Of Note
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 all-instrumental combo Friends of Dean Martinez. But that doesn’t mean …
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 better than X, the band that usually gets the crown. …
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 telling the story of how the band’s only permanent members, …
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 the sound of American dance floors in the early 1980s. …
Best not to go to the Good Asian Drivers expecting to hear the sassy pop in their YouTube video “I Kissed a Girl — The Real Gay Version,” because it’s not them. That’s not even …
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 no weirder than Wilco at their weirdest. But never mind …
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 one of those wonderful cover versions that makes you better …
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 soundtrack of metalcore. He once said that his favorite metalcore …
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 pop (or smooth) jazz, but Grammy-award-winning guitarist Earl Klugh doesn’t …