RECOMMENDED

There’s no shortage of metal in Chicago. Some leans toward the ghoulish. Some apes an artistic bent, and some is plain ridiculous. Whatever the proper balance between metaldom’s disparate aspects, Columbus, Ohio-born and Windy City-bred Sun Splitter has settled upon it. The trio, which has been issuing recordings for the past several years, doesn’t revel in slow tempos as much as seemingly unmoving ones. The first track on the troupe’s eponymous tape stands still, as a guitar chugs out quarter notes. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dave Cantor

“I was from New York, so I was a real hustler,” Paul Collins says of his past, wrangling shows for The Nerves, a West Coast pop ensemble equally indebted to sixties rock and the nascent punk scene’s jittery energy. “And I’m still a hustler.”

Collins hasn’t dealt with major label executives or high-powered promotion folks during much of his career. He didn’t while drumming in The Nerves and only needed to do so for a brief time as frontman for The Beat. So maintaining a tenacious attitude while continuing to figure out how to book international tours for his sundry projects has become a necessity. He’s had ample practice. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Jeff Mangum doesn’t want to taste your insides. He even said so on “Gardenhead (Leave Me Alone),” a track off both a 1993 cassette called “Hype City Soundtrack” and Neutral Milk Hotel’s debut long player, the 1996 “On Avery Island.” Three years separating the different versions allowed for considerable reworking and some fuller orchestration—a trait NMH would claim as a stylistic tattoo—including various brass and tiny instruments. What the time between an early nineties cassette and a semi-professional album during the decade’s second half allowed for was Mangum to trip along the music world, see that folks he’d already befriended were best as collaborators and then to redouble efforts with his chosen cohort. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

There’s some weird magic at work behind Mako Sica’s music. It’s still a rock band, kinda. But one in the tradition of intellectualized musicians, aching to make grand statements with the least amount of sound. As a trio, the band’s not raving up huge waves of feedback, possibly turning off listeners who prefer pop to brawny instrumental breaks. The band’s recordings lean toward the sparse side of psychedelicized rock stuffs, adding in a bit of jazzy intent and concrete enough to sidestep terms like noise. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

When discussing Boston’s illustrious history with hardcore, it’s difficult to leave out Dicky Barrett, best known as the gruff-sounding frontman for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. That the man’s work with a third-wave ska band is subservient to contributions made to D.Y.S. or Gang Green isn’t too surprising—the music’s been more impactful for a longer period of time than third wave bands. Read the rest of this entry »

According to this new Putumayo compilation, there is no looking back at the classic bossa nova years in Brazilian music right now, even with the presence of Marcos Valle, a younger alum from that era. In fact, with the exception of Valle, most performers are quite new to the scene. For instance, Florida-raised Monica da Silva contributes “Aí Então” (which translates as “So Then”), a bilingual electronic-inspired ballad on the uncertainties of a relationship.  Valle appears with an updated cover of Chico Buarque’s “Partido Alto” that takes it from its original samba beat to a more dancefloor-friendly format. “Feriado Pessoal” (‘Personal Holiday’) is a refreshing contemporary samba by newcomer Bruna Caram that first appeared as the title track of her second album of the same name.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Dave Cantor

Whatever punk is, the music coalesced during the seventies. Arguments can be made that work by Arthur Lee and Love, the MC5 or the Stooges during the sixties were the movement’s first recorded curios. But it took a renaissance of serial killers during the following decade to create a national climate in which ugly music could proliferate. Dean Corll’s Houston killing spree, Son of Sam and the cultish murders Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole were involved with all nabbed headlines. But the crimes John Wayne Gacy was eventually convicted of stunned a nation and invigorated a clutch of area suburbanites. The Mentally Ill was formed in Deerfield during 1979 for no other reason than to record a single channeling the killer clown’s energy into music. It worked, and creeped out a lot of people. Read the rest of this entry »

You remember when your stoner-friend convinced you to see Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, saying it was a bluegrass band that jammed like jazzbos? That was a bum steer. But the same guy, if he hasn’t already done so, is getting ready to tell you about Railroad Earth. The New Jersey-based band’s gained significant traction during its decade’s long career, hitting festivals in Telluride and just about anywhere else patchouli and moonshine are scents lingering in the air. Read the rest of this entry »

The rockabilly genre’s pretty absurd—not that indie stuff, punk or whatever else isn’t. But at rockabilly shows, it’s pretty easy to catch furrowed brows, even if attendees aren’t attired in the proper duds. And really, who wants to dress like their fat Uncle Charlie? Attire fit for bowling, Gretsch T-shirts and DAs seem better suited to Jon Favreau movies than daily life. Utter devotion to a style, and a musical genre, that hasn’t changed in sixty years, though, is remarkable. The fact that new groups crop up and are able to tour with relative renown means enough people still care about Elvis and his descendants to pack rooms. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Despite blues players hailing from various points in the South and congregating in Chicago, the town’s music has developed a distinctive sound. Of course, an outcropping of that was a homogenized take on the genre, making some second-tier players less than scintillating to hear. But that’s more the fault of the music’s restraints than the performers. Amid the crop of guitarists who cut albums and became synonymous with blues was a Mississippi native named Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater–well, Clearwater was levied on the performer by a manager to play off Muddy Waters’ moniker. Read the rest of this entry »