The members of this New York quartet grew up on the stridently philosophical side of the tracks of the mid-’80s punk scene in Gotham, having cut their teeth in zealous combos like Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits and Absolution. By the time Quicksand formed in 1989, they’d outgrown the one-dimensional sonic attack of that era,…
When the peripatetic Royal Trux — a revolving cast led by Pussy Galore expatriate Neil Hagerty and junkie priestess-turned-Calvin Klein model Jennifer Herrema — talks about wanting to emulate the Rolling Stones, they’re not articulating a desire to pantomime an nth-generation version of Exile on Main St. They’re doing their level best to fashion a…
This New York-based drummer has played a large part in forging a bond between the city’s free-jazz and downtown rock scenes while — and this is the tricky part — refusing to compromise the purity of essence that’s pervaded his music for nearly two decades. Hooker plays with enough power to steer combos suffused with…
When an experience is described as “interesting,” it could be equally tribute or backhand slag — which makes it the ideal term to describe this alternately fascinating and pretentious Los Angeles outfit. Before forming Medicine in early 1991, guitarist/vocalist Brad Laner was a late-’80s member of Savage Republic, a band that fused modern classical-cum-industrial rock…
New York’s garage-rocking Fuzztones — Rudi Protrudi, Deb O’Nair and three lesser-named cohorts — do their wild Crampabilly thing on Leave Your Mind at Home, seven numbers recorded live. The sound approaches bootleg quality, but that hardly matters — the shrieks and demented guitar solos here don’t exactly call out for laser-level fidelity. Raveup enthusiasm…
Although the need for a post-punk version of Duran Duran hasn’t exactly been established, this young suburban London quintet came strutting into the UK press headlines proudly proclaiming themselves precisely that. Unflaggingly attentive to fashion and generally capable of pouting through big-lipped, big-riffed glam-pop confections with attitude to spare, Menswe@r does its best to make…
Most rock history/record collector geeks could easily pass for science club presidents — just replace the pocket slide rule with a copy of some beat-up album price guide. But for John “Speedo” Reis, the skipper of San Diego’s Rocket From the Crypt (and Drive Like Jehu’s first mate), the pursuit of rock obscurity doesn’t translate…
There are plenty of reasons why rock has never been as fertile an improvisational canvas for musicians as jazz — chief among them, the hold of the 4/4 beat, the transience of attention spans (on the part of musicians and audience alike) and the fact that most aspiring bands would rather build a beer-can wall…
Plenty of bands advocate anarchy, but few have practiced it with the single-minded determination of Mercury Rev, a psychedelically inclined sextet given over to every-man-for-himself excursions as open-ended as “pop” music has seen in many a year. While analogous in some ways to the Flaming Lips (a band that guitarist Jonathan “Dingus” Donahue played with…
Proponents of an extremist wing of the less-is-more school of thought, the Dwarves have wreaked much underground havoc with highly confrontational (often blood- soaked) live sets that are over in ten minutes and “longplayers” of acute political incorrectness that don’t last even twice that. If there weren’t so much action here — imagine watching The…
Perhaps one can trace the proliferation of what’s been dubbed sadcore to the imminence of the millennium, the bleak consensus that the twentysomething generation is destined to be worse off than its predecessors or the technology-accelerated breakdown in interpersonal communication. More likely, this oh-so-Caucasian progeny of the blues has found its niche because the only…
As the Pacific Northwest entry in garage-rock’s second coming, Portland, Oregon’s Miracle Workers looked no further than their own backyard for initial inspiration. Rather than the more psychedelic meanderings of their peers, the original five-piece lineup stomped and snarled through layers of fuzz much like local deities the Sonics and the Wailers. Both of the…
With a sensibility that falls somewhere between the Residents and Can, this determinedly loopy Florida quartet likes nothing better than a good beer-bong-fueled jam session — the results of which they capture in real time, letting the audience handle the editing process later on its own. The title of the band’s “official” recorded bow isn’t…
Although Earth’s Dylan Carlson gained some degree of infamy for his role in arming longtime pal Kurt Cobain, the Washingtonian deserves far more credit for his efforts in dismantling rock music. Carlson’s blueprint seems to have been (a) remove the rock and then (b) remove the music. Everything that’s left went into the making of…
While bands have traded in gang imagery since rock’s beginnings, few have done so with the thuggish authenticity of this big, ugly cabal of blue-collar Brooklynites. Every bit as steely and rugged as the hardcore rappers who developed in the same borough — albeit a few neighborhoods over — the quartet manifests both antiquated macho…
New York’s Fred M. Cornog, who records under the nom de 8-track East River Pipe, is a lo-fi auteur by dint of circumstance alone. Despite its low-budget setting, his opulent pop is more in line with Brian Wilson’s isolationist period — or even Phil Spector’s monomania-than any contemporary bedsit poet. Not that he isn’t given…
Bassist Peter Steele, frontman of this consummately nihilistic Brooklyn dirge-metal-cum-goth-rock quartet, lives by the rebel’s credo so eloquently expressed by Marlon Brando in The Wild One. “Whaddaya got?” Steele’s unilateral misanthropy has been mistaken for sexism, racism and simple-minded poppycock — but only the last interpretation holds any water at all. Slow, Deep and Hard…
Mid-’70s fanzine guru (and former Gizmo) Eddie Flowers leads this loosely constructed Los Angeles aggregation through a variety of blaring, but somehow pacific improv-rock styles, all of which reinforce the band’s implicit motto: “The chemicals go in before the name goes on.” Silent Invisible Conversation takes its name from a line in the Can song…
Although certainly affected by the presence in their backyard of one of the most vibrant punk (and post-punk) scenes in America, Washington DC’s Eggs were clearly more impressed by the bucolic prog-jazz-folk musings of English cult heroes like Soft Machine and National Health. Admittedly more prone to dissonant digressions than either of those bands, the…
Trends may come and trends may go, but shtick springs eternal. This mock-rock trio’s gimmick may be a simple one — vintage West Coast hardcore classics reinvented as lounge-music ditties — but the execution (to say nothing of the timing) is pretty darn impeccable. New York’s Black Velvet Flag doesn’t miss a beat, going so…
