Black Watch

It’s astonishing that a group as dedicated to quality and craft as California’s Black Watch could go for two decades with a cult following the size of a kitchen sponge. Literature professor/bandleader John Andrew Frederick and his cohorts have become experts at straining influences — mostly ’80s British guitar pop, with a sprinkling of Dylan…

Green Pajamas

Over several decades now, Seattle’s Green Pajamas have quietly built a body of work equal to any under the broad banner of psychedelic rock. Stalwarts Jeff Kelly (singing, most of the songs, a multitude of instruments) and Joe Ross (bass, enough songs to be the Colin Moulding to Kelly’s Andy Partridge) keep the genre alive…

Art Bergmann

“Give me some emotion / Something I can chew on / Some honesty and hatred / Some lustful embraces.” These lyrics say a lot about the work of Art Bergmann. The Canadian singer/songwriter has never been a musical radical — his melodies tend to be easily digestible to anyone with a taste for heartland rock…

Porcupine Tree

Like many ultimately frustrating musical and artistic movements, progressive rock began with only the best of intentions. But what started as a daring and experimental blending of hard rock, krautrock and psychedelia swiftly became a formulaic exercise in genre formalities, with virtuoso musicianship borne of classical training not just a requirement but the raison d’être…

Mastodon

Though often shunned by conservative fans for not being “true” metal, Mastodon continues to gain in popularity by pushing the limits of what its record store bin is meant to contain. Formed in Atlanta by veterans of Social Infestation, Four Hour Hogger and, most significantly, experimental metal acts Lethargy and Today Is the Day, the…

Baroness

If you’re looking for a new metal mecca, Savannah, Georgia is an unlikely location. But somehow the bifurcated town, home to both centuries-old plantation mansions and the Savannah College of Art & Design, birthed several forward-thinking metal acts. While Kylesa is often cited as leader of the brutal pack, Baroness has become the highest-profile band…

Flash Cooney & the Deans of Discipline

With a tongue-twister of a title, songs called things like “Cute & Drunk” and a cover that shoves the band’s glam trash aesthetic into your retinas, you’d be forgiven for dismissing Flash Cooney & the Deans of Discipline as low-rent hair metal wannabes. Though the Deans had roots in the CBGB scene of the ‘70s…

Crawling Walls

Albuquerque’s Crawling Walls took advantage of being far from the East and West Coast factions of the ’80s garage rock revivalist hordes and forged their own way through punky psychedelia while still staying faithful to the style’s tropes. Made up of songs originally found on a pair of cassette-only demos, Inner Limits exits the garage…

Seclusions

The names on the back cover of the Seclusions’ only album raise eyebrows immediately: Patti Smith drummer Jay Dee Daugherty provides the beat, session king Busta (Cherry) Jones (Fripp, Eno, Talking Heads) lays down the bass, fellow session ace and future Television axeman Jimmy Rip(p) riffs away on guitar, while Joey Ramone, his brother Mitch…

Contributors

These folks either wrote reviews that appear on the site or wrote for Trouser Press magazine. If anyone listed below cares to E-mail us with a link you’d like added, just let us know. And ditto if anyone is AWOL from this list. Grant AldenDavid AntrobusJem AswadTroy J. AugustoMichael AzerradCary BakerMichael BakerEmily BeckerSeth BenderJohn BergstromArt…