Stories | Of Note
Mike Watt and the Secondmen
Published Dec. 30, 2008
Old punk rockers who are still willing and able: that list would include Mike Watt. But unless you were a fan of the Minutemen or fIREHOSE or ’80s Southern California punk revival in general, you’ve likely ...
This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb
Published Dec. 30, 2008
Political folk-punk band This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb has been around for more than ten years, but it feels weird to be writing about them in a big weekly newspaper. In an age of ...
Anna Troy
Published Dec. 23, 2008
At the age of 14, Anna Troy and her 13-year-old sister Lindsey performed as a duo called the Troys. They cut a demo and landed a major recording contract with Elektra. “The Troys were going ...
Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe Published Dec. 23, 2008
There’s a funk band playing just about every night in some packed club somewhere, and the best or most famous funk bands tour all the ... More Post a comment
Apes of Wrath Published Dec. 17, 2008
The Grapes of Wrath, you probably remember from high school, is John Steinbeck’s classic 1939 novel of the working poor. The novel exposed some of ... More Post a comment
Wayne Hancock Published Dec. 17, 2008
When I read Wayne “the Train” Hancock called himself “the stab wound in the fabric of country music,” I knew that I had to talk ... More Post a comment
Metallica Published Dec. 10, 2008
Call them guitar geeks. They are mostly middle-aged white working-class guys who have a thing for guitar heroes past and present. After an evening of ... More Comments (5)
Darker My Love Published Dec. 10, 2008
Los Angeles five-piece Darker My Love takes their name from a song by the punk band TSOL, and one of their two vocalists used to ... More Post a comment
Bad Brains Published Dec. 3, 2008
My dream list of bands to play at Barack Obama’s inauguration in January includes Bad Brains. Why not? They are controversial, they have a huge ... More Post a comment
Uglysuit Published Dec. 3, 2008
The Uglysuit is woefully misnamed. This Oklahoma City band clothes its songs in so much beauty it’s almost embarrassing. “Chicago,” the standout track on the ... More Post a comment
Holly Golightly Published Nov. 25, 2008
Holly Golightly is probably best known as the special guest who shows up at the end of the White Stripes’ 2003 album Elephant in a ... More Post a comment
Deerhunter Published Nov. 25, 2008
The unofficial title of Deerhunter’s first full-length CD was Turn It Up Faggot. Once you’ve made that sort of artistic statement, where do you go ... More Post a comment
Trans-Siberian Orchestra Published Nov. 19, 2008
The economy is in a shambles, the record industry is in freefall, and, God help us, Celine Dion is back in the top ten. So ... More Post a comment
GWAR Published Nov. 19, 2008
GWAR is a shock-rock band that wears creeped-out costumes on loan from the devil, comic books, and sci-fi. The band is Kiss on steroids. If ... More Post a comment
Vivian Girls Published Nov. 12, 2008
The Vivian Girls were the heroines of a 15,000-page novel by Henry Darger, a reclusive janitor who died in obscurity, only to posthumously become one ... More Post a comment
Mudhoney Published Nov. 12, 2008
The grunge family tree is not complicated. Before there was Nirvana or Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, or even those grand imitators the Stone Temple Pilots, ... More Comment (1)
King Khan & BBQ Published Nov. 5, 2008
The Black Lips are famous for doing crazy things onstage — such as playing their guitars with their willies — so if you can find ... More Post a comment
B-52’s Published Nov. 5, 2008
Ever since their inception during the Carter administration, the B-52’s have been hard at work nailing down their status as the world’s greatest party band. ... More Post a comment
Secret Machines Published Oct. 29, 2008
If a band is going to release a self-titled album, it’s usually the band’s debut. If it’s the band’s third album, it’s a sign that ... More Post a comment
Alkaline Trio Published Oct. 29, 2008
At Santogold a couple of weeks ago I met a traveling salesman. He was roughly my age, 50-ish. He confided to my girlfriend that he ... More Post a comment
Chris Cornell and Timbaland Published Oct. 22, 2008
Forget everything you knew about Chris Cornell — he’s not the same guy anymore. In fact, Soundgarden is the first thing that you have to ... More Comment (1)
Kaki King Published Oct. 22, 2008
Kaki King first started getting attention about five years ago as a short, young woman who could play the guitar like a brilliant maniac. Her ... More Post a comment
Brightblack Morning Light Published Oct. 15, 2008
Brightblack Morning Light is one of the leading players in the music scene that’s sometimes called freak folk, sometimes called the new, weird Americana, but ... More Post a comment
Black Kids Published Oct. 15, 2008
It was a comment that my girlfriend made that initially sparked my interest in Black Kids. “They sound…derivative,” she said, searching for the right word. ... More Post a comment
Jolie Holland Published Oct. 8, 2008
Jolie Holland didn’t come from out of nowhere, she just sounded that way. The Texas-raised singer-songwriter had already been a founding member of the Vancouver, ... More Post a comment
Santogold Published Oct. 8, 2008
“Music speaks to us so powerfully,” writes Diane Ackerman in her book A Natural History of the Senses, “that many musicians and theorists think it ... More Post a comment
Magic Dick Published Oct. 1, 2008
Peter Wolf aside, the real spark plug in the J. Geils Band was a harmonica player named Magic Dick. His solo blowout “Whammer Jammer,” performed ... More Comment (1)
Nick Lowe Published Oct. 1, 2008
You get a lot of practice singing when you have a baby. You try to get the little one to sleep by singing all the ... More Post a comment
Sprung Monkey Published Sept. 24, 2008
It was at X-Fest at SDSU several years ago — blink 182 was scheduled to headline the evening, but Sprung Monkey, another local band, owned ... More Post a comment
Dandy Warhols Published Sept. 24, 2008
In the mid-’90s, when every other musician in the musician-rich city of Portland, Oregon, was cultivating a lo-fi sound and a low-budget look, the Dandy ... More Post a comment
The Wedding Present Published Sept. 17, 2008
The Wedding Present is an old, seasoned British band that you are not likely to have heard of unless you are a devotee of college ... More Post a comment
Wayne Hussey Published Sept. 17, 2008
I leafed through a fashion magazine supplement recently and saw yet another feature on Goth style (fashion magazines love Goth), this one featuring a gallery ... More Post a comment
Nick Cave Published Sept. 10, 2008
There have been a lot of Nick Caves over the years. He’s been the skinny Australian guy clowning around onstage with the chaotic-sounding Birthday Party; ... More Post a comment
Vains of Jenna Published Sept. 10, 2008
Vains of Jenna is part of the Swedish (yes, Swedish) sleaze-rock revival…sleaze rock being an American phenomenon from the ’80s known for cheap lyrics and ... More Comments (3)
Alejandro Escovedo Published Sept. 3, 2008
Rolling Stone once wrote that Alejandro Escovedo is his own genre. I agree, with this caveat: Personal as it may be, Escovedo’s music sounds familiar. ... More Post a comment
Bodies of Water Published Sept. 3, 2008
Someday, someone will write a musical history of the first decade of the 21st Century and come up with definitive answers to these questions: What ... More Post a comment
Portugal. The Man Published Aug. 27, 2008
“It comes up all the time,” John Gourley says via telephone when I ask him to explain the name of his band. They call themselves ... More Post a comment
French Cowboy Published Aug. 27, 2008
The dollar is weak and the euro is strong, and the streets of American cities are humming with the sound of European tourists — often ... More Post a comment
Matthew Sweet Published Aug. 20, 2008
A few years back, rock critic Chuck Klosterman listed Matthew Sweet as one of the most accurately rated (as opposed to over- or underrated) artists ... More Comments (4)
Radiohead Published Aug. 20, 2008
He was sitting outside a coffee shop downtown with a shopping cart and a paper sign that read, “Need help/ Homeless/ And ugly.” He had ... More Comment (1)
The Pinker Tones Published Aug. 13, 2008
Mr. Furia explains that in Barcelona, an invitation to dinner before nine in the evening is considered early. This is in response to my question ... More Post a comment
Carla Bozulich Published Aug. 13, 2008
Carla Bozulich is probably best known as the leader of 1990s band the Geraldine Fibbers, who played a sprawling, majestic, cathartic kind of music that ... More Post a comment
Year Long Disaster Published Aug. 6, 2008
Not a good sign, I suppose, when tales of drug abuse crop up in the third paragraph of a press release — and when thrown ... More Post a comment
Or, the Whale Published Aug. 6, 2008
Or, the Whale — that’s how they write it — is a seven-piece band from San Francisco with some country and folk instruments (banjo, acoustic ... More Post a comment
Buddy Guy Published July 30, 2008
Halfway into the evening, Buddy Guy — wearing an electric-blue jumpsuit, his black Stratocaster covered with those trademark white polka dots — is playing a ... More Post a comment
The Hush Sound Published July 30, 2008
The Hush Sound came together in late 2004 when pianist-singer Greta Salpeter and guitarist-singer Bob Morris, who met as kids, started writing songs in Chicago. ... More Post a comment
Howlin Rain Published July 23, 2008
It was a few years ago when a friend told me about a band called Comets on Fire. I would hear other descriptions of them ... More Post a comment
Los Lonely Boys Published July 23, 2008
When the members of Los Lonely Boys, a trio of brothers from West Texas, began writing songs, they didn’t stray far from their roots. It ... More Post a comment
Earlimart Published July 16, 2008
When Earlimart started releasing records eight years ago, the Los Angeles band had quirky song structures and fuzzy guitars and garnered a lot of comparison ... More Post a comment
Good Charlotte Published July 16, 2008
Good Charlotte came to be during a time when rock was in post-grunge misery and feeling about for new direction. Dozens of bands emerged thereafter ... More Post a comment
Scarlet Symphony Published July 9, 2008
With the exception of their personal career choices, as musicians I don’t think that Scarlet Symphony makes many mistakes. That’s a large statement, but listen ... More Post a comment
Harry and the Potters Published July 9, 2008
Earlier this year the Harry and the Potters duo announced on their website that they had broken up: The two members could not agree on ... More Post a comment
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