I was shocked – shocked – when I saw this on the A.V. Club homepage: New “supergroup” featuring Justin Vernon, P.O.S., members of Megafaun and The Rosebuds, et al., looks awesome, awful, awesome again Just the combination of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and P.O.S. sent my brain into overdrive. So, I hopped over to Jagjaguwar … [Read more…]
It was indeed “A Decade Under The Influence.†But while Taking Back Sunday could string together a few solid hits drenched in a post-hardcore milieu and cut with pop sensibilities, chances are no one in the band could have predicted how influential emo would become in the aughts. The presence of the word in the … [Read more…]
The new year is almost here, and with it comes a maelstrom of “End of the Year Lists.†Here on Ex-Spectator, I’ll be rolling out a few “End of the Yearâ€/â€End of the Decade†lists. Today’s list: The Best Albums of 2009. As I’ve mentioned previously, there are a lot of pitfalls for “best of†… [Read more…]
Woodie. Whatever possessed mtvU to name their annual music award as such is beyond me. Is it supposed to be a joke aimed at their college audience? Cause I’m pretty sure college kids these days are smart enough to figure that one. Anyway, mtvU recently released the ballots for the awards show. What’s the big … [Read more…]
The behind-the-scenes (or rather, behind-my-thoughts) on the Boston Phoenix piece I did on scrunk and Warped Tour is still to come, but consider this a little preview. A lots been said online since the piece went on the net about scrunk/crunkcore and its impact on Warped Tour, which isn’t to say that my article caused these … [Read more…]
P.O.S. said emo rap “sounds pretty unfortunate,” so one must wonder what Kanye West must think about the term. Sure, various blogs abound on the Internet that didn’t meet a song with any emotive content they couldn’t shake a finger at and immediately label it have tied Kayne’s newest 808s and Heartbreak and emo in … [Read more…]
As mentioned in a previous post, P.O.S. (otherwise known as Stefon Alexander) was just in town to perform at Harper’s Ferry in support of his newest album, Never Better. I interviewed Alexander via email for Bostonist in time for his visit. Of course, as curious as ever, I asked about emo-rap. Here’s the skinny: The … [Read more…]
Tonight, the Academy Awards will be passed out to folks who may or may not have made the best films of the year, depending on who you’re talking to. (Seriously though, nothing for JCVD? That was – surprisingly – one of the best films I saw last year.) Anyway, below are my predictions: many of … [Read more…]