A playful Afro-Caribbean breeze flows through Vampire Weekend’s sophomore album, Contra. Opposing bitter harsh east coast winters, warming and uplifting the soul with its opener (and fiercest) Horchata, the tracks are crisp, carefree, but somehow complicated. (more…)
The Archives
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CD Reviews
Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk
09.27.09Another polymorphous band, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes, Jim James from My Morning Jacket and M. Ward from She & Him, churn out their debut with the self-titled album Monsters of Folk. Whether it’s true folk, inside and out, perchance freak-folk, is debatable, but it is an honest reflection of four gifted individuals experimenting as a pristine mutant collective. (more…)
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CD Reviews
The Black Crowes – Before the Frost… Until the Freeze
09.06.09
Recorded in front of a live audience at The Barn recording studio in Woodstock, NY; Before the Frost… Until the Freeze is a double album that fabricates valuable arguments dismissing the notion that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. In fact old dogs know the ropes so well…Sometimes the new tricks are easier learned. The Black Crowes swoop in and bring their loyal fans the cherry on the sundae. (more…)
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Bits & Pieces
Hardcore Punks The Bronx Go Mariachi?
07.23.09From a dizzying cloud of tearingly aggressive punk comes L.A. outfit The Bronx’s unexpected Mexican alter ego Mariachi El Bronx; the band’s full on homage to spicy SoCal Spanish roots. The brutal west coast quintet has added a secondary look to their hard-line ways, looking to deliver an eponymous all mariachi album to shelves September 1st 2009. Playing live in full traditional mariachi garb and performing only mariachi music, the boys have creative a must see project laced with musical prowess and welcomed creativity. The boys even recruited Chicano rocker Vincent Hidalgo, son of Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, to bring quintessential guitarrón to the table. “The dead can dance if they want romance,” soothingly croons singer Matt Caughthran in the album’s stand out spin Quinceniera. And did I mention that the boys have even created cologne called Barrio Sweat to accompany the album’s release, describing the scent in a press release as, “warm and masculine”, making sure to add that, “Each bottle of Barrio Sweat comes complete with a larvae of the agave snout weevil imported from Jalisco, drowned at the bottom of this mystical potion, reminiscent of the finest Mezcal”. Aye! This album’s gonna be muy caliente!
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Bits & Pieces
Have Drummers Slipped Into A Food Coma?
06.12.09We all know that rock ‘n’ roll is a dream of many men and we also know that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. So is it really any surprise that both The Shins‘ drummer Jesse Sandoval and Against Me!’s beat keeper Warren Oakes have both set aside their rock ‘n’ roll lifestyles to deliver food to the starving masses?… Mexican food to be exact. While Sandoval is serving authentic Mexican cuisine from a street cart in Portland, Oakes is handing out burritos in Gainesville. Would you like a side of autograph with that Enchilada? Perhaps for those of us who aren’t in musical outfits, it is living proof that what we think would be a dream come true may actually turn out to be less than the fantasy can uphold. If you’ve spent the last 10 years of your life trying to ‘make it’ then maybe you should ‘make’ yourself a sandwich.
