Choice Concerts
Scissors, a stapler, a rotary fan: those are just some of the instrument-objects songwriter DM Stith enlists on his 2009 debut, "Heavy Ghost," put out by collaborator Sufjan Steven's Asthmatic Kitty label. A graphic designer by trade (the Buffalo native earned a degree from Rochester's Roberts Wesleyan in the subject),
Choice Concerts
Moody NYC indie-rockers Interpol have been absent from the stage for the past few years - the group's last show in the United States was in 2007. The Rochester stop on this short tour will be Interpol's first anywhere since 2008. The audience will also get first look at the
Music Articles
If there's one band that treads the shared ground of adventurous instrumental rock, sweltering post-rock, bumping jazz fusion, and percussive minimalist classical, it's Tortoise. For the last 20 years the Chicago-based five-piece has been exploring those crossroads, and as to which camp the band officially resides in, it's best to
Choice Concerts
Glorious, storied nights at summer bonfire parties and other, more dimly lit teenage subjects are the spiritual center of The Hold Steady's possessing songs. The band's bar rock-sound is heavily indebted to The Replacements and other smart, indie-rock forebears of the past. What The Hold Steady brings to the table
Choice Concerts
Austin's Strange Boys croak and pluck through a retro-styled rock that seems to have emerged from depths of a swamp. Through that, the crowing of singer Ryan Sambol is a steady guide. For the band's second record, "Be Brave," which came out earlier this year, it picked up two members
Choice Concerts
Ween exists in a kind of alt-rock alternate dimension: totally invisible to some, utterly unavoidable to others. Both sides are right: Ween songs creep up in innumerable movies and TV shows, yet the band, going on more than 16 years now, has never really had a hit. Not that its
Choice Concerts
Columbus, Ohio's Matt Whitehurst struck gold when he posted the genre label "shitgaze" on his band's MySpace a few years back. The portmanteau of caca and shoegaze, the late 80's/early 90's British scene focused on crescendoing distorted guitars and angelic ethereal vocals gives a certain life to his band's ironic,
Choice Concerts
Awesome Color is a trio that rectifies the opposites of psychedelic and punk music into a delightfully grooving medium. The result is a unique kind of terse enlightenment that draws inspiration from the primal rock of The Stooges then stretches it out with drone-y breakdowns and sitar-like leads. Home for
Choice Concerts
It's said that musicians are married to their music. Fortunately for rockers Fred and Toody Cole, they're also married to each other. That has to be at least part of the reason the duo has been able to be so prolific. Since the late 80's, they fronted Oregon garage punk
Choice Concerts
The force behind So Cow is Brian Kelly, a fresh-faced Irishman with mousy hair and standard-issue black-rimmed glasses. With that look, it's no surprise that snotty Replacements-esque snarl, girl-group harmonies, and the smartly acerbic melodies of indie-pop tinkerers Of Montreal all take roles in his power-pop vision. The through-line is
Choice Concerts
Stringy beards, grungy leather pants, and salty, stale beer: the stench of rock ‘n' roll clings closely to JEFF the Brotherhood. That is to say, Nashville brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall play bare-bones, shred-heavy punk with sugar-sweet hooks. Though still in their early 20s, the pair knows its way around
Choice Concerts
Ponytail's Molly Siegel explodes like a vigorously shaken can of pop let loose all over the stage. Her ecstatic shouts and whirs - she usually avoids singing actual words - punctuate the virtuosic two-guitar-and-drum attack of her band mates. But the group's intricate guitar work isn't without soul. The Baltimore
Choice Concerts
When that disembodied voice on the radio talks about "the hits of the 70's, 80's, 90's, and today," it's almost certain that "today" includes the All-American Rejects. The band lept to fame in the early aughts by way of "TRL"-climbing hit "Swing Swing" and the success of its platinum self-titled
Choice Concerts
The hot, dry air of Southern California tends to evoke a certain wistfulness in its musicians. The beach-side sunshine of Brian Wilson and the bourbon-soaked back-alley-ballads of Tom Waits have proven to be two such SoCal goldmines. In that landscape, Cold War Kids found their own musical niche, a blues-inspired
Choice Concerts
The connection between comedy and music is a natural one. Though it might seem like Weird Al Yankovich (or more recently, Zach Galifianakis) enjoys a corner on the market for funnyman songs, the truth is people have been sharing bawdy ditties at least since the ancient Greeks. So it's a
Choice Concerts
The Felice Brothers were birthed in a Catskills nest only about a half hour from Woodstock, NY. Even closer to their home is the spot where The Band laid the foundation for "Music From Big Pink." Of course, these are big bears for the young quintet to wrestle with -
Choice Concerts
One of my great surprises last year was finally catching Mother Mother live. I'd been hearing about the Canadian five-piece, but it took a friend dragging me to a late-night showcase at last year's CMJ festival to finally make it happen. While the industry-pumping fest tends to earn the cynicism
Choice Concerts
Mrs. Skannotto comes from a planet where slick dudes in porkpie hats shuffle into dance halls; on stage, superhero frontmen belt out tales of woe and last week's parties; oh, and the crowds dance. Skannotto verdantly carries the Third Wave torch - that's the mid-90's sing-along ska you wish they'd
CD Reviews
As far as charity benefits go, "Dark Was The Night" takes an approach diametrically opposed to that of "We Are The World." Instead of great musicians banding together for one cloying, repetitive song, the artists here band together for many uncloying, inspired, artistic, and beautiful songs. A swarm of the
CD Reviews
Americana-guitar whiz M. Ward spent most of the past two years recording and touring with songwriting partner and bonafide indie sweetheart Zooey Deschanel as She & Him. Now, finally, Ward settles down to wax his glimmering guitar and distant singing voice on a proper followup to 2006's "Post-War." If that
