Recent Articles

post thumbnail

Reminder: Retrograde Motion Tuesday Night!

Just the facts here, party people — but if you’re in NYC, come out tomorrow night to the Annex to dance, dance, dance and celebrate the DVD release of Wedding Daze (starring Jason Biggs of American Pie fame and Isla Fisher of Wedding Crashers hilarity). All you need to know for a good time on [...]

14 Jan 2008 | More
post thumbnail

Dave Gahan: Dark Soul Brother Digs Deep, Finds He has Faith

Unbeknownst to even his most ardent followers during Depeche Mode’s world tour in support of 2005’s Playing the Angel, Dave Gahan began a journey inward, exploring corners of his mind that he’d previously not dared go, excavating emotions and fears that centered around accepting his own mortality, divine intervention, miracles, parenthood and unconditional love.

14 Jan 2008 | 2 comments | More
post thumbnail

Kate Nash: Beyond Rubbish Boys and Loose Bricks

Kate Nash has a skeleton in her closet. Well, it actually lives in her family’s living room, but it’s still quite a disturbing vision to outsiders. Nash documents this anomaly on “Skeleton Song” from her freshly dropped record Made of Bricks. The 20-year-old, UK-bred composer still resides with her parents and the bag of bones they call Stanley.

14 Jan 2008 | 1 comment | More
post thumbnail

Nada Surf: Beyond Slacker Ennui

When I call Matthew Caws, Nada Surf’s frontman and songwriter, to talk about his group’s brand new modern masterpiece Lucky, he is preparing to leave for Europe on Thanksgiving Day for a short string of dates. When I mention that skipping the holiday could be a good thing, less familial pressure, Caw agrees, joking that [...]

14 Jan 2008 | 1 comment | More
post thumbnail

Hot Diggity Funk, it’s Hot Chip!

Hot Chip started their third full length album as a sort of group experiment. Everyone held hands and jumped in to the pool at the count of three: they went in with hopes of a live-sounding album, sometimes playing pre-fab lines and structures, and kept the tapes rolling. This did not result in an automatic [...]

14 Jan 2008 | More
post thumbnail

Sia: Staying Grounded, Naming Names

Singer Sia (Furler) lies in her Soho bedroom squealing with delight as she rips open a gift box filled with “weirdly colored” clothes. The letter enclosed, from Think PR, suggests that she might wear them to her television appearance on Conan O’Brien the following week. Sia passes the parcel to her mum, instructing her to [...]

14 Jan 2008 | More
post thumbnail

Holy Fuck: Cerebral Jam Band Canucks

Holy Fuck have been mistaken for cerebral hipsters when they’re really just jam band dudes. They’ve been knocked for having an ostentatious name and somewhat opaque songs and long track lengths. Beyond winning them a new slew of carefully-coiffed critics and not a few pot heads, their new album should also prove to indie blog [...]

14 Jan 2008 | More
post thumbnail

Sons and Daughters: Children of Preacher and Poet

It’s downtown and it’s CMJ. Play the “A punch for a plaid shirt” game and you will look like you have been in Fight Club before too long. We are talking wall to wall band-a likes. So I venture towards Teany, Moby’s tea shop, as the last interviewer of a very tired band who [...]

14 Jan 2008 | More
post thumbnail

The Sunshine Underground: Neon Nightlife Beyond Madchester

The dreary grey skies of Glasgow are anything but uplifting, especially in the infamous Gorbals district. A haven that has boasted feared gangs and council estates stocked with detonators and a Trainspotting-esque charm is the last place I thought I would end up. Yet within this hotbed of gloom and doom stands the Carling Academy, [...]

14 Jan 2008 | 1 comment | More
post thumbnail

True Adventures: The Saga of British Sea Power

Only the lads of British Sea Power would collectively and simultaneously correct one in the middle of an interview on the right way to pronounce ornithology, before adding that they were once featured in the Royal Society of Protection of Birds magazine. Not that this should be surprising for longtime fans of the band, [...]

14 Jan 2008 | More