It is time to once again review some of the albums that have been stacking up and spilling over in the office. In the month since my last rapid-fire review, the CDs have multiplied like gremlins in a swimming pool. Fortunately, the music seems less dismal than in the past endeavor.
Life isn't fair, and you need not tell this to The Hold Steady. In any justice-esteeming society, 2006's critically adored "Boys and Girls in America," an album crammed with hook-filled sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll throwbacks, would have landed the band the fanatical arena, following its unofficial designation as the scraggly incarnation of The E Street Band. Instead, they got a few nods in year-end polls and a billing on last year's Lollapalooza poster that was only slightly more visible than The Fratellis.
For most, 38th birthdays come and go with little cause for contemplation. For Beck - alpha loser, fifth Beatle, fourth Beastie Boy - 38 means finding himself knee-deep in a mid-life crisis, contemplating worldly ills and taking stock in a self-destructing society that's making a beeline for the pit of hell.
Bands come and go in Gainesville with the four-year cycle of students filtering through the college town.
David Berman, you've got to hide your love away.
All rules are out the window when it comes to experimental music. Primal screams, scratchy dialogue, looping riffs and ambient echoes are just some of the sounds at a typical Action Research show.
Fleet Foxes isn't your father's Seattle band. The five-piece Puget pioneers avoid flannel, regularly bathe and - here's the real departure - seem genuinely happy to be alive. These guys have aesthetic taste, favoring 16th century cover artwork over naked babies (Nirvana) and mangy farm animals (Pearl Jam). Of greater importance, the group's brand of Brian Wilson-flavored folk lullaby makes more noise in blogs than in stadiums, a telltale sign that they are out of place and time.
Joe Loffredo leads a double life. By day, he sports a button-down shirt tucked into khaki slacks. By night, he dons a bandana and high-top sneakers.
While you may not run into Soulja Boy on campus, critiquing local musicians can be risky. In the attempt to discover local music and at the suggestion of a fellow writer, below is a local band review.
"We are young despite the years we are concern/ We are hope despite the times." So sings Michael Stipe on R.E.M.'s classic "These Days," the band's statement of purpose and a tune that had been rattling in my head a full week prior to an early summer gig at the University of California, Berkeley campus. The song rocks, no questions asked, but it's also slightly cringe-inducing, should you picture it played by three middle-aged hipsters - one frumpy (Peter Buck), one bald (Stipe) and one timelessly nerdy (Mike Mills). It also begs the question, are these guys full of it? Twenty years on, are once-ballsy claims now as hollow as one of Buck's signature Rickenbackers? In short, does R.E.M. still matter?
One after another, cars poured out of the Wal-Mart parking lot in the quaint town of Manchester, Tenn. Thursday morning.
Not many guitar heroes make it through their high school years without getting slapped with the dropout tag, so it's even more impressive that Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo gets to flaunt a bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University. A decade-long stint with the Ivy League's finest must afford one all kinds of vital knowledge, and yet Cuomo still can't wrap his horn-rimmed head around the law of diminishing returns.
Collecting dust isn't a CD's purpose. In hopes of finding a worthy album to review, I snagged a stash occupying space in the Alligator office.
Rock is not dead. We can thank all of the recent band reunions for attempting to repeat what was once good. A flip through the pages of Rolling Stone magazine reveals more and more bands coming out of retirement.
British trance-rocker and Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce nearly died in 2005 because of - get this - pneumonia. Go figure. When you've had addiction problems with heroin, landing in the accident and emergency (A&E) ward because of respiratory complications is kind of like tiptoeing through a minefield only to contract tetanus from a rusty nail. Irony aside, the near-death experience yielded "Songs in A&E," a rock 'n' roll record that could very easily be confused for an electric requiem.
His birth name is Shawn Dalton, but even his mother affectionately calls him "Glyph."
The show that revived Paula Abdul's career and hooked audiences for six seasons has lost its grip on American viewers. Though the show still tops the ratings list, the success of "American Idol" is fading.
The next few months are the prime time for music lovers to catch a great show. And if you're looking to see one good concert this year, go see Kanye West's Glow in the Dark Tour. This show was surrounded by a halo of hype from the get-go. It received stellar reviews all around, and when Entertainment Weekly gave the show a B+, it got an earful from Kanye who responded on his blog, "What's a B+ mean? I'm an extremist. It's either pass or fail! A+ or F-!"
Goodbyes are tough.
Anton Newcombe isn't your run-of-the-mill cult figure.
Solutions by The State News
