The club doors open, and the immediate presence of the disc jockey is felt — the bone-rattling effects of the sub woofer penetrating every nuance, every movement, every breath within the tightly packed surroundings.
Every year, national record executives and experts honor who they think are the best of the best in the music industry. Here, we’ve narrowed down Gainesville’s best — musicians who for the past year have unknowingly competed for awards in categories similar to those in the Grammys. For the first time ever, the Avenue presents its top picks for locally formed acts. We introduce to you: the Alligrammys.
Kelsey Bruder is a UF softball player who’s beefed up her personal music catalog since moving to Florida to attend UF.
Whether it’s before sleep, practice or a soccer match, UF midfielder Sarah Chapman loves her music. In fact, she has more than 5,000 songs in her iTunes library.
As a rock critic, it can be tough to judge bands that appear on the surface to have transported themselves through time, bands that don't sound too much like one particular group of past musicians but instead have found a way to capture the spirit of a period in America's variegated and effectual music history. Unique from the everyday artist, these bands emanate an attitude and style that hoists listeners to a point in the past they may not know personally, but with the band's help, feel immediately connected to.
Nielsen SoundScan released a report earlier this month indicating a 14 percent increase in vinyl record sales from 2009 to 2010, with 2.8 million albums sold last year. The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”, Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” and The Black Keys’ “Brothers” topped the list in sales.
Just four and a half years ago, Hellogoodbye stood atop the pop music scene. The band's 2006 release, "Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!", sold more than half-a-million copies and hit the top spot of the U.S. indie charts - an impressive feat for a first record.
President Barack Obama’s signing of the Local Community Radio Act earlier this month gave music fans hope for a future of more diversity on the airwaves. The act allows for the development of hundreds of low-power FM (LPFM) stations across the country — something that has been a long-standing feat for industry workers, as many believe LPFMs cause too much interference with commercial radio stations.
For Gainesville rock quartet The Boswellians, the show must go on — even when it gets canceled.
Indie punk duo No Age cultivated their sound at The Smell, a now legendary all-ages venue in downtown Los Angeles. Since its opening in the late ‘90s, The Smell, formerly a Mexican grocery store, has produced some of the most creative, outside-of-the box bands of the last decade, including the highly acclaimed, sometimes bizarre but always entertaining noise rock band Health.
This Friday, Gainesville is getting a dose of one of Asheville, N.C.’s most up-and-coming rock forces, Papadosio, who have dedicated themselves to reinventing the jam band.
Let's take a trip down music's memory lane, back to a time when there was no such thing as Auto-Tune or "Glee" or Ke$ha. We had our one-hit wonders (anyone heard from Haddaway lately?) and our boy bands that produced a few albums then disappeared (B2K ring a bell?).
Come Friday, Gainesville will be flooded with out-of-towners from all over the world who come to take part in the famous Fest. But let us not forget that Gainesville owes its ability to host a huge indie festival due to its own healthy and vibrant local music culture. Ready to go local? Here are three Gainesville-bred acts you can’t miss at the Fest.
Though known for their sunshiny demeanor and picturesque themes, Eisley's current "Over the River and Through the Wood" tour might as well be named "Over the Heartaches and Through the Divorce." With a label battle to boot.
Any Dylan set list is sure to please and disappoint all over. Do you prefer “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “The Times They Are a-Changin’”? “Like a Rolling Stone” has to be in there, right? And what about some deep cuts, like “If You See Her, Say Hello” or “Isis”? Everyone has their favorites, but here’s our picks for the songs we hope to hear Friday.
Musicians spanning across time — everyone from rockers like the Rolling Stones to more current folk artists like Ray LaMontagne — have cited influences by Bob Dylan. Here, some of Gainesville’s freshest talents sound off about the songwriting giant and his contribution to music.
From folk troubadour to electric jester to ever-touring elder statesman of rock ‘n’ roll, Bob Dylan and his storied artistic career have filled books, movies and varying levels of philosophical discussions for years.
So much has been made of Bob Dylan’s songwriting: When he put hand to typewriter (as he liked to often do), his lyrics came out indelible, engrossing and timeless. Here’s the Avenue’s picks for the killer lines that send Dylanologists into convulsions.
Let's be honest. We're kind of lame. Our generation thinks that texting American Idol counts as voting, watching music festivals is done on TV and activism means "like-ing" a Facebook page about a cause.
You can tell a lot about a band by its MySpace profile. Go to the page for the indie rock band Surfer Blood and you'll only see a white background and the "Sounds Like" section featuring videos like "cat eating sour apple lollypop" and "Cat says NOM NOM NOM while eating sour cream."
Solutions by The State News
