Caddywhompus: 01.16.2011
You will have to excuse me for not grasping the full awesomeness of Caddywhompus after seeing them live for the first time. Night had just fallen on the 2010 Community Records Block Party and shit was starting to get weird: I was in the midst of an uncomfortable buzz – the result of washing down [...]
Sharks’ Teeth: Atrium EP
One of the most exciting parts of following a young band is watching their musical and songwriting sensibilities change and evolve quite literally before your ears. Sharks’ Teeth, the nom de guerre Tyler Schurlock adopts when not writing songs for and performing with Sun Hotel, started out as little more than an avenue to release [...]
Weekend: Sports
Though the title of this San Francisco trio’s debut album probably has absolutely nothing to do with the 1983 album of the same name by Huey Lewis and the News, it was still the first thing that struck me, mostly because of how diametrically opposite Weekend’s cover art is from Lewis’. The Huey Lewis cover [...]
No Age: 01.13.2011
“What the hell is Mudlark Theater,” said everybody. As obscure and made-up as the place sounded, I shouldn’t have been surprised that noisy art-punk band No Age would pull an unpredictable move in booking a New Orleans venue. As it turns out, the choice of venue was based on the band’s hardline “all ages” approach [...]
Girl Talk: 01.10.2011
I was introduced to Girl Talk, né Gregg Gillis, back in the fall of 2006, when a young lady I met at a dinner party handed me burned CD-R containing Night Ripper, his breakthrough third album. “This CD will change your life,” she said as she dug one of the many copies of the album [...]
Cake: Showroom of Compassion
After a nearly seven-year hiatus from music, Cake returns with a self-released album recorded and produced entirely on solar power. That may seem like a strange enviro-political statement coming from a band whose past hits were about a guy pursuing a girl (“The Distance”) and unrealistic yet true-to-life standards in women (“Short Skirt Long Jacket”). [...]
Agent Orange: 01.08.2011
It’s no secret that punk music has undergone a pretty strange philosophical facelift over the past thirty years. On nights like this, it’s not necessarily as noticeable as you’d think, but still just as profound when you’re seeing a band whose ethnic, dreadlocked lead singer you could have sworn said, “This song is about Apartheid,” [...]
