Stories | Of Note Concerts
Big Pink
Published Nov. 18, 2009
The Big Pink take their name from a famous album by the Band, but their music sounds — at first, anyway — as if it has little in common with the American roots music of Robbie ...
Black Crowes
Published Nov. 18, 2009
Georgia rockers the Black Crowes launched their career on the back of two hit records from their landmark debut album Shake Your Money Maker, which includes songs that are as dissimilar to each other as the ...
Lover!
Published Nov. 11, 2009
Does anybody remember Lost Sounds from Memphis? Cheery tunes, dark themes, noteworthy members. Alicja Trout played in the Clears; Jay Reatard and Rich Crook both came from the post-punk thrash band the Reatards. In 1999, Lost ...
Raveonettes Published Nov. 11, 2009
When the Raveonettes’ Facebook account announced the release of their new album In and Out of Control last month, one disillusioned fan commented, “I don’t ... More Post a comment
Sea Wolf Published Nov. 4, 2009
When Sea Wolf released their first album a couple of years ago, they had a name taken from a 1904 Jack London novel, music with ... More Post a comment
Electric Six Published Nov. 4, 2009
I first got tipped off about the Electric Six when a friend sent me links to their videos on YouTube. Funny stuff, in a lowbrow ... More Post a comment
Chelsea Girls Published Oct. 28, 2009
It was close to midnight, and there was an old guy out on the street scrubbing plastic restaurant floor mats. The restaurant was closed. I ... More Post a comment
Shonen Knife Published Oct. 28, 2009
I saw Shonen Knife sometime around ’94, and I remember this odd feeling that I was playing out a role that had been written for ... More Post a comment
The Mashtis: Itai Faierman Published Oct. 21, 2009
They call themselves the Mashtis: Itai Faierman is back with a new band after a four-year hiatus. Before he took off, Faierman spent a lot ... More Post a comment
The Ditty Bops Published Oct. 21, 2009
The Ditty Bops’ song “Walk or Ride” starts off sounding as if it’s going to be an environmentalist-lesbian-cycling anthem. That would make sense: Ditty Bops ... More Post a comment
Black Heart Procession Published Oct. 14, 2009
Sit down and pour yourself a big cup of melancholy, and while you’re at it, set some extra places at the table tonight for panic, ... More Post a comment
Yo La Tengo Published Oct. 14, 2009
My wife is a practical Midwesterner and doesn’t have a lot of patience for songs that go on for more than three minutes. If we’re ... More Post a comment
As Tall as Lions Published Oct. 7, 2009
When As Tall as Lions played the Casbah this summer, Dan Nigro told the audience that he’d been waiting 27 years (basically, his entire life) ... More Post a comment
Dean & Britta Published Oct. 7, 2009
When the Andy Warhol Museum decided recently to hire a band to write a soundtrack for Warhol’s famous silent-film screen tests, it couldn’t have picked ... More Post a comment
Miike Snow Published Sept. 30, 2009
Miike Snow appeared earlier this year as a near-anonymous trio of Swedes with a name that looks like a typo and a logo that looks ... More Post a comment
Bernard Fowler Published Sept. 30, 2009
The Rolling Stones, who have not recorded anything of consequence for 20 years, have become a road show with their best songs behind them. No ... More Post a comment
Om Published Sept. 23, 2009
Om is a metal band — sort of. I should just get that out of the way first, because otherwise the following is going to ... More Post a comment
Dodos Published Sept. 23, 2009
Too bad for San Francisco’s Dodos — some critics were not happy with the changes that producer Phil Ek brought to their sound on Time ... More Post a comment
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Published Sept. 16, 2009
Twenty-three years ago, the British music paper NME (New Musical Express) released C86 on cassette, featuring 22 songs by 22 new bands. Soon, music critics ... More Post a comment
Cymbals Eat Guitars Published Sept. 16, 2009
What did the critics at Pitchfork.com hear when they vetted Why There Are Mountains, the debut album from New York’s Cymbals Eat Guitars? They heard ... More Post a comment
Esperanza Spalding Published Sept. 9, 2009
Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Esperanza Spalding says she got the notion to make music her life’s work at the age of four. This, following ... More Post a comment
Throw Me the Statue Published Sept. 9, 2009
A friend told me she likes Throw Me the Statue because they remind her of Guided by Voices. That’s kind of odd: TMTS is a ... More Post a comment
Thermals Published Sept. 2, 2009
The Thermals’ 2006 album The Body, the Blood, the Machine was a punk-rock concept album about an America tyrannized by a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. Sound ... More Post a comment
AC/DC Published Sept. 2, 2009
Last year filmmaker Eddie Martin announced plans to make a biopic of the life of the late Bon Scott. Not a bad call. As former ... More Post a comment
Girl Talk Published Aug. 26, 2009
When Wired magazine gave Girl Talk a Rave Award in 2007, I think Gregg Gillis was still working his day job as a biotech engineer, ... More Post a comment
Calexico Published Aug. 26, 2009
Calexico leaders Joey Burns and John Convertino have been playing in their signature mariachi-indie-rock-experimental-spaghetti-western-film-noir-soundtrack style since the early ’90s, when they were part of the ... More Post a comment
Zeros Published Aug. 19, 2009
An article in L.A. Weekly recently declared the Zeros the “hands-down top-dog punk-rock band of the ’77 West Coast conflagration,” specifically singling them out as ... More Post a comment
Dirtbombs Published Aug. 19, 2009
Detroit is where the heart of rock and roll is still beating. Rock magazine Creem was founded there, and the critics who worked for that ... More Post a comment
Lovemakers Published Aug. 12, 2009
The Lovemakers have attracted a lot of press since the band formed in Oakland in 2002, and nearly every article begins the same way: by ... More Post a comment
Fan Halen Published Aug. 12, 2009
The number of tribute bands your band has spawned could be seen as a gauge of success. Take Van Halen, for example. “Just in L.A.,” ... More Comments (4)
Los Amigos Invisibles Published Aug. 5, 2009
I don’t care that Venezuelan pop stars Los Amigos Invisibles sing in Spanish and weave cumbia rhythms and congas into their music — they are ... More Post a comment
No Doubt Published Aug. 5, 2009
I was flipping through a newspaper and came across an article about an upcoming show featuring four tribute bands that impersonate, respectively, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, ... More Comment (1)
Good Asian Drivers Published July 29, 2009
Best not to go to the Good Asian Drivers expecting to hear the sassy pop in their YouTube video “I Kissed a Girl — The ... More Post a comment
Golden Boots Published July 29, 2009
Golden Boots describe their music as “alt-alt-country.” They do have a vaguely country-ish vibe to their vocal harmonies, and some of their older material is ... More Post a comment
August Burns Red Published July 22, 2009
In high school, a lot of my son’s spare time was spent on his Xbox 360, playing video games of mass warfare with a synapse-frying ... More Post a comment
Bad Plus Published July 22, 2009
A friend recently sent me a link to a YouTube video of a Caribbean steel-drum band playing a cover version of Joy Division’s “Transmission.” It’s ... More Post a comment
Earl Klugh Published July 15, 2009
The music press at large may define him as one of the founders of the hybridized genre that would eventually come to be known as ... More Post a comment
Killola Published July 15, 2009
A band’s gotta know how to promote itself these days, because no one else is going to do it for them. L.A.’s Killola is on ... More Post a comment
Dirty Projectors Published July 8, 2009
Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca has been getting some of the best reviews of any release this year. Music site Stereogum asked, “Wait, is Bitte Orca ... More Post a comment
Son Volt Published July 8, 2009
In the mid-1990s, Jay Farrar founded a group he called Son Volt after he broke with Jeff Tweedy and left Uncle Tupelo, the band they ... More Post a comment
Lady Dottie and the Diamonds Published July 1, 2009
Lady Dottie and the Diamonds is an indie-rock band retrofitted with blistering soul licks and fronted by an old-school ground-stomping R&B scorcher. They won in ... More Post a comment
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts Published July 1, 2009
You know that raspy voice. You know that tiny figure, dressed in bad-girl black. You know that flawless face with the heavy eyeliner. You know ... More Comment (1)
Uli John Roth Published June 24, 2009
The Scorpions, a German heavy metal band, date back to the ’60s. Around that time, the trend for hard rock guitarists was to break from ... More Post a comment
John Vanderslice Published June 24, 2009
John Vanderslice had been playing music for several years, first as a member of MK Ultra and then as a solo artist, but his career ... More Post a comment
Dinosaur Jr. Published June 17, 2009
We all get excited when our favorite old bands reunite, and we tend to overlook the fact that the musicians probably hate each other and ... More Post a comment
Hiromi Published June 17, 2009
There’s a kind of primal pleasure in watching a slight Asian woman systematically manhandle an array of expensive keyboards onstage. That’s one way to describe ... More Post a comment
Marshall Crenshaw Published June 10, 2009
We tend to think of the ’80s as a time of synthesizers and performance-enhancing hair products, but the decade was also a time of musical ... More Post a comment
White Rabbits Published June 10, 2009
When White Rabbits hit the scene in 2007 they were a burst of sonic energy, slightly disorganized but with enough collective animation to rival powerhouse ... More Post a comment
Joe Cocker Published June 3, 2009
The history of air guitar has got to include a footnote for Joe Cocker. In the late 1960s, Cocker, a British rock star, was mainly ... More Comment (1)
Crystal Antlers Published June 3, 2009
Tentacles, the debut full-length from Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers, opens with a looping keyboard sound, but if you think this is going to be some ... More Post a comment
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