music Archives -

EYE ON THE PRIZE: EP. 44 PART 1 – REVIEWING THE BEST SONG NOMINEE W/ LORENZO EMMANUEL Our yearly tradition continues as we gather together to render our verdict on the Oscar nominated music for the year. We start off talking about the nominated songs and…well, we had a few thoughts about these picks. Most […]

Time to get musical in this show! It’s that time of year that Justin loves so much where we discuss the Oscar nominees for Best Original Song and Best Original Score. This year, however, we decided to bring on a professional. Our very own Eye on the Prize composer Lorenzo Emmanuel, who also composed the […]

Time to get musical in this show! It’s that time of year that Justin loves so much where we do a thorough discussion on the Oscar nominees for Best Original Song and Best Original Score. This year, however, we decided to bring on a professional. Our very own Eye on the Prize composer Lorenzo Emmanuel, […]

We all know the country music songwriter’s recipe: start with a stretch of hardscrabble backstory, mix in some bad luck with the ladies, stir the bottom of the bottle around, maybe sprinkle in a stint in the pokey for good measure. Rinse. Repeat. Your typical country artist could sing the blues, but somehow this feels […]

Years after crafting a sound so unique that a fledgling movement spun up around it, Portishead walked away from notoriety and their Trip-hop roots that influenced so many. Away from the dark corners and come-hither beats, punctuated by Beth Gibbons’ pained yarns of yearning and regret, away from all of it. Until they didn’t. Borne […]

It’s safe to say that if you have been pushing out music for the past 51 years, you’ve probably got a little something for everyone. It’s also a pretty good chance that not everything in your catalog is going to elicit the same enthusiasm from all audiences. For those of you who appreciate early Prog […]

It’s hard not to wax a certain amount of nostalgic about the year you’re born: it is, after all, what lights the candle of your days. That’s not lost on Josh Rouse, who reminds us that much is revealed by the concept albums an artist releases. Rouse has long revealed a wandering attention span, but […]

What do you say about Axl Rose? Where do you start? Tiny bike shorts? His interest in guitar players with interesting head gear choices (black top hat with silver conch shells/an upside down KFC bucket)? His Noel Gallagheresqe inability to properly use words when describing things (Noel-“SLOWLY walking down the hall, FASTER than a cannonball”/Axl-“wait […]

You’ll never accuse Archy Marshall (better known as King Krule) of waxing trite: Marshall, the artist by way of producer, has always been as versatile and fearless as he has been precocious. He forged a bumpy, art-indulged childhood into unpredictable, relentless artistic visions as a young adult, and it seems to be taking him places: […]

We figured out somewhere along the way that our Holiday Mixtape show wasn’t an annual tradition, actually. Mostly because we skipped doing it last year altogether. In retrospect, it’s probably better this way: Christmas songs tend to feel like abrupt departures from the norm, with a set of rules all their own, and a certain […]

As I write this, I am currently consuming the Jim Jarmusch documentary about the Stooges, Gimme Danger. This means nothing, other than the fact that it turns out the Stooges hung out with Nico, and that ridiculously beautiful German model had a hold (artistically!) with two massively influential bands. She is most known, of course, […]

Going to college—in and of itself, sans context—isn’t entirely remarkable. Literally thousands of people do it. But when you’re the lead singer of a coffee-infused punk band in the early 1980s, and your down time en route to picking up your Ph. D in Biochemistry is spent at the intersection of extended adolescence and minute-long thrash-centric […]

Instead of doing a boring old top ten list or going podcast by podcast through all the possible topics for “Best of 2017” shows, we decided this year to just put a bunch of our staff together from different shows and parts of the site, and get them in a conversation about what were their […]

It’s kind of a trick question: when your band sounds a little gloomy to begin with, how can your audience tell when you’re despondent? Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe it’s possible that Bloodflowers, The Cure’s 2000 LP and, per Robert Smith, the end of a trilogy that began with Pornography and continued with Disintegration, is […]

Start by forgetting all you think you know. Every day is Christmas when you’re an LA Garage scene musician, and the songs are presents you can’t unwrap quickly enough: they tear through them with reckless abandon, and like musical easter eggs, there always seem to be more in waiting, right around the corner. That same […]

Let’s get into the Dream Syndicate (or perhaps not, as they didn’t get into much of anything from the years 1989-2012). Here in 2017, they’re back with new work, How Did I Find Myself Here? Spirited discussions ensue as to whether they have moved on from their previous incarnation (ca.1989), from the “Paisley Underground,” a scene […]

Wolf Alice…Wolf Alice? It’s one of those band names like 10,000 Maniacs that reminds you that band names are less about musical content and more about whats funny when you are having beers after band practice… Metallica=Metal+Vodka (not making this up) Was gonna show some more examples, but do I really need to? SO…podcast overlord […]

Are anthems nature or nurture? Maybe that seems a question easily answered, but think again: whereas so many of today’s musical tentpoles are crafted to be cranked up to Eleven at your local stadium du jour, Tom Petty’s highlighted catalog seemed birthed without the grandiosity later afforded to it by its audience. Petty tracks weren’t […]

By now, we’re familiar with the Blackalicious mojo: Gift of Gab throwing obsessive, complicated rhymes over the steady propulsive backbeat dropped by one Chief Xcel, a formula that’s earned the pair accolades. But all rocket ships launch from somewhere, and it’s clear word spread about the duo during production…how else might we factor the parade […]

Join us this week, as we discuss Band of Horses’ 2006 (turns out, debut LP, after an EP), Everything All the Time. If you love $29,000 refrigerators, majestic arpeggios, bizarre Gene Simmons infomercials, and mid-aughts sweet-sounding (if not-quite profound) proper debut for Ben Bridwell’s personal majesty, you should definitely tune in. Shane believes that this […]

Let’s be honest: Hug Of Thunder, for all of its good intentions, kind of sounds like something made by Hasbro: perhaps a giant, fluffy, crime-fighting machine—the likes of which, for all we know, could actually be one of the members of Broken Social Scene, the Toronto-based and terribly talented music collective that burst on the […]

Whatever you think of Cracker — they’ve been the subject of chart busting platitudes and some indie derision alike — it’s hard to understate the importance of David Lowery’s contribution to popular music. That’s a fact. Beyond his role in crafting earworms that burrowed their way into car stereos in the 90s, his determination to […]

SON! Pioneer of “trucker country,” Jerry Reed, turns out, falls in my sweet spot. The man was rapping (albeit with a country twang) before that was a thing, could finger-pick his way out of a wet burlap sack, and was pretty damn funny while doing so. I generally don’t care for my music and humor […]

I can sum up the way a lot of people feel about the Everly Brothers by telling you the props Ryan brought in to our show when we discussed It’s Everly Time by (wait for it) The Everly Brothers. Ryan shows up carrying a paper bag which he subsequently removed a loaf of Wonder Bread […]

In this case, buzz begat buzz when Oakland’s Melina Duterte drunkenly uploaded a batch of hastily recorded tracks to Bandcamp, and launched a sensation. Better known as Jay Som, her pop-up indie darling status seems only cemented since its home baked inception, an arrival marked by her legit label debut, Everybody Works. Duarte’s ascent, begged […]