When I first visited Rock Island, it reminded me of a club that some Disney channel drama would use as a set. It features this low light, modern decor that attracts my whinny, ever so depressed generation. After my impression of Rock Island years ago, I came to the conclusion that a Blockbuster night would […]
As cheap as it is to compare a band to the sound of other bands due to lack of words to describe their sound, in this case, it may be the only effective way. So here it goes: Bullet Train To Vegas runs side by side with the experimental, frisky, indie rock sound of At […]
I love irony. At times it can take you by surprise, sometimes it makes you laugh, and other times it just leave you walking around with this look on your face like you’re trying to divide 238 by 14.7. In any case, it captures your attention and typically runs in the opposite direction of redundancy […]
I have the good fortune of being able to listen to the albums I review in a public forum. I can closely monitor my test subjects without them realizing that I am watching for a reaction to the music coming over the speakers. Is this because I am a sycophant who is incapable of forming […]
Releasing a Spanish-language version of an album already released is a trick usually reserved for Christina Aguilera. In relation to a punk band, it sounds more like a Me First and the Gimme Gimmes trick than a serious album. But when it’s The Casualties, mohawked standard-bearers of the “fuck you” school of punk rock, it’s […]
Remember that scene in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where they show Shredder’s secret lair used to train the Foot Clan? And there’s that hideous techno/Goth noise playing in the background that’s supposed to make the scene scary and make the viewer disgusted by the corruption of teens to fulfill Shredder’s evil plan?
Denver’s own Inactivists remind me of a certain genre of New Orleans music made by punks who love Tom Waits and live in a city full of working jazz musicians who get off their gigs at midnight and proceed to drown their sorrows in whiskey and outlandish music. Bands like this perfected a combination of […]
Allow me to set the scene for you. I am sitting in my backyard with several friends on a temperate spring night. I have a cigar in one hand and a glass of single malt scotch in the other. We have just smoked a joint.* It is an altogether pleasant evening. I put in the […]
The West isn’t all about gangsta’s, Hoes, and low riders. Just ask Medaphoar; better known as MED. With his long-awaited debut album, released on the definitive indie label Stones Throw, he shows both that indie rappers can drop that Pop shit (check the banging drums and radio/club friendly fire of the Just Blaze produced Get […]
The Orange Peels are back with their newest album Circling the Sun, the third album for the band, who has previously released the garage rock albums Square and So Far. Hailing from the beautiful land of Northern California, this time around the Peels, which is made up of Allen Clapp (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Oed Ronne […]
