Music Articles
"They" are everywhere. "They" say a lot. "They" are illusive and wily. Who do "they" think "they" are, anyway?" And now "they" are all talking about Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, a super-traditional, ultra-suave, funk-soul sensation straight out of Brooklyn. "They" have got Jones singing duets, "they" have the Dap
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God, that Meryl Streep is such a bitch.... Of all the screaming insanity found in the heavy music scene today, The Devil Wears Prada expertly rides the grunge-inspired tension-release format. There's melodic passages that flow in spite of the mayhem that punctuates the arrangements with bloody conviction. Singer Jeremy Depoyster
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It makes sense that a band known not only for the quantity (500 in the last three years) but the quality of its shows would sound best on record if it's live. Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad's new "Live Up" is a collection of 11 songs mined from five live
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When Detroit's Sponge hit the scene in 1994, singer Vinnie Dombroski reminded me a lot of The Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler: bluesy, apocalyptic, and cool. Put together from the remnants of Loudhouse in 1991, Sponge exploded in 1995 with its Columbia album "Rotting Pinata," which included the hits "Plowed"
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Close your eyes and Ballbreaker sounds just like AC/DC. And for years, that's pretty much what the band was trying to achieve: it covered AC/DC's music with alarming accuracy. Call it redemption if you want, but on record Ballbreaker finds its own voice within the genre that it used to emulate,
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Sometimes my hunches are actually right, goddammit. I've been rooting for The Sunstreak since the boys in the band were flipping burgers backstage at The Warped Tour. The Rochester-based band has worked its collective ass off, made the Billboard charts without a label, and crashed a van or too on
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Whether or not its purveyors want to admit it or not, gospel is as responsible for rock 'n' roll as blues or country. In fact, those that traffic in the once-accused "devil's music" do a better job when they stay closer to the path of righteousness. Listen to The Voices
Music Articles
The last time Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine and I talked was between mouthfuls of late-night breakfast. Maroon 5 had played a show at Water Street Music Hall, and we somehow found ourselves crowded in the corner booth at Mark's Texas Hots in the wee hours of the morning.
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My wife Deb and I have this get-out-of-jail free policy for affairs outside the marriage; each is permitted a celebrity dalliance, as remote is it may be. If the famed object of lust is available, well then, it's OK. So in my wife's case, if David Bowie or Johnny Depp
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We've gotten so caught up in hit-single culture that focus has been taken off the album, the LP, as a whole body of work. Whether or not there's an intentional musical theme or lyrical narrative by an artist on any given record, that's how it's listened to - front
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It was rather blustery outside last Tuesday night, and I was feeling rather un-blustery inside, so I invited Rochester a cappella singing sensations The Bowties to come over. Not only did they eagerly pop over to my Beachwood pad, known to our neighbors as "Disgraceland," but they sang a song
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It amazes me that we can actually see songwriters like Robert Earl Keen. Keen's songs are full of colorful character and a rich narrative that contains no ego or pretense. He takes a backseat to his songs and their stories even though they are, in many cases, his own. The
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I haven't seen this band in almost 25 years, but can still remember them distinctly. The Fadeaways, as they were known back then, played Gretsch guitars, wore leather jackets, had greasy hair, and girlfriends with grown-up parts. I wanted to be these guys, bad. The music sprang from the early
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"You play for years and years and years and you start to learn what's rare," says The Dan Eaton Band's bassist, Adam Wilcox. "Guys who play guitar aren't rare, drummers aren't rare, bass players aren't rare. But songwriters? Really good ones? Rare." Wilcox fell in with Eaton three years ago when
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One of my late father's ravings on the evils of rock music would often end with "You don't want to wind up like Gene Cornish, do you?" You see, Cornish and my dad grew up together. My dad, the crew-cut square, Cornish the long-haired, guitar-slinging rocker. Years later my little
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For many of the faithful, 1977 was punk rock's Year 1, CBGBs was the dirty little manger, and the Bowery its Bethlehem. All kinds of saviors and prophets arose from this legendary NYC dive. The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Blondie, The Heartbreakers, Television, Patti Smith, The Voidoids, and more created
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Chris Hillman of The Flying Burrito Brothers was so knocked out by Emmylou Harris that he recommended her to Gramm Parsons. Harris wound up as a touring member of Parson's The Fallen Angels until his death in 1973. This legendary silver-haired country siren's soft and lovely voice has graced her
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Whaddaya know, me and the lord got something in common - and I'm not just talking bout our majestic coifs or our prowess in bed. No, I'm talking about one of my favorite bands, The Asylum Street Spankers. This Austin, Texas, Tin Pan Alley, Beat poet, subversive, sexy, jazzy, bluesy,
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Warped Tour ain't nearly as warped as it once was. The annual rock 'n' roll circus rolls across the country every summer, showcasing the underground and the DIY. Yet however pervasive the punk-rock aesthetic is, the bands, well, for the most part sound alike. This year there was an exception -
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Kids are always hitting me up with questions: "Frank, where do babies come from?" Or, "If I'm going to shoot a mime, should I use a silencer?" But most recently they want to know about skiffle. And now with the new Honky Tonk Dance Hall series that Bruce Handelman
