Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis may be rock’s ultimate death-and-rebirth archetype. Like Kurt Cobain after him, his early suicide ensured that his visionary music would live long after he did. But in Control, director Anton Corbijn is more interested in the man than the mythos. (more…)
Marfa, Texas, might be the least rocking town on Earth. For starters, it’s in the Big Bend area of west Texas, seventy-four miles from the nearest interstate and a three-hour drive from the nearest city, El Paso. Marfa eerily resembles itself circa 1956, the year that the James Dean classic Giant was filmed there. (more…)
For a group with such an independent pedigree, Maritime’s one-off show at Los Angeles’ Viper Room was a welcomed retreat from their opening stint for pop rockers Jimmy Eat World. This was such an intimate gathering, singer Davey Von Bohlen (shown left) later bellied up to the bar with the twenty or so fans in attendance. (more…)
Who knew such a petite frame could contain such pith, such Pat Benatar-like feistiness? That’s what you get in Jenny Lewis, the main musician and minx from Rilo Kiley, a band that exemplifies the term “indie darlings.” (more…)
Post-hardcore is not a genre known for being sleek and graceful. Bands like Fugazi and Jawbox were known for complex melodies and accessibility, but their music was also characterized by a fierce aggression. However, those are not hard and fast rules, which New York’s The Forms make perfectly clear on their self-titled second album. (more…)
In the first part of a multi-faceted discussion, burlesque dancer/columnist Jo Weldon interviews Dixie Evans, a legend of the genre that curates the Burlesque Hall of Fame and started the Miss Exotic World pageant in 1990. (more…)
Hip-hop records have never had what one would call “substantial” liner notes. Obligatory credits to various producers and guests, a representative photo or two, and often indecipherable shout-outs are all that crowd the glossy pages of inserts to virtually every classic and current hip-hop album, much to the frustration of detail-hungry fans. (more…)
Activist afrobeat collective Antibalas continues to demonstrate the essence of its, as the translation goes, “bulletproof” nature by announcing three new tour dates in the US. Still feeding off the high energy from this year’s release of Security, Antibalas has two performances scheduled in New York City and one in Boulder, Colorado within the next three weeks. (more…)
From 1979-1991, Minneapolis quartet The Replacements, consisting of Paul Westerberg, Chris Mars, Tommy Stinson, and Bob Stinson (and later Slim Dunlap), became known as much for their irreverent attitudes and explosive live shows as they were for penning pop-rock songs with punk appeal. (more…)
U.S-Kenyan collaborative Extra Golden was born of the encounter of two guitarists, Ian Eagleson and Otieno Jagwasi, in Nairobi in 2000 while Eagleson, a Washington, D.C. rock musician and ethnomusicologist, was conducting research on Kenya’s benga pop music. (more…)
