Friday night I stood for two-plus hours in awe as I watched The Appleseed Cast perform their entire 2001 double album Low Level Owl. The Lawrence, Kansas emo band played to a packed crowd at Chicago’s Bottom Lounge, and gracefully played the criminally overlooked double album, with a brief intermission breaking up the two volumes and … [Read more…]
…or Clarity? Big shout out to Pierre Wentz over at Washed Up Emo for catching this one. In any case, it sounds like JEW and the former Drive Like Jehu drummer and whirlwind producer Trombino are back together. Trombino produced the band’s first three albums, and his in-studio wizardry really helped morph the sound and … [Read more…]
I rarely mention Pitchfork in the guise of this blog… I won’t go into great details, and I will admit it’s easily one of the best aggregators for independent-related music information, so I do visit the site regularly. But when it comes to reviews, I try to stray from their pieces. Yes, the Pitchfork writers … [Read more…]
Jimmy Eat World continue the Clarity + fan love with a brand-spankin’ new link to a track-by-track breakdown of their sophomore album. Here’s the intro: “Zach: The past few months have been a special time for us. During this time we’ve been learning, rehearsing and playing these songs from Clarity for our fans across the United States. … [Read more…]
Nine Inch Nails/A Perfect Circle drummer Josh Freese may have grabbed headlines for his unusual promotional tool for promoting and covering the costs for his new album, Since 1972. For a certain price, you could get anything from a digital download of the album ($7) straight to a weekend with the man himself, mini golf … [Read more…]
Yeah, there’s no doubt they sent this to everyone who bought their tickets for the Clarity X 10 tour, but you have to hand it to Jimmy Eat World for really caring about their fans:  “A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO OUR BOSTON FANS This is a note of gratitude directed at you from us, Jimmy Eat World, … [Read more…]
2008 is almost gone as the New Year will arrive in a matter of hours (or it may have already arrived depending on when you read this). So, in anticipation for the number of times I’ll forget to put “2009” on whatever documents need a proper year, here’s a little listing of 9 things I’ll … [Read more…]
For those that caught Bruce Campbell’s latest B-movie flick, My Name Is Bruce, it’s, well, a Bruce Campbell movie… though some of the jokes were a complete miss and would have benefited the movie had they not been written in the first place. In any case, one of the movie’s driving characters is a young … [Read more…]
For some reason the climax of Children of Men has come up in multiple conversations in the past few days. Namely, the fact that it’s such a grand scheme that shows how brave and experimental even the most mundane action shots can be and how exciting a typical art-house film (or film for an art-house … [Read more…]
It’s always nice getting some sort of personal email, especially when it’s in the form of a musical reunion between David Byrne and Brian Eno. Well, “personal” isn’t quite the right word, but I certainly took the message as a sincere and direct one: It’s with great pleasure we offer you a sneak peak by … [Read more…]