// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Hanson Is Cool. . . Seriously, Part Five

By Brenna Chase

To celebrate the upcoming release of Hanson’s newest album, Shout It Out, and to commemorate their recent “5 For 5” concerts, here is part five of our series on Hanson. Yes, Hanson.

Read parts one, two, three, and four. To read the article in its entirety, go here.

Those who’ve dismissed Hanson as just another passing fad from the ’90s are under-informed. The band has earned three Grammy nominations, making Zac the youngest songwriter in history to receive such an accolade. They’ve sold over ten million albums, singles, EPs, and videos to date and continue to chart significantly with each independent release. Hanson is a model for how to survive and thrive in the dying, post-millennial music industry.
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Hanson Is Cool. . . Seriously, Part Four

By Brenna Chase

To celebrate the upcoming release of Hanson’s newest album, Shout It Out, and to commemorate their recent “5 For 5” concerts, here is part three of our series on Hanson. Yes, Hanson.

Read parts one, two, and three.

So Hanson is constantly moving forward, but they’re old school, too (apparently they’re one big paradox). Sure, they’ll always be associated with the ’90s-pop-MTV-generation, but the inspiration for the music they make goes back way further than that.
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Punks In Portland: Buzzcocks

By Christian Lipski

Berbati’s Pan, Portland OR
June 1, 2010

Even if it’s in print, it’s not always true. The concert ticket said eight o’clock, but once we got to the club, a sign indicated that opening band The Dollyrots would start at nine. Inconsistently, the ticket was right about the door time, so from seven until nine I had plenty of time to take in my surroundings.
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Hanson Is Cool. . . Seriously, Part Three

By Brenna Chase

Photo credit:
Hanson.net

To celebrate the upcoming release of Hanson’s newest album, Shout It Out, and to commemorate their recent “5 For 5” concerts, here is part three of our series on Hanson. Yes, Hanson.

Read parts one and two.

By the way, while the rest of the world forgot about them back in 1998, Hanson has maintained a loyal fanbase that will buy from them and die for them. The band knows they owe their continued success to their (obsessively scary, 90% female) fans, and they do not take this for granted—they consistently give back to those who support them to make their fans feel special.
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Hanson Is Cool. . . Seriously, Part Two

By Brenna Chase

To celebrate the upcoming release of Hanson’s newest album, Shout It Out, and to commemorate their recent “5 For 5” concerts, here is part two of our series on Hanson. Yes, Hanson.

Go here for part one.

Although Hanson might be a more liberal, noncreepy, modern day version of the Osmonds, these guys are hipper than you might think. In a time when “indie” rockers are touted by major labels, Hanson is the true definition of a DIY band.

After the sophomore “slump” of their follow-up album This Time Around (a mere 262,000 records sold in 2000) and years of struggles with their label Mercury Records during the messy Island Def Jam merger, they parted ways with Mercury due to irreconcilable differences. Whereas countless bands in the same position were neglected and eventually dropped from their major labels when the overly confident industry of the ’90s was just beginning to collapse, Hanson got out of their contract on their terms and forged ahead on their own, by choice.
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Hanson Is Cool. . . Seriously, Part One

By Brenna Chase

Photo credit:
http://boston.com/

To celebrate the upcoming release of Hanson’s newest album, Shout It Out, and to commemorate their recent “5 For 5” concerts, here is part one of our series on Hanson. Yes, Hanson.

Unless you are a Hanson fan, you may not be aware of these simple facts:
1. Hanson is still alive.
2. All three of them are of the male gender.
3. They are still together as a band

Allow me to clear this up for you. Yes, Hanson is very much alive and writing and performing songs—successfully enough, in fact, to make a living from it. Though you may assume they went out of style back in 1998 (if they were ever really “in style” at all), their new material is actually better than most of today’s mainstream pop music.
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Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks

By Less Lee Moore

After all the articles I’ve written, after all the mix tapes and CDs I’ve made, after all the years of continual and ridiculous fangirling over Sparks. . . do I really need to convince you that they are one of the most wonderful bands of the last 40 years?

If only there were some sort of written chronology of their illustrious career, perhaps one that covers the band’s history, album by album, with salient or illuminating quotes from those who have known, followed, and worked with the band from its inception to the present day. . . it would just make things so much easier.

Thankfully, writer Daryl Easlea has answered my cries for help and written Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks.
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Howe Gelb, ‘Sno Angel Winging It (Live) CD + DVD

By J Howell

A few years back, I read about what at the time seemed like the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard of: a Howe Gelb record that featured the Giant Sand mainstay with a Canadian Gospel Choir.

Now, I’d been a Giant Sand fan for a while at that point. I’d seen Gelb solo live a couple of years before, opening for John Parish. During his set he improvised a song about the wobbly fan onstage; at one point he even played guitar with his hands while banging on the piano with his feet. His only instructions to the soundman that night were, and I quote, “Can you make this guitar loud as fuck?”
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Shad, TSOL

By Matt Demers

When an acclaimed artist manages to dodge the sophmore album curse, it almost becomes a race to see when he or she is going to screw up. Each successive album becomes a nail-biter, with fans and critics alike hoping that this album won’t be the CODA of the artist’s discography, condemned to ridicule and revulsion.

Listening to rapper Shad’s prior two albums, you’d think karma would be against him. 2005’s When It’s Over and 2008’s The Old Prince are cornerstones in Canadian hip-hop, and represent an intelligent artist whose sound is maturing. This year’s TSOL, released on May 25, looked to be a next step for Shad: he had perked listeners’ ears with The Old Prince‘s catchy tunes and deep message, and now had a stage to define himself. This was his chance to emerge from his London, Ontario beginnings and show people what he was made of.

And thank God he didn’t screw up.
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Arcadia, So Red The Rose Special Edition

By Less Lee Moore

One would think that with so many Duran Duran CDs, at least six Duran Duran DVDs, and a box of VHS tapes, I’d have enough to satisfy me. But as Hamlet used to say, it’s “As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it fed on.” And if you think that sounds pretentious, you should listen to Arcadia’s So Red The Rose.

Now now, calm down. I kid. I kid because I love. For those who haven’t been Duranies since the dawn of the ’80s, I’ll fill you in: Arcadia was a side project of Duran Duran members Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon, and Roger Taylor. The band came to fruition in 1985, after the release of Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger album.
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