Secret Machines know a thing or two about side projects. The New York-by-way-of-Texas trio has dealt with them since the band’s conception. In their early years, Secret Machines came together as a temporary offshoot of acts such as Tripping Daisy and Comet. And years later — more than a half-decade into its spacey, long-reaching take […]
It’s difficult to comprehend how certain musicians are still alive. Somehow Keith Richards keeps chugging out guitar riffs. Somehow The Vines’ Craig Nicholls hasn’t fallen to his demise amidst reckless on-stage flailing. And somehow Shaun Ryder — the Happy Mondays’ drug-riddled vocalist and hard-partying leader — has managed to stay alive long enough to keep […]
Ousted Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky doesn’t think Silversun Pickups sound like her former band. The aloof rockstar told a Chicago radio station recently that the fuzzy guitars and gender-bending vocals of the California ensemble were nothing like Smashing Pumpkins. Then again, she also claimed to have been living in semi-seclusion on a Michigan horse […]
According to the never-questionable and always-sober reasoning of Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, if the “real” Blur is back, then “shit Blur” must be back too. But as the iconic sun-glassed singer correctly pointed out, the mod-rocking Leeds, England quintet known as Kaiser Chiefs — and also known for copping Damon Albarn and Co. — did […]
Who better to piece thousands of sequential blips, bleeps and burps on top of one another than a guy with a master’s degree in doing just that? It’s what makes Bromst both the latest and most refined album from sample-happy Baltimore oddball Dan Deacon. A student of electro-acoustic composition at Purchase College State University of […]
There are plenty of great people who write dreadful songs, and there are plenty of groundbreaking musicians who aren’t the greatest of people. By many accounts, 67-year-old rock icon Lou Reed isn’t the most cordial of fellows. Reed has a long history of cantankerous relations with the press, with his bandmates, with other bands, and […]
If you have to start a riot, it might as well be one full of cheerleaders. However, a cheerleader’s rah-rah has nothing to do with New York chamber poppers Ra Ra Riot. The pun was just too good not to stretch. On the heels of their stellar Barsuk debut, The Rhumb Line, these former Syracuse […]
It’s been a while since Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase were an afterthought. Yet that’s exactly what Yeah Yeah Yeahs were to this year’s Lollapalooza. It’s not that the New York trio was simply a late edition to Saturday’s headlining slot. They weren’t on the roster at all until fellow NYC trio The […]
Lollapalooza has never been shy about inking the biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll. After all, this is a festival that got its start in the previous decade’s heyday of macho guitar riffs. From The Rollins Band in the early days to Nine Inch Nails last year, it’s a summer concert series built on tougher […]
Still feeding off the moderate-to-warm praise of last year’s Appeal to Reason, Chicago punk rockers Rise Against have their meat hooks buried deep in the flesh of a summer tour. Well, as much as strict vegetarians and PETA supporters can have their meat hooks stuck in something, anyway. And with a split release with Face […]