It’s been more than four years, but Jason Stollsteimer is still the guy who got knocked the fuck out by a one-armed, cast-wielding Jack White. Call it tragic; label him a victim of “what have you done for me lately” ADD, but the Von Bondies’ frontman seems to be stuck with the tag. It might […]
Jamie “Hotel” Hince is inside what seems to be a stone warehouse in Birmingham, England. “I can’t fucking hear a fucking thing,” the British half of The Kills says as he hops back on his cell after it dropped the first call mid-conversation. “This place is so fucking loud. Everything is echoing, and my tour […]
There’s a moment during a December 1965 press conference when a particularly snarky Bob Dylan described himself as neither a poet nor a singer, but instead as a “song and dance man.” The throng of reporters burst into laughter — maybe it was genuine, maybe it was nervous — but the assembled media didn’t push […]
About two dozen questions into what would become John Lennon’s final interview before his assassination, Playboy writer David Sheff asked why it was “so unthinkable that The Beatles might get back together to make some music.” It was an honest question, one that Lennon undoubtedly had been asked a thousand times, and in 1980 there […]
A rock band from Liverpool is a lot like a shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls or a Christian in Vatican City…there’s a pretty big shadow overhead. But surrendering to one’s shortcomings can be liberating — and admitting that there’s no hope of meeting such comparative expectations can create a pressure-free environment in which one […]
Making a mark using homespun, lo-fi production can be dangerous territory, as there needs to be a balance between message and medium for the striped-down aesthetic to work. Sound too gritty, too murky, and the fidelity can outweigh the structure. But be too pristine, too glossy, and loose the heart that sounds so good worn […]
There’s something naïve about The M’s, even three albums into the band’s catalog. It’s this unabashed hopefulness that gives the Chicago quartet its warmth, its starry-eyed pleasantry that other 1960s revivalists lack. The mid-60s were a magical time for contemporary rock’n’roll, and Real Close Ones is the closest that these four Midwesterners have come to […]
You’ve got to hand it to Clinic: the band sticks to its principles. First, there is the always-present medical garb. Then there’s the members’ borderline anonymity (a result of the medical garb). Finally – and most importantly – there’s the trademark, increasingly distant take on pseudo psychedelia. Yes, the band made up its mind early, […]
Minnesota’s Twin Cities sit 150 miles from the state’s southeastern tip. When combined, the state capitol of St. Paul and its neighbor to the west, Minneapolis, create the 13th-most populated area in the nation. The two so often are linked — by the likes of baseball’s hometown Twins, the upcoming 2008 Republican National Convention, and […]
MTV must be crazy to tell Gnarls Barkley to take their new video and run elsewhere. The news that the music conglomerate banned the footage of the neo-soul duo’s first single from the soon-to-be-released “The Odd Couple” is surprising. Despite failing the Harding Test – the standard set to prevent TV channels from triggering epileptic […]