Despite his recent troubles with the law (See the October 6, 2005 issue of this publication), Keith Morile Michaud has found the strength to continue on his path. The Summer Blanket frontman’s music keeps him going, enabling him to heal broken emotions and strained heartstrings. His stuff stands strongly on…
Even after “retiring” from music a few times since making the tenor sax his raison de vivre in 1946, Sonny Rollins has never ceased to be a jazz innovator and leader. For a man who cut his teeth performing under geniuses Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk and who chose to…
Things happen pretty fast on the streets of the Dirty South. Whereas crunk ruled the block last year, by the end of 2005, it had been boiled down to an even more minimalist, bootycentric, low-end theory called snap music. At the center of crunk’s rapid-fire evolution, Atlanta has spewed out…
Since the alt.country revival that began in the ’80s and blossomed in the past ten years, bands aplenty have sprung up, weaned on Wilco, Sun Volt, and the like. Along with local song-killers Charlie Pickett, the Silos, and the Mavericks, Truckstop Coffee continues that long tradition of American roots music,…
Believe it or not, in the dancehall world, a guy can be both a self-declared “grindacologist” and a raging homophobe. Around the world, Beenie Man is equally famous for his big-bounce, hook-filled dancehall and his inflammatory comments — on and offstage — about gays. But though the Kingston-born Moses Davis…
Are they goth? Are they rock? Does it matter? The Sisters of Mercy have put together more than two decades of smash hits, public roustabouts, great lines, and other oddities. OK, so they don’t have any smash hits, but try telling that to the rabid fan base the Sisters have…
It might not be cool to say, but missing out on seeing Freddie Mercury perform live is one of the great musical tragedies of my life. I’m always struck by the regret I feel at this fact, and attempts on my part to compensate — namely, rewatching Queen’s Live at…
Styles come and fads go, yet thankfully, the funk always lurks, its spirit manifest in different forms and from unlikely tributaries. Believe it or not, New Orleans’ Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes hail from classical-music backgrounds. At Loyola U., goat- eed bandleader Johnny Sketch (a.k.a. Marc Paradis) majored in…
What started off as a “shits ‘n’ giggles in the basement” kind of band has grown into an unstoppable street punk/Oi! force to be reckoned with. The Dropkick Murphys even have a competitive hockey squad in the Boston area! So ten years, five full-lengths, and a bucketful of singles later,…
Let me tell you something: Duwayne Burnside can flat out play guitar. The son of veteran bluesman R.L. Burnside, Duwayne grew up in Senatobia, Mississippi, playing the deep blues with his father and other heavy dudes like Albert King, B.B. King, and Bobby “Blue” Bland in and around the Hill…
If you’re like me, there have been a thousand nights when you’ve watched some caterwauling hack destroy a good band with bad singing and thought, “Dude, even I can sing better than that.” Hopefully, you’ve got more balls than most and would actually be willing to prove it with a…
Steve Rullman continues his run as one of the area’s most consistently creative talent scouts. Thanks to Rullman’s wandering eye and good taste, the Western Massachusetts-based Red Door Exchange is making a three-date run through South Florida this week. RDE plays the kind of smirking, intimate rock that made Sebadoh…
With their 1998 debut, the boys and girls of Nashville Pussy declared Let Them Eat Pussy. Seven years later, they’re still all about the muff. Their latest album, Get Some!, opens with the holler, “Well, all right, who wants some pussy?” The quartet’s two superhot, supercrass female members, guitarist Ruyter…
In the world of rockabilly swing, few have flown as high as Big Sandy and His Fly Rite Boys. Currently a quintet, the band first took off from the L.A. nightclub scene right around the time of the short-lived swing revival of the mid-’90s, earning crazy frequent-flier miles by cruising…
Torche has been cutting mighty swaths with its down-tuned scythe for some time now; the band’s full-length debut on Robotic Empire Records last year garnered praise from both indie and major press camps. These veterans of the local scene are rumored to have most of a second album completed, and…
It’s hard to imagine Panic! At the Disco has much to panic about, considering how much ridiculously good fortune has befallen the band in the past few years. Shortly after forming and naming themselves after a line in the Name Taken song “Panic,” the high school-aged, Las Vegas-based fourpiece posted…
Attending an Aimee Mann show is no different from flipping a coin. Some nights, she’s on — clouds part, angels sing, souls are saved. Others, you’re left scratching your head as to why you didn’t just order takeout instead. Let’s hope the recent release of The Forgotten Arm will provide…
All the kids love the ’80s. Just look at the tight-pants-wearing, asymmetrical-haircut-sporting throngs of post-teens jittering to those totally rad retro hits. And here come Hall and Oates, our original poodle-cut heroes. The duo coalesced back in 1969 while fleeing from a gang shootout in Philadelphia during a show they…
New Times is, politically, a nonpartisan newspaper. You’ve probably noticed that we get off on bugging everybody. Hell, we recently ran an exposé about our own mother’s humiliating iced tea addiction and the appalling lack of chocolate chips in her homemade cookies. But when it comes to music, we like…
There are a lot of people who think ska is dead — horns twisted and broken, checkered shoes returned to Goodwill — but these are the same people who didn’t know ska existed before 1996. The Ska Brawl tour is proof ska is still alive, not to mention that as…
With this double bill, it seems the fine administrators of the City of San Diego have assembled an audio/visual review, straight from their beachside city to ours. The brochure might read something like: Get your indie on with Goodbye Blue Monday, which boasts angular guitars and a rock-solid rhythm section!…
I’m not sure what kind of “post” Armor for Sleep occupies. Is it post-hardcore, post-emo, post-screamo, or post-emo/hardcore/screamo? Whatever. The truth is, since its 2003 debut, Dream to Make Believe, this quad from New Jersey has extended its reach far beyond simple categorization and has even been the featured subject…
