After 26 years of solid work, sludge rock survivors The Melvins have finally smashed the Billboard Top 200. At number 200.
Not getting due recognition can destroy a band. Still going after 26 years and 20 albums, the Melvins remain one of the most misunderstood groups in rock history, their legacy limited to a mere footnote for being Kurt Cobain’s favourite band. Yet from post punk to surrealist rock, their versatile career arc has proved so unpredictable that both Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, the band’s mainstays, can’t resist reading whatever is written about them online. Continue Reading »
Nas could have quit music after his first album. Some wish he had. He started too early, he says. Dropped out of school in the eighth grade, deciding to educate himself at home in the high rise blocks of the world’s largest housing project: Queensbridge, New York. He pored over the Bible and the Qur’an, studied Africa profusely, never imagining that he’d record an album about it one day. Back then Nas was desperate to record a demo, so he bought recording time from a “heavy metal dude” with a studio and rounded up every beat-maker he could fit into the car. Large Professor was one of them, though at first he wouldn’t even speak to Nas – he just wanted his tunes in circulation by whatever means necessary, even if he didn’t get paid, even if it was via some kid he’d never heard of. But he was impressed by Nas’s hunger and lyrical deftness. Continue Reading »
Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino needs weed. Badly. She has been pleading between songs at every show, putting the call out on Twitter for someone – anyone – to hook her up. Presenting her with some at an interview only seems logical.
“Put the shit down over there,” she barks.
Okay.
“Bong.”
What?
“Where’s the fucking bong? Don’t tell me you rolled up here without any paraphernalia.” Continue Reading »
Leap of Faith: Canadian electro punks HOLY FUCK are devoted to the free
spirit of uncompromised music and they curse bands who need to be liked.
Lights out. Total darkness. A packed Berlin club gasps as the music keeps pounding: roaring and squealing, glitching and backfiring. This is not electronic music. There are no samples. This is not instrumental post rock. There are no crescendo-building templates. This is endorphin plundering, blood-vessel bursting electro punk that has the band pouring with sweat, struggling to pump their energy into instruments that were there only seconds ago. Gradually the audience begins to laugh, bemused by the band’s unwavering composure. But this is exactly what they want: a chance to be robbed of control and to stumble blindly into inspiration. Continue Reading »
If no other band sounds quite like Twin Sister, perhaps it’s because no one else would make music the way they do. You’d think they were asking for trouble: a group of songwriters writing their own parts in widely varying styles, then mashing them together by huddling around a computer or emailing songs back and forth until reaching consensus. Continue Reading »
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Cee-Lo is great craic. He's mad for Ireland. Though "F**k You" will become "Forget You" for the radio-friendly version, which is a bit lameabout 1 week agofrom web
