ... More >>
--Sufjan Stevens has announced an intimate fall tour. In what Asthmatic Kitty Records are calling an "east-of-Lake-Minnetonka tour," the run focuses on eastern states, kicking off September 21st at Philly's 250-capacity Johnny Brenda's. Stevens wraps the tour with four New York dates: October ... More >>
--Steven Tyler broke his shoulder and received some stitches in his head after falling off the stage during Aerosmith's show Wednesday in Sturgis, South Dakota (he's not dead, as some sites were reporting). Billie Perry, wife of guitarist Joe Perry, wrote on her Twitter: "[Tyler] hit his hea ... More >>
--The long-shelved video for Modest Mouse's "King Rat," directed by Heath Ledger before he died, premiered yesterday. The video imagines a world with a talking sun where whales commandeer ships and hunt, kill, and skin humans. No worries, though: profits from the video will go to environmenta ... More >>
Trent Reznor rides his pretty hate machine to Jersey
Guileless dervish emerges from the subway, (real-life) guitar in hand
The Foo Fighters continue their inexplicable bid to be the last band standing
Emo-goth bill isn't exactly Top-8 material
Rockers remind Hot Topic kids that Stevie Nicks was a goth
Lucky messy punks from Seattle peel down their Christmas stocking and show their context
Rap Trounces Rock Below the Mason-Dixon
Pop Still Matters? You Must Be Crazy!
