Clothes Make the Man are one of those bands that somehow keeps everything well-balanced. They’re very tuneful and melodic, but their delivery has a nice gritty edge to it, and while their sound definitely packs a punch, they have enough restraint to not turn it up to eleven all the time.
Posted in Features
Describing Charlie Hunter’s music to the uninitiated used to be like pulling teeth. People used to look at me like I was from Neptune when I tried to tell them about his 8-string bass/guitar hybrid that he uses to play bass, melody and chords all at the same time. Fortunately, technology has caught up in the meantime, and I can just point people to YouTube so they can see for themselves what he’s all about.
Posted in Features
When I first heard Flogging Molly, it was a music geek’s dream come true: after years of listening to the Pogues and waiting for a big-ass hardcore guitar to kick in, someone actually put together the band I’d been yearning for, a perfect blend of Irish folk and American punk.
Posted in Music News
Listening to Shawn Fogel’s new EP, One Day in the Desert, bounce back and forth between rootsy alt-country tunes and peppy power pop anthems, it’s hard to believe that this NYC-based multi-instrumentalist was originally inspired to be a one-man-band by Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions LP. As Shawn explains, “It blew my mind how one person could create such an amazingly skilled and tight sound all by himself.”
Posted in Features
Sunday night the Foo Fighters walked away from the Grammy Awards with trophies for Best Rock Album (Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace) and Best Hard Rock Performance (”The Pretender”), bringing the band’s tally up to six, including three for best album. Not bad when you consider ESP&G is only their sixth studio record. Kudos, Mr. Grohl and Co.
Posted in Music News
I got into writing about music because I generally enjoy talking to musicians. For the most part, they’re a fairly interesting, good-humoured bunch who can appreciate a good dose of irony. But, evidently, this personality trait is not shared universally by all musicians.
Case in point - someone’s been complaining to YouTube about the work of parody artist Santeri Ojala, who specializes in taking videos of guitar gods (Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Slash, etc.), erasing the original audio and overdubbing his own guitar playing with hilarious results.
Posted in Videos
One look at their obnoxiously bright MySpace page is all you need to know that Philly’s Br’er are pretty much the weirdest thing you’ll ever hear. The instrumentation goes from eclectic to abrasive at the drop of a hat and the song structures like to seek out their own meandering paths that make a mockery of traditional verse/chorus structures, and sometimes even the most curious listener will be tempted to duck and cover, but there’s something fascinating about it all that definitely warrants repeat listenings.
Posted in Reviews
Note to my high school self: you’re gonna kick yourself for ever liking Metallica. Not only will they try to sue their fans for file sharing even though they became multi-millionaires partly due to a whole lot of tape swapping back in the early days, but they’ll eventually sing the praises of having their tunes turned into muzak for babies.
Posted in Videos
I’ve always said that Millencolin are the punk rock answer to Abba: their Swedish, there’s four of them, they write catchy, upbeat, hook-laden tunes with great big harmonies and they’re gay icons (okay, maybe not) …
Posted in Music News
Everything’s bigger in Texas (that’s why you don’t mess with it). Well, somehow they’ve managed to squeeze a grand total of 1,594 bands into Austin’s 5-day SXSW music festival this March. That’s an average of 318.8 bands a day. From Brooklyn’s A-Alikes to Austin’s own Zykos, this year’s line-up offers everything from the big names (perhaps you’ve heard of this band from Georgia called R.E.M.) to the lesser known (such as the very interestingly and aptly named Psychedelic Horseshit from Columbus, OH, or $hit and $hine from London) and all points in between.
Posted in Music News
