Record Stores Died For Somebody’s Sins (But Not MySpace’s)

Pretty In Pink, 1986
Screencap from Striped Wall

The new millennium has become the Battle of the Social Networking Websites. Which one you prefer depends upon how you utilize each one. As much as Facebook fans may bitch that MySpace is ugly and user-unfriendly, when people want to hear what a band sounds like, they usually go to MySpace.
Continue reading ‘Record Stores Died For Somebody’s Sins (But Not MySpace’s)’

Sports: The Band, S/T EP

By Megashaun

In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in quality regarding the debut releases of bands. Now, there are many bands with such strong debuts that listeners can’t imagine how they can possibly get better. Toronto, Ontario’s Sports: The Band is certainly guilty of this. Their debut album, technically only an EP, sounds so mature you’d imagine the band has been together for ages instead of the few short years they actually have been around.
Continue reading ‘Sports: The Band, S/T EP’

On British Invasions, And Why They Might Not Happen In The USA Again

By John Lane

I have always been suspicious about the prevailing historical theory that The Beatles became big in America as a direct reaction to the Kennedy assassination. It’s too easy: our beautiful, youthful leader is dead, therefore we need youthful music to wake us up?
Continue reading ‘On British Invasions, And Why They Might Not Happen In The USA Again’

Black Moth Super Rainbow, Eating Us

By Noreen Sobczyk

When you visit the Black Moth Super Rainbow website, you’ll find that their new album Eating Us is available in a limited “hairy summer jacket” version. Well if that doesn’t say it all, what does? Hopefully this review will help elaborate on this, at least a bit, because a lot of the beauty of Black Moth Super Rainbow is that the music must be experienced and can’t be fully explained in text. Does that sound pretentious? It’s not, I promise. Take a tab of BMSR and you’re guaranteed not to have a bad trip.
Continue reading ‘Black Moth Super Rainbow, Eating Us ‘

Adanowsky, El Idolo

By Julie Finley

There is a recurring phenomenon when the offspring of a talented parent tries to come out with something creative and it just sucks. For example . . . anything that Sean Lennon has ever done, and that sums it up! So I never have high hopes from anyone that comes from a top notch pedigree, and the fact they were born into “connections,” is really irritating!
Continue reading ‘Adanowsky, El Idolo‘

Gargoyle Sox and That Song

By Less Lee Moore

Anyone who’s discussed music with me at length knows about the box of dusty old tapes I’ve kept since I was a teenager. Back in the day, when my music taste was heavily informed by WTUL New Orleans, I would spend hours taping songs from the radio. In fact, I didn’t buy a whole lot of albums at that point because buying blank tapes gave me more bang for my broke teenaged buck.
Continue reading ‘Gargoyle Sox and That Song’

Dots to Connect: The Music Of The Prids

By Jemiah Jefferson

Tribute albums can be a tricky thing. Gathering the right combination of bands and artists to do the best work in performing new versions of well-known songs has got to be difficult. This is one of the facts that makes this compilation’s success as remarkable as it is. Not every track is a keeper, but the ones that are stand on their own as showcases for the bands performing them as well as the exceptional songwriting that has become one of the Prids’ trademarks.
Continue reading ‘Dots to Connect: The Music Of The Prids‘

I Heard Your Voice In Cambridge: Elvis Perkins In Dearland

By Chelsea Spear

Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA
April 22, 2009

The music of Elvis Perkins has a cathartic quality that borders on the spiritual. His vivid, fever-dream lyrics draw on Biblical themes and imagery (note the title of his first album, Ash Wednesday, and its closing song “Good Friday”), his melodies share the memorable simplicity of hymns, and he and his band perform them with great fervor and no small emotion. Thus, it seemed appropriate that they would grace the stage of the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass.
Continue reading ‘I Heard Your Voice In Cambridge: Elvis Perkins In Dearland’

The Venture Bros., The Music of JG Thirlwell

By Megashaun

Cartoons are typically not known for their musical scores. In fact, for many that I watched growing up, the music was often more of an afterthought (outside of the main title theme, that is). Incidental music in The Transformers, for instance, was so generic and overused that the show even shared many of its compositions (if they could be called that) with its counterpart half-hour Hasbro commercial, G.I. Joe.
Continue reading ‘The Venture Bros., The Music of JG Thirlwell’

The Bitter Tears of Jessica Savitch

By Emily Carney

“I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.”
—Jessica Savitch

Photo from People archive

Due to dire economic circumstances across the US in the last few years, and particularly in early 2009, there has been a decline in the television news audience nationally and locally. Many TV stations and networks have downsized considerably; it certainly helps one who desires to carve out a niche in broadcast news to have an extremely impressive CV in reporting and anchoring. The ultimate cautionary tale in how not to conduct a network news career continues to be the final, sad slide of Jessica Savitch.
Continue reading ‘The Bitter Tears of Jessica Savitch’