Alone on a page, the number 1,052 evokes no emotion. Discarded on a doormat, a pair of boots has no impact. But a combination of these elements — 1,052 pairs of boots each bearing the name of an American soldier who has died in the war in Iraq — can be powerful. The display is in town as part of…
Fans don’t want to watch great DJs perform. Oh, they want to be at the show, but once the needle drops and the music builds from an ambient trance to a pulsing release, they’re too busy moving to the grooves to gaze at the stage. That explains the scene when Sandra Collins played at the now-defunct XO with Paul Oakenfold…
Despite the GameCube’s many bells and whistles, the coolest Nintendo system is still the clunky, gloriously primitive 8-bit model. In fact, the bands on the Nintendo Fusion Tour are dead ringers for some of the old gray lady’s infamous games. The members of St. Louis scream machine Story of the Year are like the plucky, plumbing Mario brothers, persevering after…
Somewhere between the beer-soaked wisdom of the Pogues and the streetwise anthems of Dropkick Murphys lies the Irish punk aesthetic of Flogging Molly. The Los Angeles band — featuring Dublin native Dave King on lead vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo, bodhran and spoons — formed in 1997 and quickly established itself on the scene with a live album, Alive Behind the…
In the four years since mambo king Tito Puente’s death, much of what has been written about Eddie Palmieri has centered on the pianist and bandleader’s ascension to the throne of Afro-Cuban music. But seven-time Grammy winner Palmieri has been royalty long enough that mere title is beside the point. The 67-year-old has released more than fifty albums in his…
Rachael Yamagata seems simultaneously cautious and confident. She’s a singer-songwriter who moves fluidly between tones and demeanors as if she’s made up her mind not to make up her mind. Her voice is loose, throaty, easy and graceful. Her debut full-length, Happenstance, makes heartbreak seem both tragically and desirably righteous. At times reminiscent of Fiona Apple’s raw style, Yamagata —…
Probably best known as the band that covered the Beatles’ “Getting Better” for the Phillips commercials a few years back, British five-piece Gomez has managed to slip under the American radar for years. Switching among three lead singers and combining heavy blues with indie pop and a hint of granola, the band’s latest offering, Split the Difference, revisits the Southern…
Whenever somebody hands out the award for most unintentionally creepy band, you would be wise to put money down on Blonde Redhead. Never has a band screamed out “Put us in a David Lynch film!” quite like this worldly trio, with its identical Italian twins, Japanese singer and tendency to record songs in French (though no one in the…
After blasting off with his solo debut, 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up, earlier this year, Northern Cali tongue twister Tim Parker (aka Gift of Gab) shows no signs of coming down. Gab is a veteran of the Quannum collective, which boasts acts such as his regular outfit, Blackalicious, as well as Lyrics Born and DJ Shadow. But Gab’s solo rep…
Black Heart Procession was ahead of its time when it blended upbeat island rhythms with baroque gloom on its 2002 album, Amore del Tropico. Today, disaster strikes many in palm-tree paradises, whether in reality (behold the wrath of Hurricane Ivan), reality television (Survivor’s bug bites and bite-the-bug challenges) or regular TV (Lost, which strands plane-crash victims in the South Pacific)….
If you haven’t ever eaten an entire bag of those orange candy circus peanuts, trust me, it’s an incredible experience. You get a strange, greasy-banana taste in your mouth and, after a short period of heightened awareness, an undeniable urge to jump out of moving cars, attack stray dogs, run to the grocery store and get buck-wild all over the…
Revolutionary idolatry is an odd business. Just ask singer Stew, of the unruly pop group the Negro Problem. On his Naked Dutch Painter album, the melodic rebel dares to challenge a very sacred image. Don’t you wish there was, like, another picture of Che Guevara? he inquires. Like, one of him, like, at a birthday party with a bunch of…
There are at least three movies waiting between the covers of H.G. Bissinger’s best-selling 1990 nonfiction book Friday Night Lights. One would concern itself with the socioeconomic life of a small west Texas town built on the wobbly foundations of oil and racism and the out-of-whack worship of a high school football team. Another would deal with the inexplicable…
