THE PEOPLE ISSUE
Posts Tagged ‘music’
Holy Fuck
Unholy noise from Toronto After a few unsteady gigs, Holy Fuck exploded out of Toronto’s indie rock scene in 2004 with a sound that blends driving rock rhythms with wailing synthesizers and a grinding pulse generated by a 35mm film synchronizer, broken toy keyboards and an array of effects pedals. Their music mixes elements of [...]
5 minutes with Maus Haus
As a self-proclaimed “Craigslist band” with Brian Wilson, Aphex Twin, spaghetti westerns, Tortoise, Dr. Octagon, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, ‘80s synth-pop and Miami bass among its myriad influences, San Francisco’s Maus Haus finds tension at the core of its experimental pop music. After the band—consisting of multi-instrumentalists Joseph Genden, Jason Kick, Joshua Rampage, Aaron Weiss [...]
No Age Grows Up
Post-punk role models of tomorrow As L.A. post-punk/noise rock duo No Age was recording its third album, Everything in Between (released September 2010 on Sub Pop), drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt was going through a difficult stretch. “I was breaking up with my longtime girlfriend, I had family members that were sick, and I had a, I [...]
Neighborhood Vibe With a Hi-Fi Sound
Audyssey’s SoMA Inspiration South of Market, SF—It’s late in the afternoon and the streets of this San Francisco neighborhood brim with an eclectic mix of individuals who are, once again, reinventing a modern urban landscape. Nine-to-fivers filter into watering hole hotspots for happy hour concoctions. Up and down the street, new restaurants buzz with managers [...]
Reggie Watts
I first saw Reggie Watts perform at Rififi, a now-defunct nightclub in the Lower East Side. It was about a year ago, and I was there with a couple friends to watch a random line-up of comedians do their 15-minute sets. Everything was going along just fine until Reggie got up to do his thing. [...]
Sarah Blasko
Australian singer Sarah Blasko is an unlikely pop star. Her confessional songs are full of complicated feelings and tangled emotions, and her subtle vocal style owes as much to jazz and gospel singers as it does to any current diva. She croons her dreamy lyrics in a breathy voice, coming in before or after the [...]
Phantogram
Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, the duo who make up the group Phantogram, bring to the table a new sound, one that is filled with mystery and sex appeal. The undercurrent of hip hop beats, lilting vocals and intense emotional lyrics would bring any listener to their feet, swaying to the dreamlike tracks. Unlike most [...]
Foster the People
Foster The People got together in LA less than a year ago. The band’s songwriter and front man, Mark Foster, had been doing solo acoustic gigs, but the songs he was writing needed some full band power. Everything clicked when he found drummer Mark Pontius and bass man Cubbie Fink. The first song they put [...]
Fred Schneider & The Superions
“I never thought I’d have a career as a disco singer,” says Fred Schneider, chuckling softly. Schneider’s backstage at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery, a few miles north of Seattle. He’s getting ready to go on stage with the B-52s, the band he co-founded back on Valentine’s Day in 1977, but he’s doing phone interviews to [...]
Blood Red Shoes
Blood Red Shoes may be England’s best looking band. The photogenic duo is guitarist Laura-Mary Carter, possessor of a dark, evocative beauty and blonde drummer Steven Ansell, a young man with a classic just-got-out-of- bed-at-four-in-the-afternoon rock and roll aura. Their appearance hasn’t hurt their meteoric rise to the top of Britain’s alt. rock scene, but [...]
Campfires
Jeff Walls hints at nostalgia when he speaks of his wayward musical beginnings: driving around the woods in western Michigan high, listening to The Gories and The Olivia Tremor Control. He has spent years accruing a collection of obscure tape recorders and cheap microphones, culled from thrift stores and garage sales, yet bought his first [...]
Jónsi
In every genre of art, the difference between the good and the great is the level of balance one can achieve. The crazy with the restrained, the industrial with the organic, the esoteric with the mainstream: true artistry comes with knowing how to walk that fine line. In his new solo album, Go, Jónsi Birgisson [...]
The Black Keys
The Black Keys recorded their latest album, Brothers, at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama. Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan all made records there, but the band wasn’t specifically drawn to the building because of its history. “Muscle Shoals isn’t the holy grail,” says Black Keys guitarist and [...]
The XX
Veiled behind a thin layer of white smoke, garbed in head-to-toe black and breathing a cadence of soft vocals is the lovely British trio, The xx. Band members Romy Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith released their debut album, xx, in 2009 and have since been on a covetable tour that includes a slew of [...]
Midnight Juggernauts
The Midnight Juggernauts are constantly on the move, spokesperson for the Australian trio, Vincent Vendetta, perhaps more so than his bandmates. On the eve of the digital release of their second full-length album, The Crystal Axis, the Juggernauts have done a quick run around Europe, come home, only to have Vendetta turn around and fly [...]
VV Brown
VV Brown causes ripples of excitement when she walks into a room. She’s beautiful, an inch shy of six feet tall and has a unique fashion sense some call “thrift store meets high couture.” The first single from her debut album, Travelling Like the Light, was iTunes’ Single of the Week in February, and she’s [...]
Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello doesn’t take the stage; they take over the stage. They dominate crowds with their blistering mix of punk, roots reggae, dub, metal, rap, flamenco, klezmer, salsa and Italian spaghetti western twang, anchoring it all in a muscular Gypsy rhythm that sounds like an Eastern European cousin of ska. “My inspiration comes from Ukrainian [...]
Why Everyone’s Talkin’ About Megan Washington
Listening to a Megan Washington album is like turning over the last page of a captivating novel; you’re emotionally satisfied, inspired by raw talent and itching to repeat the process. At just 24, the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist (who fronts the band Washington) has risen to the highest ranks of the Australian independent music [...]
Jessica Says: Setting the Night on You
She’s only 22, but Jessica Venables is already an esteemed veteran of the Australian music industry. For the past five years, the multi-instrumentalist has lent her talents for touring and recording to New Buffalo/Sally Seltmann, Crayon Fields, Grand Salvo, Guy Blackman, Jens Lekman, and Micah P. Hinson. Despite these sideline roles, Venables’ striking beauty and [...]
Judgement Day
Early Queen albums announced, “No synthesizers.” Judgement Day, the San Francisco Bay Area-based string metal band, echoes that adage with an inscription on Peacocks/Pink Monsters: “There are no guitars on this record.” When the Patzner brothers—Anton plays violin, Lewis, cello—play a shredding metallic solo, it’s hard to believe the shrieking flurries of 32nd notes aren’t [...]
Breaking Out is Hard to Do
San Francisco’s next wave of music There is a riot happening in San Francisco. Arms flail, bodies thrash about, and feet are airborne. You can’t tell if one emotion has taken them over or if a collection of feelings washed over the mob like waves swelling up and crashing atop a spring break party boat. [...]
Githead
A 30 year collision of sound Colin Newman’s been in the music business a long time, so I was relieved that he’s a pleasant guy with a lot to say and zero to prove. “I’ve been doing interviews for 30 years, so I just talk. Stop me if you have any questions.” He’s best known [...]
Daniel Johnston
The last thing I expected was to have Daniel Johnston on the other end of the phone. It’s early in the afternoon, and his voice sounds assured, yet shaky, as if he was accidentally rolling his t’s while trying to dot his i’s. Yet for some reason, all I can think about is how James [...]
Neon Indian
Synthpop musicians are often branded with the misnomer of hopeless futurists. The music they make is, after all, the product of meticulous production, inhuman synthesizers, and infallible computer programming. However, there’s one new group of electronic musicians who aim to undermine this label by creating sounds that are much more intimate, fragile, and firmly rooted [...]
