Under most circumstances, a tonal shift in a band's entire sound is a signal of desperation. Perhaps they are past their prime, perhaps they aren't selling out the same venues they used to. But sometimes it's the sign of a truly restless creativity, one
Last week, amid a crush of evening commuters, I stood slackjawed on the L train platform and witnessed what I could only assume were two grown men, one in a blue Cookie Monster-ish costume, the other a pink gorilla [turns out it was Jon Singer and Bridget Kearney--ed.
As anyone who's been to the movies recently, or listened to a radio, or watched another stale episode of supposedly edgy satire (SNL? Family Guy? Fill in the blank?) has surely noticed, our cultural arts could now persist for eons untold in a state of half-wakefulness, cannibalizing
A thousand American Idol winners singing through a thousand autotune modulators will never make a Voice, a singer to be reckoned with, instinctually appreciated, and surrendered to. Very few of our musicians could just as easily go by the title of singer alone, which is what makes Neko Case and
Remember how it was all supposed to be? And how the distance between that supposed and that of your here and now is the breadth of the America you inhabit? Imagine all that distance and the places in between which are passed through--once, twice at most--but never lived.
Apparently this band, Fight Like Apes from Dublin, has been around, recording, and touring Ireland and the UK for a couple years now. As much as we rely on the internet to fill us in on these things, we've only recently heard them and that was largely due
For so long we've seen decline, dissolution, and departure. From our vantage here in the middle of winter we've seen Nature itself stripped of life and leaf, but memory serves to remind that these are merely cycles within a greater cycle. The days' arcing sunlight
The Academy of Indie Rocks and Cultural Science People has released its official list of candidates for consideration during the Academy's annual Spring bacchanal in Austin, TX. Among these nominees, one winner will be chosen to win the grueling South by Southwest Showcase competition, thus earning the title
This Friday past, peeps over at the Hype Machine finished up their year-end Music Blog Zeitgeist 2008, which uses data compiled by the search results and bookmarked favorites of registered users to determine what were the most popular artists, albums, and songs (in those three catergories) of the past
It would be remiss not to mention the recent passing of Ron Asheton, guitarist for Ann Arbor's most acerbic contribution to the late 60s garage rock scene, The Stooges. As reported first in the Ann Arbor News on Tuesday, Asheton's body was found by police in
