As couples go, Martin and Stevie, married 24 years, seem to be at the top of their game when The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? begins. The prize-winning architect and his wife, surrounded by evidence of their success — nice clothes and furnishings, an attractive son — embody the kind of man-woman marriage that so many people seem compelled…
This was a big day, and not just because it was sunny for a change. Mr. Wiggles, a member of famed Los Angeles group the Electric Boogaloos (formed in the late 1970s), would be heading to a giant, unassuming U-Haul warehouse at 24th Street and Prospect to judge a B-boy battle. Even the name of the contest — “The Best…
That St. Patrick’s Day stew of Guinness, Jameson and corned beef may still be churning in your gullet, and you might still feel like a leprechaun is chiseling your brain. Enter Jonathan Ramsey to drive out your Dublinless doldrums like so many of St. Pat’s snakes. Ramsey, who hails from County Clay, is that guy sitting in the corner of…
Twista’s greatest asset is sheer personality. It is that sense of sheer élan that buoys the otherwise perfunctory moments of this legendary Chicago motormouth’s long-awaited comeback album. “Sunshine” could be an update of Paperboy’s infectious “Ditty.” “Badunkadunk” is propelled by turns of phrase more slippery than a stripper’s pole. Then there’s “Slow Jamz,” the novelty rap-lite tune that recently soared…
Early pressings of this album, the latest attempt to determine just what the hell the Flatlanders are, come packaged with bonus live tracks from 1972 — right about the time the band sank beneath the world’s radar. Since then, the three principals — high-lonesome Jimmie Dale Gilmore; Joe Ely, the Lone Star Springsteen; and Butch Hancock, a kind of Hanna-Barbera…
It’s too bad advertising is a detestable crime against humanity, because any song on Margerine Eclipse would make a great car commercial soundtrack. Nothing if not cinematic, Stereolab has concocted yet another album that sounds like it was meant to pass you by in one shot. Whereas some previous works suited the lights-out, bong-on-the-floor, solo head trip, Margerine Eclipse calls…
Scottish quartet Franz Ferdinand tends its sandbox somewhere between the immutable aloofness of the Strokes and Interpol as it primps mercilessly, shimmies shamelessly and sings along to Smiths singles. The band’s debut is an ideal soundtrack for a sweaty basement party teeming with lip-glossed temptresses, pretty girlfriends and prettier boys. And there’s more than a little disco in this lean,…
Are shaggy hipster bands really starving Lower East Side garage rats? Do pretty girls still validate emo punks by ditching them for the star football hunks? Are the bling and swagger of hip-hop heroes mere artifice? Nobody knows for certain. But I do know that 19-year-old British rapper Dizzee Rascal’s debut album, Boy in da Corner, thrives solely on its…
So many guitarists use their instruments as weapons of ostentation that it’s a head-shaking surprise to witness Bo Ramsey playing the thing with a bass player’s tranquility. Every show has an element of optical impossibility. It’s like watching a ventriloquist’s dummy speak a brash, intricate language with which the ventriloquist himself is unfamiliar. During recent shows with Pieta Brown, Ramsey…
Former Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork is kind of a dilettante, but at least he’s dedicated to it: He left Queens of the Stone Age to continue doing his own thing, which includes ax work in Che, pounding skins for the badass Mondo Generator, and his own solo work. The psych vibe of Kyuss is given fuller play by Bjork and…
As the only band on its Columbia bill not obsessed with figurines, Kilowatthours might face a tough, Barbie-brandishing crowd. Fortunately, its keyboard-covered compositions could charm even the Welcome to the Dollhouse bullies. This Louisville-and-Brooklyn-based band (its members swap songwriting ideas on the phone) is special in the good way, moving from its stark, piano-driven origins to an ethereal, electronically informed…
During club owner Brian Saunders’ days at El Torreon, his tip jar read: “Don’t be a cheap fuck; tip your bartender.” There’s not much tending to be done behind the counter at the Spitfire — bottled water and candy bars are the orders of choice at this alcohol-free, all-ages establishment — but there’s still a tip jar, one that now…
Dang. A body sure can get powerful hungry listenin’ to these folks on the phonograph. Sometimes it seems like every song is about corn liquor, fried chicken, cooked possum, tuna fish, biscuits, chitlins or banana pudding. It’s like having someone sing you the Luby’s menu. When Rick, Mary and Dave from Southern Culture on the Skids aren’t paying playful homage…
On Boomstick’s debut disc, singer Galactic Celt expressed interest in joining a boy band. But instead of hiring a choreographer and grooming his long locks to become a Fabioesque frontman, Celt said, as Dee Snider once declared, “I wanna rock.” He made the right choice. Boomstick is one of Kansas City’s most accessible outfits, playing catchy, riff-driven tunes to which…
Maybe we’re just hard, cynical bastards with deadbolts and alarm systems and Rottweilers. But to us, Blake Shelton’s “Austin” — a ditty of enduring love that details his daily whereabouts on the answering machine — sounds like an open invitation to every thug in the neighborhood. Bowling on Tuesday night, are ya? Might be a good time to make off…
Now’s the time on Sprockets when we say … what the fuck? Flimsy terms such as experimental and avant-garde can’t begin to pin down the calculated cacophony — musical and emotional — wrought by this traveling doomsday sideshow. Indeed, even describing Sleepytime Gorilla Museum in a conventional, representational language like English feels like an affront to Sleepytime’s arch, Dadaist ethos….
Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Paycheck and Gary Stewart were just the start of a long, grim roll call of country music legends to pass away in 2003. Each week seemed to bring another obituary and the same question: Damn, why didn’t I ever go see him play? Thankfully, there is no reason to think that Merle Haggard will be…
The Prairie Dogg finds the dirt on heroin and the Atkins diet with guitarist Tommy Skeoch of Tesla. PD: Sounds like you’re having a party. TS: Yeah, it’s noisy as fuck, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you’re on the tour bus. Nah, we’re in Detroit at the Hard Rock , grabbing something to eat before the show. What are you…
Even rock stars who snort lines off the naked, mustard-smeared bodies of unconscious groupies should brush three times a day. After all, a dentist’s office is no place for heroes. Or rock stars. In fact, toilet seats and dentist’s chairs are the two greatest celebrity equalizers in Western civilization. Charlize Theron isn’t quite so hot when she’s dropping a deuce,…
Don’t say it. Don’t breathe it. Don’t even think it. Hey, he kind of sounds like … I’m warning you. What’s that guy’s name? Paul? I’m begging you. You know, the “Sledgehammer” dude. For the love of everything holy. It’s something biblical. Something like Paul, puh, puh, Perry? No. Peter! That’s it! You dick. It’s your funeral. Peter! Peter Gabriel!…
Diego Garcia is having another one-night stand. The Elefant frontman, with his crow’s-nest hairdo, charcoal-gray shirt, scarf and dinner jacket, ink-hued pants and dark leather boots, is looking equal parts Bryan Ferry and the vampire Lestat. It’s an outfit that would earn smiles from both Zorro and Johnny Cash. The clothes look lived in, as though Garcia has been wearing…
Oh, dear. Angelina Jolie has made another bad film. Is it too soon to give up on her? There’s no denying that Jolie is sexy as hell. The tattoos, the knife collection, the exhibitionist streak, the bisexual vibe she gives off … totally hot, no question. Plus, she has that Oscar. But then, there’s also Life or Something Like It….
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which a man has his recollections of a soured relationship erased from his brain, may be the most romantic movie in recent memory, pardon the pun. Writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry’s movie is about many things — how we’re doomed to repeat the past if we can’t even remember it,…
Not his type: I want to thank Tony Ortega for writing “Jail Baited” (March 11). I was appalled by the unfairness the station showed toward John Doe. I went to school with John Doe, and he was in my fraternity. He was always playing elaborate pranks on other guys in the house, and elaborate pranks were often played on him….
