Recently in Music Category

Dirty Lenin Hurt My Face
By Justin Quinn Pelegano

I'll be the first to admit, and not without a little pride, that I'm a son of grunge daddies Cobain and Vedder. If you had seen me in high school and college...hand me any music that rang of suffering and "fuck you" and the next second I was blasting it in my headphones at levels hard enough to block out NYC street noise. Or my teachers. Loud enough to block out my parents. And even my unrequited love fixations. Call me a downer, a depressive, cynical, or even completely sane. I can take it. Something about the unadorned and unapologetic "truth" in songs like Nothing Man and Rape Me appealed to my pissed off and super bored soul. Because, after all, I got it. The rest of all y'all were phonies.

Then, well, you know; I grew up and realized that life needn't always revolve around the dark side...or me...comfortable as all that was. And wow! A major side benefit to finding the light (or was that absurdity) in life was a more eclectic music collection. It took me a while to be cool with that. "Um, dudes, is it okay to sing along to The Flaming Lips?" Honestly, it was a watershed moment when I allowed myself to smile at happier musical fare while out in public. Like the time they played Mmm Bop in Tower Records. The moral is that I was easing up in my old age. And good thing too. Because there's no way in hell the younger, baggy pants me would have sat through one riff from Dirty Lenin. And that's a damn shame. It might have changed the course of my life. Or at the very least made people wanna hang with me more. Nobody likes a mope. Anyway, better late than never.

By Ross Whitsett

The creation of music with absolutely no boundaries and complete creative freedom from a major music label seems absurdly beyond comprehension. However, two of the most well known bands within the Indie Rock world are ironically on the corporate Warner Brother's music label. Both Built To Spill and The Flaming Lips are the vanguard of a niche market, and there is some possibility for profit, the bands are given free range for their studio albums. Built To Spill, while at times light hearted, is primarily no nonsense, and just about the music; The Flaming Lips seem to bask in the glory of their oddity, and to be honest with you, have been letting their critical praise go to their head a bit too much.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Roseland Ballroom, May 2, 2006
By Terry Roethlein

Before Karen O started singing "Gold Lion," the current Yeah Yeah Yeahs single, on May 2 at Roseland, she rearranged her red and purple Christian Joy getup so that a piece of glittery fabric hung over her face like a Muslim hijab. Only a minute later though, and her face reemerged. The newly mature Karen O seems a lot less playful.

Two years ago this refreshingly reckless, positive pixie opening for Devo in Central Park showed up on stage in the rain, grinning like a four-year-old smeared in Mommy's lipstick, twisting her rain poncho into knots, and throwing herself into her stage work with the fervor of a jihadist. At the first of two New York shows supporting the new album, "Show Your Bones," there was a lot less artful draping of costumes, no dousing with beer backwash, and certainly no more stage dives. According to interviews, she is tired of the drinking injuries and is now much more serious about being the one responsible for shaping the band's newly cleaned up, potent band of dance/punk. It shows. Backed by the very gifted guitarist Nick Zinner, ballsy drummer Brian Chase, and an extra touring guitar, the band pounded out most of the songs from the heavier, slightly psychedelic current effort in just over an hour--no muss, no fuss.

Kaki King and Kelli Rudick
The Cutting Room, April 24, 2006
By Ross Whitsett

Returning to a small club after building a well known career can always be fun, and when musicians decide to just let go and play with friends it can be quite an intimate experience, for the audience and artist alike. Kaki King, a virtuoso jazz guitarist, was once a struggling artist playing regular gigs in the Tap Room at the Knitting Factory and putting on shows for her friends at Rififi with Danger Mouse cartoons in the background. She has toured extensively for the past three years, opening for artists like Marianne Faithful and David Byrne, and is about to release her third album. Not bad for the former ticket seller at the front door of Mercury Lounge. Of course one of the perks of finding success is that you can always come back and find new ways to expand your art and bring others along with you.

Beth Orton
Webster Hall, April 11, 2006
By Ross Whitsett

On Comfort of Strangers, Beth Orton has reached a new stage to her career after forging a cult following with her folk songs that contained an electronic edge at times. Comfort is her fourth album and easily her most publicized, with a music video for cable television, constant play on public FM radio, and a 20-gig tour of the U.S.

The whole tour wrapped up on Tuesday April 11 at New York's Webster Hall, a venue that is one of the more difficult clubs to tolerate in the East Village as a fan of Indie music since it caters usually to a dance club crowd. Even the disrespectful bouncers, and the $10 drinks could not spoil the night viewing on the sweetest, most heart-warming artist around these days.

By Troy Tolley

With their third album release, Live It Out, Metric is officially the most popular rock band you have never heard of. If you haven't heard of Metric, then you are truly missing the slow, underground swell of a band that already stands as solidly, historically, and classically as any other true rock and roll band across time. Sneaking down from Canada and up from Brooklyn and in through the back door of an industry and culture that the band at once despises and depends upon, Metric is re-educating the bored, numb, cloned masses raised on American Idol and boy bands that there is more to Rock and Roll than contrived beauty and text voting.

With their impressive new EP, Ride Between The Eyes, The Soft Explosions offer up a psychedelic dose of glam inspired, alt-rock bliss. Ride Between The Eyes is a clear indication that The Soft Explosions fully understand what it takes to write a great pop song.

While living in Boston, brothers David and Nicky Kulund began working with guitarist Irina Yalkowsky and formed the band David James Motorcycle. After building a solid following in the Boston music scene, in 2002 the band decided to pack up and move to New York City despite knowing that they would have to start again from scratch. With new material, a new bassist, Dave Stahl, and a new name, The Soft Explosions began playing to receptive audiences at Don Hill's and the Mercury Lounge where their sound, a blurry mix of blues, glam, and rock n' roll, had people taking notice. Further building the bands momentum, The Soft Explosions played Iriving Plaza when they won Little Steven's Underground Garage Battle of the Bands.

The Edinburgh Empress and her boys are back with Bleed Like Me, Garbage's first release in almost four years and what a long, shitty four years it has been for Garbage.

While touring in 2002 lead singer Shirley Manson lost her voice and had to have a cyst removed from her vocal chords leaving her unable to speak for a brief period of time. Manson then reportedly separated from her husband though the details have understandably been kept private. As if Shirley's issues weren't enough for the band to deal with, Garbage mastermind Butch Vig slipped into a coma due to undiagnosed, Pamela Anderson-grade Type A Hepatitis. When he finally got back on his feet, Vig soon checked back into the hospital, this time for Bell's Palsy. With its release being a year later than expected, that Bleed Like Me ever got made is nothing short of a miracle.

By William Cate

Over the years Foetus, Jim Thirlwell, Clint Ruin, what ever name he is working under, has experimented musically with everything from catastrophic noise to big band, so on his new release Love it's no surprise that elements of Sci-Fi film scoring would find their way into the mix.

Disturbed string arrangements normally associated with slasher films accompanied by French-style jazz vocals and his usual orchestra-from-hell arrangements make this one of the best Foetus albums in years.