Underhill Family Orchestra: 03.01.2012
Every time the roving bacchanal known as the Underhill Family Orchestra rolls into a foreign town in their graffiti-doused psychedelic Dodge Ram Cargo Van, they must be expecting a hoard of Timmy Martins to traipse over and drop their jaws in wonderment at the sight of seven veritable savages, all bearing the surname “Underhill”, cavorting [...]
Vox and the Hound: 02.25.2012
When a band is as bursting at the seams with diverse and experienced talent as Vox And The Hound, a common and not necessarily unfortunate trope may be to proceed with caution, employing a lowest-common-denominator approach to songwriting that plays to no member’s particular strength at the risk of unleashing a soundclash of incompatible virtuosity. [...]
Habitat: 01.21.2012
A good bit of natural uncertainty seems to surround new local trio Habitat, who for a time only played intermittently between each member’s full-time band schedule and who have yet to formally record even one original song for public consumption. Through most interpretations, the band is nothing more than a side project: guitarist Andrew Landry [...]
Cass McCombs: 01.17.2012
Though Alt-Country has exponentially grown in popularity over the last several decades, it has rarely seen artists capable of pushing its boundaries while remaining decidedly within them. Even the very avant leanings of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, generally regarded as the sub-genre’s creative apex, has been accused of representing more the preternatural evolution and singular [...]
Lovey Dovies: 12.05.2011
In music circles, “hiatus” can be a really nasty term. More informative than the realization that a local band hasn’t played a gig in while but somehow also more discomforting that a formal breakup announcement, hiatuses would represent an awful purgatory if they didn’t usually imply much worse. Those of the “unofficial” kind often become [...]
Brass Bed: 11.11.2011
You’d think that with their admirable success over the past three years, Brass Bed would be just a little complacent with themselves. However, even after having had the pleasure of sharing the stage with the likes of indie big wigs The Walkmen and releasing last year’s shimmering chamber pop epic, Melt White, the on-stage demeanor [...]
Big Rock Candy Mountain: 11.02.2011
Although they’ve been off of the local live circuit for a few months, it should be no surprise to anyone that the members of Big Rock Candy Mountain have had no trouble picking up where they left off. Michael Girardot is a constantly-working artist, splitting time between his front man duties for BRCM and keyboard [...]
Rotary Downs + Caddywhompus: 10.29.2011
Camaraderie between a mature rock band and a younger noise duo may seem unlikely in this fast paced and cliquish era of alternative music, but Rotary Downs – local champions of unkillable working man’s indie rock – and Caddywhompus – constantly breaking new experimental ground – have recently forged such a platonic relationship, one that [...]
Voodoo Music Experience, Day 3: 10.30.2011
By now, all music blogs and culture magazines are abuzz about Los Angeles-based rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, whose set at the Le Ritual Voodoo main stage on the final day of Voodoo was at once electrifying and unnerving. After the group showered photographers with water and unloaded a slew of [...]
