Photo by DYLAN LONG Skegss is an Australian three-piece group that wants you to live your best life. If the band’s energetic and jangly garage rock doesn’t lift you up off your ass, their inspiring, anecdotal lyrics surely will. Frontman Ben Reed has it figured out: he can teach you things like getting out of bed in the morning on the track fittingly titled “Wake The Fuck Up,” or how to enjoy the present moment despite life’s complexities on the jangly anthem “My Face.” With just a quick glance at his bright-blond surfer hair and brighter smile, it’s easy to […]
THE LEGENDARY STARDUST COWBOYS: Talkin’ Beto, Clash & Townes W/ The Flatlanders’ Joe Ely
BY JON HOULON In the beginning, there was The Word – i.e. Townes Van Zandt – and Townes hitchhiked across the desert. And in his wanderings, Townes flagged down Joe Ely who drove him from one side of Lubbock to the other. And, in return, Townes handed Joe a tablet – i.e. a vinyl platter — that Joe shared with his friends, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock. And they played the platter over and over and in the fullness of time became the Flatlanders. Or so it is written. My biblical allusions are surely suspect here: my memory of […]
BEING THERE: Black Mt. @ Underground Arts
Photo by JOSH-PELTA-HELLER It’s almost 10:00 PM Thursday night when Stephen McBean and his merry band of psych-metal minions emerged from backstage at Underground Arts, rendered as silhouettes by stage lighting and smoke machine, and unleashed the fuzzy electric buzz of “High Rise,” from their latest record, Destroyer. At 50, McBean is an unassuming frontman, silver beard framed by the shoulder-length hair that shrouds his face for most of the evening, as he wrestles with his guitars and considers the evening’s extensive pedal decisions. McBean paces back and forth between flanking keyboardists Jeremy Schmidt and Rachel Fannan to commune with […]
REVIEW: Swans leaving meaning
Since forming in 1982, Swans has pushed the boundaries of rock over the course of 14 albums spanning the dystopian ear-fuck continuum from ambient industrial sludge to sprawling post-rock fever dreams. Their 15th album, leaving meaning, continues to explore the dark, forbidden places along that continuum. “Annaline” follows the gloriously clangorous introductory track “Hums,” alchemizing its drifting formlessness with swelling tonal clusters of multi-tracked piano, violin and guitar feedback whereupon Swans mastermind Michael Gira sings “Oh, the Buddha was right, and Saint John of the Cross: a word is a thought, and a thought is a box.” “What is This?” […]
INCOMING: Killing Me Softly With Her Song
I Don’t Wanna Lose by Kate Bollinger Perhaps inspired by her musical therapist mother, introspective indie-rock thrush Kate Bollinger’s soft, yet distinctive voice has a lulling, dream-like effect. Her music radiates a certain sweetness and serenity which serves as a welcome balm in these nerve-shattering times. Her back catalog to date is a series of relaxed-fit singles that sound, at turns, beachy, psychedelic, and jazzy — sometimes at the same time. And she can sing a line like “You give me so much to be afraid of” (from “I Don’t Want To Lose,” see above) with indomitable placidity of a […]
SALLY (ALEX G): In My Arms
SANDY (ALEX G) @ UNION TRANSFER SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20TH SOLD OUT
SPOON: Inside Out (Demo)
Britt Daniel alone with a piano at midnight in the garden of good and evil demo version of “Inside Out,” which was turned into an sad-eyed electro-static pocket symphony on 2014’s They Want My Soul. RELATED: The Complete Oral History Of Spoon
ALBUM REVIEW: Twin Peaks’ Lookout Low
Chicago-based indie-rockers Twin Peaks have been releasing the same wallpaper indie rock over the course of three albums, sounding more like a bland melting pot of their favorite bands than anything else. Their third album Down in Heaven is the first time the band seemed like they were coming onto their own, but most of the album was drowned out with more filler that sounded just ok. Nothing terrible or nothing even bad, just entirely unexceptional. Most of the time while I’m listening to Twin Peaks, I’m thinking about what a waste of the name they are. To name your […]
THE FLAMING LIPS: Little Drummer Boy
PREVIOUSLY: Last night the Flaming Lips unveiled the more-awesome-than-you-could-possibly-imagine reboot of their stage show, which replaces the happy-happy-joy-joy bliss rallies they’ve been staging for the past decade. Gone are the balloons and blood and bubble-walking and the dancing Santa Clauses and the big hands that shoot lasers. In its place — well, fact is it defies words, you really had to be there — but calling it H.R. Giger meets Hanna-Barbera on the dark side of the moonhenge isn’t that far from accurate. Frizzy-brained frontman Wayne Coyne conducted the proceedings from high atop a lumpy mound-like perch festooned with bifurcated […]
THE DUDE STILL ABIDES: Q&A With Pete Yorn
PETE YORN PERFORMS @ THE FOUNDRY ON WED. NOVEMBER 6TH @ 8 PM BY JONATHAN VALANIA A way out West there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Pete Yorn. Now, above all things, Pete Yorn is a dude. He is, in fact, a dude’s dude. Same as there’s a man’s man and a songwriter’s songwriter, Pete Yorn is a dude’s dude. You can tell even before he opens his mouth, which is when it becomes really obvious. That hair, that denim jacket, those eyes — eyes that have searched soulfully through […]
BEING THERE: Angel Olsen @ Franklin Music Hall
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Somewhere from the back of Franklin Music Hall last night, a fan let out a blood-curdling “AN-GELLL” that sent an echo of similar calls and pleas for attention all the way up to the stage, where Angel Olsen stood in a black dress and a pair of cat ears, with mock whiskers painted on her face. She let the crowd’s wave of drunken Halloween nonsense fill the room, waiting for one brief quiet moment to say, “What other thoughts do you have? I’m ready.” Standing before a crowd costumed in kitschy face paint, wigs, headdresses, glitter, […]
THE BREEDERS: Walking With A Killer
Strange new video for this pretty/creepy Breeders track from last year’s All Nerve LP, their first in 25 years with the classic Last Splash era line-up. If Night Of The Living Dead had been shot in Dayton instead of Pittsburgh. Happy Halloween! PREVIOUSLY: Our 2015 Q&A W/ Kelley Deal (DISCUSSED: Sewing, heroin, cats, the head shops of Murray, Kentucky, R. Ring, Guided By Voices, The Hollywood Bowl, the long awaited new album by The Breeders, CBGBs, Big Cartel, The Pixies, vaping, resentment, the two Daytons, Codeine, 12-stepping, juvenile delinquency and Cincinnati) PREVIOUSLY: Q&A W/ Kelley Deal Re: Her Fight To […]
REVIEW: Tegan & Sara Hey, I’m Just Like You
Canadian indie-rock duo Tegan and Sara—aka out-lesbian twin sisters Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin—recently released their ninth studio album, Hey, I’m Just Like You (2019), as an accompaniment to their new coming-of-age memoir titled High School. Fittingly, the album consists of 12 re-recorded songs that the girls originally conceived as adolescents. The lyrics, derived from the girls’ high school journals, echo the adolescent stations of the cross one would expect to permeate the headspace of any high-schooler: jealousy, anger, chagrin and despondent self-doubt. “We Don’t Have Fun When We’re Together Anymore” tackles peer pressure (“Have another drink, it’ll […]