The backstory behind Bon Iver's first record, For Emma, Forever Ago is well-known: Musician goes to a hunting cabin in the woods for three months during a Wisconsin winter after separating from his band and his girlfriend. Heartache and angst get channeled into a bunch of songs about heartache and angst, sung in falsetto. Songs [...]
"There's a sort of black hole between finishing an album and it being released," says Wild Beasts' Tom Fleming. It's been roughly two years since the British band released Two Dancers, an album full of momentum and movement guided by singer Hayden Thorpe's unique falsetto. Between that time and now, the band toured extensively, as well [...]
Dinosaur Jr. played the whole of their 1988 album Bug at the 9:30 Club Saturday night. They had one opening act—the Keith Morris-fronted OFF!—but they also opened for themselves, sitting on stools while fellow '80s hero Henry Rollins interviewed them about Bug and the events that surrounded it. It was a powerful evening, from the size [...]
Bug is the last record you'd expect Dinosaur Jr. to dissect on stage. The seminal indie rock band's original lineup broke up during the 1988 album's supporting tour—a split that lasted until 2005 when the band reformed on good-enough terms. The resurrected partnership has toured and produced two strong albums, and now the group is exhuming Bug, [...]
If you knew nothing about The Feelies, you might think the band listened to early R.E.M. a tad too much. It's actually the other way around: The Feelies, active in Hoboken, N.J., and New York City since the late '70s, helped pioneer the '80s college-rock sound. With Lou Reed-esque sung-spoken lyrics and driving guitars on gems [...]
I was lucky enough to catch Sondre Lerche live at South by Southwest 2010's tribute to Big Star. Music can lift one up in times of sadness, and Lerche's aching rendition of "The Ballad of El Goodo" that night, four short days after the passing of Big Star's lead singer, Alex Chilton, was the perfect salvation [...]
Okkervil River’s densely lyrical, humanist brand of saloon rock attacks with a punk backbone and crescendos into high voltage, often thanks to baroque arrangements. Slowly perfected over seven albums, the stuff is instantly recognizable today as indie rock thanks to big-picture turning points in pop (Win Butler on the Grammys, Justin Vernon backing Kanye West, [...]
Alejandro Escovedo is one of those artists who has lived three or four lives in the space of one. He's seen what most have only read about in books, and thankfully, puts these experiences into his songs for us to hear. Escovedo brought his genre-spanning catalog to the 9:30 Club stage on Sunday with his [...]
It's easy to love The Black Angels. At the 9:30 Club last night, the band offered a wonderful aural mixing bowl of my favorite musical eras: huge pounding drums à la Maureen Tucker, big Epiphone guitars à la Johnny Cash, hooks straight out of late-'80s Madchester. The result was a gritty and sensual sound that, when paired with the [...]
Former Modern Lovers frontman and career oddball troubadour Jonathan Richman brought his songs and quirky dance moves to a packed and adoring 9:30 Club on Friday with long-time drummer Tommy Larkins. "When the new feeling I always get from playing music becomes an old feeling, you'll know that will be my last tour," he said. [...]
