Front to Back

The Wedding Present proves that the album isn’t dead, it’s reanimated.

Music Stories Simon Reynolds, the music and culture critic, put it best in his book Retromania: “When a band has been around long enough, there is always going to be more demand from the fan base for a career   More

 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 ROBERT HAM

Mic Check: Swervedriver’s Adam Franklin

Music Stories It wasn’t headline news when Swervedriver quietly broke up in 1998. The British quartet, often lumped into the “shoegaze” genre but more muscular and freewheeling than most of its contempora   More

 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 CASEY JARMAN

Primer: Firehose

Music Stories Formed: 1986 in San Pedro, Calif.  Sounds like: A streamlined, corn-fed offshoot of the Minutemen’s working-class punk funk.  For fans of: Minutemen (duh), Camper Van Beethoven, Violent    More

 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 MATTHEW SINGER

Part-Time Poet

John K. Samson is a genius songwriter. He might quit.

Music Stories In his 15-year career as frontman for the Weakerthans and as a solo artist, John K. Samson has written dozens of increasingly masterful story songs from the perspectives of bed-ridden hospital p   More

 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 CASEY JARMAN

The Lumineers: Friday, March 30

You can totally go home again.

Music Stories [FOLK POP] Leaving New York is never easy, or so latter-day R.E.M. would have us believe. Ask Jeremiah Fraites of the Lumineers, though, and he’ll tell you it’s really not that difficult. He    More

 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 MATTHEW SINGER

Primer: Megafaun

Music Stories Formed: 2006 in North Carolina. Sounds like: Improvisational folk musicians prone to frequent jazz, experimental and rock seizures.  For fans of: The Grateful Dead, Blitzen Trapper, Akron/Famil   More

 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 EMILEE BOOHER

Seven Secrets To Loving SXSW

Advice for wayward travelers from a four-year festival veteran.

Music Stories Every year I learn a few more what-not-to-dos at Austin’s SXSW music festival: Don’t sleep in too late or you’ll miss the free tacos; RSVP for everything, just in case; don’t make elaborat   More

 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 CASEY JARMAN

Michael Gira: Friday, March 23

The Swans frontman has the energy of five punks half his age.

Music Stories [SINGER-SONGWRITER-BLEEDER] Watching footage of Michael Gira fronting the earliest incarnation of his band Swans, you almost expect him to either self-immolate onstage or spontaneously combust.    More

 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 ROBERT HAM

Howler: Monday, March 26

Howlin’ like loons.

Music Stories Howler’s Jordan Gatesmith is the first to admit he and his bandmates are adept at what the Brits call “taking the piss.” If you’ve ever read anything about the band—and it’s more likel   More

 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 MATTHEW SINGER

Album Review: Luck-One & Dekk

Beautiful Music Part 2

Music Stories [HIP-HOP] First things first: Beautiful Music Part 2 is the best album Luck-One has recorded to date. It’s a fine mix of the personal, the political and the spiritual. Dekk’s beats stagger d   More

 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 CASEY JARMAN