Lou Reed is a fascinating artist. His music broke rules, whether they be societal bound of acceptability or musical conventions. But above all else, Lou Reed is one of rock’s great storytellers. He invented characters with practically every song, all of whom were unique and interesting, and this solid backing as a narrative expert is what allowed the more subversive aspects of his music to succeed. Lou Reed’s first widely-distributed work, and, many would say, his greatest, was done with a New York band called the Velvet Underground. You may have heard of them. Though the band never achieved widespread … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Lou Reed

Artist Spotlight courtesy of Nunez Happy Halloween boils and ghouls! Today we’re going to be jamming out some songs from the spookiest band of all time. From the depths of the terrifying hell that is New Jersey comes…… THE MISFITS!!!!!!!!! The Misfits started in 1977 and lasted for an astounding 6 years. You can argue that without Doyle and Only we wouldn’t have these amazing songs, but you would be wrong! All credit is due to the great creeping pervert demon weirdo that is Glenn Danzig!! Fvck Michael Graves. The Misfits played fast, loud songs about monsters, murder and sex … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: The Misfits – The Danzig Era

I love Artist Spotlights and the enthusiasm we have for our favorite bands. We talk about what makes an album great, but I’m going to talk about pure live music. Crash Worship is an obscure live act from 20-odd years ago. They were a drum circle jam band. I can barely name their songs or their albums, and I have no idea what any of the band members’ names are. I’m not sure any of their songs have words, or are even actual composed music, but their shows were among the most awe-inspiring I’ve ever been to. I first saw … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Crash Worship

How a short (5’2”), chubby human Muppet Paul Williams became an “all purpose ’70s celebrity,” (thanks for that one, Allmusic!) and why did he disappeared for about 30 years afterwards. Mr Williams was born in Oklahoma, son of an architectural engineer and a homemaker. As a consequence of his father’s job, the family moved around a lot, leading to a lonely childhood. After his father’s death in a car accident, he moved to California, where he was raised by an aunt. As a child, young Paul appeared in talent shows, and attempted to make it as an actor, but his … Continue reading Artist Spotlight – Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Paul Williams

Around the turn of the millennium before Columbine and 9/11, one of the biggest pop cultural phenomena was Eminem, a rapper who wowed Whites and Blacks alike through tracks with curse-filled verses that verbally stomped on the backs of homosexuals and women. As a teenager in 1999, I was also taken in by Eminem’s Slim Shady LP. Perhaps it was mostly the hype and backlash maybe mixed in with the novelty of a White guy who could actually rap well. I also liked his next album, although not quite as much, but once the one after that had come out, … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Eminem (Part 1 of 2)

I admit it: I own a theremin. I assembled it from a kit that my brother and I bought online in the mid-90s, long before every dork who never got laid was posting theremin interpretations of the Super Mario Bros. theme song on YouTube. I know that doesn’t make me special. It just means I did a nerdy thing before it was nerd-cool. Of course, none of that would have been possible without Clara Rockmore. A violin prodigy who had to give up the instrument because of tendinitis, she was the theremin’s first and only virtuoso. Without her performances of classical … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Clara Rockmore – Progenitrix of a Thousand Theremin Nerdgasms

Coil was a transgressive band born of the fine English tradition of visionaries, weirdo magicians and perverse madmen. They took inspiration from people like William Blake, Austin Osman Spare, Alexander Shulgin, Ian Sinclair, Aleister Crowley, even William Burroughs (although he was American) and obviously Genesis P-Orridge (more on that in a moment), while using “cut-up technique, ritual drug use, sleep deprivation, lucid dreaming, tidal shifts, John Dee-like methods of scrying, instrument glitches, SETI synchronization and chaos theory” (thanks Wikipedia) and apparently a lot of gay sex for inspiration (Christopherson and Balance went through some apparently wild hedonistic phases). How you … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Coil

Buenos Dias, and welcome to the artist spotlight on Louise Wener and some blokes Sleeper. They were the apotheosis of bands with the star power chanteuse with , you know, some instruments behind them.‘Sleeperbloke’ became the term used for the guys at the back who aren’t the singer. (See also Paramore, Garbage, Echobelly etc) if Sleeper are mentioned at all in the press now it’s because of this. Which I think sells them short. They were several cuts above the Britpop forgetables. They formed in 1992 , with guitarist Jon Stewart and Louise Wener recruiting Diid Osman and Andy Maclure via an … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Sleeper

Artist Spotlight courtesy of Ynce Iche Hi, and welcome to my first (albeit repeatedly postponed) artist spotlight on the Avocado! I wrote it all today without editing, both because I’m a damned fool and because I’ve had a shit week. Luckily, a shit week is the best week for this particular subject matter. Crywank is the nom de plume of acoustic punk artist James Clayton, or was, until the lineup expanded to include bassist Tom Connolly and drummer Dan Watson in 2013. Alternating between crude, raw, expressions of pain and bitchy sarcasm, delivered with simple chords in an off-key wail, their … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Crywank – Narcissism As An Art Form

I’ve always thought of Ladytron as rainy-day music. Not as in, you stay inside and curl up on your sofa with a blanket, a novel, and a warm cup of tea. More like, it’s raining but you’re out in the city at midnight anyway, and you drop some molly on the train before forgetting your umbrella and getting separated from your friends, and there are a lot of lights and loud sounds, and it’s basically a one of those movie scenes where the protagonist walks deliberately through a nightclub, in some kind of daze, unaffected by the throbbing beat and … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Ladytron

This article is the work of commenter Man with Lute. A$AP Rocky is fun. That’s why I like him. His music is fun. It exudes fun even when the song also exudes the flavor of too much cough syrup and dehydration. The beats are big and the braggadocio is bigger. He be that “pretty motherfvcker.” Rocky was born in Harlem, lived in Pennsylvania and North Carolina for certain times then went back to Harlem. His father was involved in drug dealing and arrested, as was Rocky. His brother was shot and his father died in 2013. His mentor and friend … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: A$AP Rocky

Buenos ding dong diddly dias. I’ve used ‘Eres Para Mi’ in two previous spotlights for Ana Tijoux and Mala Rodriguez. This time I’m focusing on Julieta Venegas herself. Here’s her solo take She’s not a bad rapper, as well as singing and playing the accordion. (She also plays the guitar, piano, cello and violin.) Born in California in 1970, she was raised in Tijuana and was one of the founder members of Tijuana No! A Mexican Ska/Punk band. Which are a little different from her solo releases but she has retained the reggae influence. Her music is a lot mellower … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Julieta Venegas

Sometimes you have to remind yourself, listening to Rodrigo y Gabriela, that you’re only hearing two guitarists. Not a drummer, not an 808, not a bunch of samples. Not a hurricane, though you might be forgiven for thinking that. Here’s their first appearance on Letterman, which is also when I first became aware of them. Obviously, there are many guitar virtuosos out there, and many musicians who layer what we call traditional musical elements over contemporary underpinnings. But something about the way Rodrigo y Gabriela combine these styles lands them in the sweet spot. It may have to do with … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Rodrigo y Gabriela

Bruce Springsteen (and the E Street Band to get really technical about the gist of this write up). I’ve been listening to him dating back to my childhood. My mother was a big fan. So if you end up hating this write up just blame her. I usually do when something goes wrong anyways (kidding, somewhat). I thought a couple times about attempting to tackle them for one of these. But a 40+ year career? 18 studio albums, 5 live albums, and 8 compilation albums? Too daunting! Can’t be done DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED! You’re not a journalist, you’re barely a writer! But … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Bruce Springsteen

Who better than a machine to tell you about Kraftwerk, the band who became one with their machines? Originally formed formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, Kraftwerk pioneered what electronic music might, could and did become. The band’s name in their native German means “power station,” so that 80s American supergroup fronted by Robert Palmer and a bunch of robotic dancing women? Not so original. Anyway, “original electronic music” at the time was either unheard of, or at best a novelty (or both, “two things”), even after Walter/Wendy Carlos’ Moog had switched on Bach rather that the … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Kraftwerk – Rise Of The Machines

Let’s start where I started with Mirah. If you can, I’d like you to put headphones on for this track, so you can hear everything — every intake of breath, every vibration of the string quartet, even the slow decay of the timpani. You can even imagine you’re sitting in your car in the rain, like I was when I first heard this song. That was “Cold Cold Water,” the first track off of Mirah’s second full-length album, Advisory Committee, and it’s one of those rare moments when an artist and producer happen onto each other at just the right time … Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Mirah