Bad Acid Trip Bands like the American Analog Set and even former bombast-and-fury enthusiasts Einstürzende Neubaten are proving that, in the face of media-driven overstimulation, truly daring has become synonymous with quiet and restraint. Not so for California’s Bad Acid Trip. The band is on tour with GWAR, so you’d…
Picture R. Kelly — that is, if you can without thinking of Dave Chappelle’s scatological parody “Pee On You.” Scratch that. So, picture Ginuwine. He’s on the beach, on his knees, shirtless, the sun setting behind him, the waves crashing seductively against his body with every woo-woo-woooo — the slow-jam…
Jan and Dean are officially heading around Dead Man’s Curve for good this time. Surf music, which was once the celebrated soundtrack to Frankie and Annette’s beach-blanket skinfests, is lost on this generation. Let’s face it: The elastic is all worn out on the bathing suits, skin cancer has taken…
When Motown and Jamaican music collided in the late ’60s in the soulful sounds of Bob Marley and the Wailers, it started down the path of what would eventually branch out into ska, rocksteady, roots, dub, dancehall, and ragga. The storied, larger-than-life characters of the late ’60s and early ’70s…
Like it or not, in today’s politics, personality trumps policy. As our attention spans have withered, so too have our appetites — and aptitudes — for absorbing any information that doesn’t come in bite-size kernels. Who wants to watch a debate about Medicare reform? Who the hell even knows what…
The fab four from Nova Scotia signed a pact indeed, with producer Tom Rothrock, who guided Sloan down the halls of Power Chord Valhalla for its seventh record. A self-described AC/DC fan, Rothrock convinced Sloan that there’s no shame in stadium cock-rock, especially when your last record featured strange songs…
Poulain front man Isaac Lekach was named Best Solo Performer last year in the New Times 2003 Best Of issue. Though some Best Of recipients have found their careers in a dead zone after winning, this isn’t true for Lekach. The Miami-born singer/songwriter went on to form a band to…
Fort Lauderdale’s Neurodisc Records could possibly make the best mix tape for a jumpin’ house party — ya know, the kind of party where everyone shows up at the front door at the same time, like in Weird Science? The majority of its catalog is albums like Drop Your Bass,…
On a recent Wednesday night, downtown Fort Lauderdale once again devolved into a nameless, faceless blob of fake boobs and fake tans, with a dash of social retardation thrown in. If you haven’t noticed lately, the nightlife on Himmarshee doesn’t have much of a pulse. It seemed a revolution was…
Considering that John Vanderslice’s jagged pop and conceptual story-songs have stranded him everywhere from the loneliest tips of Antarctica to Mommy’s cluttered basement, it’s hardly surprising that his fourth album explores brooding territory. But surpassing previous efforts in terms of sonic design, craft, and coherence, Cellar Door (the two words…
In 1995, two bright young producers released their first solo projects: DJ Spooky’s Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Ryan Moore’s Twilight Circus in Dub Vol. 1. On one hand, these records — and the artists’ subsequent career tracks — bear little resemblance to each other. Spooky’s highly conceptual Dreamer…
The Von Bondies have discovered a way for indie bands to catapult themselves from relative unknowns to media darlings overnight. Apparently, it involves Jack White’s fists, your lead singer’s face, and an album worthy of all the hype that comes after a much publicized bar brawl with the current god…
Sam Beam has a voice as sweet as iced tea in the summertime and a way with words that breaks hearts like a drunken surgeon, and so his second full-length teems with love songs wherein one of the lovers ends up as “ashes around the yard” and it’s no big…
The smoke. The backbeat. The dancing. The jubilation. The handclaps. The bouncy New Orleans jazz scene that thrived in the ’60s sure as heck isn’t dead. Not if Preservation Hall can help it. It’s still supplying the beat for the backbeat and coming to Coral Springs. Ben Jaffe, who plays…
College campuses are the perfect place for a concert: There’s guaranteed to be a young crowd up for a good party. Sometimes you’ll even find some good music brought in by a campus radio station. But more often than not, big events at So-and-So State are the result of someone…
Back in the day, George Jones had a hit single called “Ragged but Right,” about a ne’er-do-well who managed to win the hearts of everyone he met. George could’ve been singing about the boys in the Old Crow Medicine Show, undoubtedly the finest old-time/bluegrass/ragtime/alt.country band in the land. OCMS, like…
After the one-two punch of “Hey Ya!” and “I Like the Way You Move,” Outkast proved its universal appeal by sealing the deal with an Album of the Year award at this year’s Grammys for the bipolar double set Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. In the last year, Outkast’s dynamic duo of…
His bald spot glistened in the harsh light of the hotel lobby. Our eyes met for a fleeting moment before he looked away, brushing his mullet off his shoulder. He looked back, and our eyes locked. He started to speak, to hold out his hand, to say something, but it…
It seems like every kind of traditional and ethnic music is ripe to be mixed with modern electronica to form some new genre-warping musical experiment. Oi Va Voi hopes that it can repeat Tabla Beat Science’s success with Indian classical music and the Gotan Project’s work with tango; the group…
Africa Straight Ahead is a collection of music from South Africa that gathers the best and the brightest jazz players from the tip of the motherland. It’s a great concept, one that suggests a blending of the high musical standards of jazz with the expressive tribal culture of the Zulu…
The postpunk revival is the new grunge. Not since the early days of Nirvana and Soundgarden has a group of bands seemed so intent on cultivating a retro aesthetic. There’s nothing wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeve, but these revivalists — led by the Strokes, Interpol, the Rapture,…
When It Falls sounds like an extension of a theme first explored on Zero 7’s acclaimed debut, Simple Things. The electronic soul, produced by Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns, vibrates with warmth, and the vocalists, Sia Furler and Sophie Barker, burn slow elocution over it until the music becomes a…
