Those of little faith might scoff at the Rockfest lineup, but some of the up-and-coming acts who play the sun-soaked early shifts of this festival go on to become headliners. Just three years ago, Coal Chamber played to early birds and empty seats at a September Rockfest with Pantera at the top of the bill. This year’s evening-closing act,…
My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/that’ll stab you in the head/whether you’re a fag or lez/…hate fags? The answer’s yes — Eminem, “Criminal” Marshall Mathers LP, the sophomore effort from Michigan-by-way-of-Missouri native Eminem, ranks among the year’s best from a musical standpoint. With tight production by Eminem himself, Dr. Dre, Mel-Man, and others, this record…
Save the Freak’s bio boasts that this is a band that is not content to follow “any of the short-lived trends that are so prevalent in today’s music,” and its new full-length backs up this claim with a dozen decidedly untrendy tracks, plus one whose seeming concessions to current tastes might well be ironic (there’s some rapping on “Mole,” but…
After introducing listeners to an engaging brand of atmospheric art-rock with last year’s debut CD, The Billions return with an effort that proves the band can re-create its swirling soundscapes in a live setting. Only introductory applause distinguishes the concert cuts, which were recorded with remarkable clarity at a house party, from the tracks recorded in Samuel and Daniel Billens’…
A few years back, it seemed as if The Gadjits were poised to take over their little skankin’ corner of the rock world. After getting signed by Epitaph/Hellcat and releasing 1998’s At Ease to critical praise, the band members built a rep as road warriors and were promptly rewarded with such promotional opportunities as appearing in one of Rolling Stone’s…
The dirty truth of reviewing music is that all the fun is in playing the hero or the villain. Championing or savaging an album is the autopilot glee of writing about this stuff. But that leaves the noble (or hapless) mediocre acts or discs that can manage a memorable moment or two (good or bad) but aren’t interesting enough to…
To create truly intelligent rock music, music that pops out of speakers with a tenacity and a focus while playing with the frame in which it is placed, is a heroic feat indeed. Braid is one band capable of doing that. Taking hardcore, post-punk, pop, and a pinch of metal, Braid toured the country for six years playing its carefully…
Ah, synergy. Millions of Americans who flipped to ER a couple weeks back to get a small-screen fix of George Clooney were treated to the cloying new single from Don Henley, playing under an already maudlin reunion sequence. Eleven years after his last solo album, having wiggled free of Geffen during the first Eagles reunion — an event that…
The mythology of jazz is littered with artists who could have been superstars. So many talented jazz players have never had the chance to shine in the public spotlight, instead finding themselves relegated to obscurity in some smoky dive or trendy café. All pop music is fickle, but jazz seems even more heartlessly so, holding up such mediocrities as Dave…
On the cover of her latest album, Everybody’s Talkin’ ‘Bout Miss Thing, Lavay Smith sits with her legs crossed, donning thigh-high stockings and a saucy cheetah-print number. It’s a selection befitting a woman named one of L.A.’s 101 sexiest people by Los Angeles Magazine, but it’s the kind of outfit that’s difficult to discover at a vintage clothing shop, even…
“The onward march of technology made it possible for me to create music by myself,” Todd Rundgren says from his rehearsal space in San Francisco. “It’s one thing to be an artist; it’s another thing to write your own material. I just took it farther than the rest. I was the first to take those two ideas — artistry…
It is difficult to reconcile American perceptions of Iran, a rigidly authoritarian Islamic fundamentalist society, with the captivating and compassionate films that emanate from the country. Most of these pictures, including 1995 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or winner The White Balloon and 1998 best foreign-language film Oscar nominee Children of Heaven, center around children. Simple, unsentimental, yet touching, these…
To begin, let us discuss puking. You know, upchucking, barfing, yacking, Technicolor yawning, blowing cookies, driving the porcelain bus, screaming at one’s shoes, and, for you Aussies, chundering. Always unpleasant — yet usually a great relief to a queasy gut — a nice vomit can be provoked by just about anything, but a few catalysts seem to work every…
Early on in Mission: Impossible 2 (or M:I-2, as the confident Paramount now calls it), hero Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) complains to his boss about his new assignment: “It’s going to be difficult.” “It’s not mission difficult, Mr. Hunt,” the boss icily replies, “it’s mission impossible. ‘Difficult’ should be a walk in the park.” Similarly, making a sequel to…
Taste tested I realize that film reviews are mostly just a matter of opinion — one person’s perspective of a subject. However, I (and a few of my friends) have noticed lately that quite a large number of the movies that are reviewed in PitchWeekly have received moderate to poor reviews. A movie I saw and thought was outstanding had…
Each night, Mary Lou Schmidt spends a few moments in quiet reflection, seated before a self-made altar of the Egyptian mother-goddess Isis. Dolphin print fabric, a gift from a Christian friend, drapes the table. Items of personal significance decorate its surface — candles; a crystal; a pyramid; a Native American rattle; statuettes of Isis and Thoth, the Egyptian god of…
Jim Lloyd remembers what Southwest High School used to be, and he isn’t alone. Many longtime residents of the city’s southwest corridor, along with new families attracted to a neighborhood of large homes near the pedestrian-friendly Brookside shopping area, know of Southwest as the one-time star of the Kansas City, Mo., public high schools. That status began to slip…
MELVIN CLIFTON RUFFEN, BETTER KNOWN AS “MC,” stands on the corner of 18th and Vine, casually looking around. Not much is going on. A few cars and trucks zoom up and down 18th Street, but the neighborhood is empty of the hustle and bustle MC describes when talking about what the historic jazz district was like back in his day….
