Like Glen’s list these artists I have not seen live yet or I am not scheduled to see. Another criteria is that they must be currently active in some way, shape, or form. If an artist appears in more than one group, then they are listed together, for the most part. Also, the artists featured are my favorites except where noted and they are enumerated in order of how high they rank as my favorites.
1) Rage Against the Machine/The Nightwatchman aka Tom Morello/ Street Sweeper Social Club (not a favorite)
2) Australian Pink Floyd (technically PF is the favorite and not this cover group)
3) Tool
4) The Who
5) Bad Brains
6) Leonard Cohen
7) Against Me!
8) The Pogues
9) Arcade Fire
10) Nick Cave
11) The Almighty Defenders/ The Spooks (not fave)
12) Simon & Garfunkel
13) David Bowie
14) Beach Boys
15) Alice in Chains
16) Anti-Flag
17) Glassjaw
18) Descendents
19) Wu-Tang Clan
20) Ween
21) Lou Reed
22) The Stooges/Iggy Pop
23) Daniel Johnston
24) Kimya Dawson
25) Faith No More
26) Jesus and Mary Chain
27) Janes Addiction
28) The Kinks
29) The Vaselines
30) Incubus
31) Primus
32) New York Dolls
33) Black Sabbath
34) The Buzzcocks
35) X
36) The Mabuses
37) The Smashing Pumpkins
38) R.E.M
39) Rolling Stones
40) Neil Young
41) George Jones
42) Mudhoney
43) Bjork
44) Alice Cooper
45) Pharcyde
46) Immortal Technique
47) KRS-One
48) KISS
49) Strange Boys
50) Wavves
51) Devo
52) Beastie Boys
53) Shellac (NF)
54) Mika Miko (NF)
55) Vivian Girls (NF)
56) Cypress Hill
57) Paul McCartney (how could I forget him!)
58) Tom Waits
59) Mewithoutyou
60) MC5
K, I’ll stop here. There are plenty more I could name. I’m not exactly sure how active some of these bands’ statuses are, but basically if they weren’t on hiatus or completely disbanded, or dead I allowed it.
Chart Attack – Kate Harper
Hey, kids. Just for the record, a Harvard degree might not get you employed right away when you’re finished with school.
Tom Morello knows that much, since the Rage Against The Machine guitarist and former Audioslave member says he worked as a male stripper after he graduated from Harvard University with a bachelors of political science degree and moved to Los Angeles in 1986.
“When I graduated from Harvard and moved to Hollywood, I was unemployable,” Morello wrote in a new guest column for NME.com. “I was literally starving, so I had to work menial labour and, at one point, I even worked as an exotic dancer. ‘Brick House’ [by The Commodores] was my jam!
“I did bachelorette parties and I’d go down to my boxer shorts. Would I go further? All I can say is thank god it was in the time before YouTube! You could make decent money doing that job – people do what they have to do.”
Morello also explained how working as late California Democratic Senator Alan Cranston for two years in the 1980s politicized him… but made him never want to go into politics.
“I never had any real desire to work in politics but if there was any ember burning in me, it was extinguished working in that job because of two things: one of them was the fact that 80 per cent of the time I spent with the Senator, he was on the phone asking rich people for money. It just made me understand that the whole business was dirty. He had to compromise his entire being every day.
“The other was the time a woman phoned up to the office and wanted to complain that there were Mexicans moving into her neighborhood. I said to her, ‘Ma’am, you’re a damn racist,’ and she was indignant. I thought I was representing our cause well, but I got yelled at for a week by everyone for saying that! I thought to myself that if I’m in a job where I can’t call a damn racist a damn racist, then it’s not for me.”
You can see Morello perform as The Nightwatchman at a benefit for The Pablove Foundation, an organization that works to improve the lives of children with cancer, at Los Angeles’ Avalon Ballroom on Nov. 21.
That’s right boys and girls, Tom Morello used to be a stripper! Well, it doesn’t change anything, but it sure is hilarious. I wonder if he said “Fuck You, I won’t do what you tell me!” when ladies asked him to get naked haha.
Mark Sultan advised a would-be concert goer yesterday at 1:34 PM to “bring some friends who aren’t wearing jack johnson shirts, please.” He was referring to the King Khan & BBQ Show gig that was supposed to be held in St. Louis at the Off Broadway. Well, Sultan and my boy Arish “King” Khan never played that gig. They missed an early evening sound check and frankly never made an appearance at the venue at all. They somehow got arrested on their way to St. Louis in Oak Grove, Kentucky (home of really cheap gas). Their booking agent inquired that perhaps they stopped to take a piss. For all we know, a trooper may have noticed them and they are now sex offenders. They are out on bail, but their tour manager, Kristin Klein (above right), apparently is still in jail. She’s been driving the boys around on a suspended license. Tonight’s show has obviously been cancelled. As of 7:51 PM, Kristin is out of jail! The suspected drug found in the vehicle is mushrooms. That’s because Kristin foolishly posted a photo on her flickr of King Khan and Leo Chips with the caption “on mushrooms.”
Band: Devendra Banhart Label: Reprise Records Release: 2009
1. “Can’t Help But Smiling” – 8.8 2. “Angelika” – 7.3 3. “Baby” – 8.4 4. “Goin’ Back” – 8.7 5. “First Song For B” – 7.5 6. “Last Song For B” – 7.0 7. “Chin Chin & Muck Muck” – 7.8 8. “16th & Valencia Roxy Music” – 5.9 9. “Rats” – 7.5 10. “Maria Lionza” – 6.8 11. “Brindo” – 7.2 12. “Meet Me At Lookout Point” – 7.8 13. “Walilamdzi” – 7.9 14. “Foolin'” – 7.3
Comments: Banhart is a sell-out; he ditched independent powerhouse XL Recordings for mega-corporation Warner Group. Banhart’s signing brings out a fairly new market for Warner, as he’s equipped with a history of playing softie freak-folk (as opposed to the louder, noisier brand that has made Animal Collective a dime or two in the past decade) that appeals to a weird, but not all too unfamiliar demographic: WERS Daytime cronies, stoned Sam Roberts junkies (same thing as WERS Daytime cronies?), and wanna-be urban college students who desire some kind of “hipster” cred. Essentially Banhart hasn’t really changed his deal too much on What Will We Be. This time around, he will surely get more “mainstream-underground” air time (Album of the Month), but he’ll stay on the margins for just as long because he’s too folky for popular music. Listen to the first few tracks…he’s loosened up on the “freak” part of freak-folk, for whatever reason. The beat and style of a song like “16th & Valencia Roxy Music” is almost a joke that mirrors top 40 electro-pop. I’m not here to criticize Devendra for not being “indie” enough, but it’s moments like that in an album that make me sit back and go “where the fuck did this come from?” He tries his best Grizzly Bear impersonation on “Meet Me At Lookout Point” and he succeeds (though, in my opinion, it’s of a really non-exciting Grizzly Bear Veckatimest track). In fact, a good part of the album seems like a really wishy-washy Grizzly Bear set. I wouldn’t go so low to call this thing an utter disaster, but a lot of the songs seem to be formula based, whereas the minimalism on his classics (“The Body Breaks,” “Insect Eyes,” etc) is what makes them work.
“Reatard’s career has of late been characterized by many superlatives, but restraint is not among them. When he learned recently that he was scheduled to perform in the corporate headquarters of Hot Topic, he protested not by canceling the appearance but by arriving dressed only in a Speedo and intentionally so drunk that he walked in, threw up, and passed out on the floor.” – Death and Taxes Magazine
In This Light and On This Evening Editors 9.5 Skin and Bones Flashy Python 9.5 Julian Plenti is…SkyscraperJulian Plenti 9.5 Almighty Defenders Almighty Defenders 9.4 The Eternal Sonic Youth9.4 Living Thing Peter Bjorn and John 9.4 Everything Goes WrongVivian Girls 9.4 We Be XuxaMika Miko 9.4 Continue reading Best of the Rest (LPs)→
#1. Nature Is A Taker by Uninhabitable Mansions [Self-Released]
#2. Merriweather Post Pavillion by Animal Collective [Domino]
#3. Invisible Girl by The King Khan & BBQ Show [In The Red]
#4. Humbug by Arctic Monkeys [Domino]
#5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart [Slumberland]
6. 200 Million Thousand Black Lips [Vice Records] 7. The Strange Boys and Girls Club The Strange Boys [In The Red]
8. Great Escape The Rifles[Sixsevenine (WMG)]
9. Face ControlHandsome Furs [Sub Pop] 10.Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Phoenix [V2 (UMG)]
Artist: Kimya Dawson Full Title: Remember That I Love You Label: K Records Year: 2006
1) Tire Swing*- 10.0- One of my top ten favorite songs of all time! Very powerful for such a simple song. The guitar is merely a few plinks on a guitar, really just background sounds to Kimya’s ever endearing vocals. The lyrics provide great images of riding back and forth on a tire swing and forgeting “everything that had ever hurt our feelings.” I listen to this song almost every day and I never get sick of it, either I am crazy or it’s that catchy; I think it’s both.
2) My Mom- 9.7- Not quite as uplifting as the premier track, but certainly shares it’s catchiness. There’s a nice little bell sound, perhaps it’s a xylephone? I have no clue, but I dig it. Once again passionate vocals from Kimya. Lyrically this number describes, wait for it… Kimya’s mom and her state of health: dying in a hospital bed, “and there’s something in her blood, and there’s something in her leg, and there’s something in her brain.” You really feel for her and her genuine concern for her ailing mother. She naively commands ghosts to stop haunting her mom, so she can get strong; this is sad and humuorous all at once, a microcosm of Kimya’s discography (at least what I have heard).
3) Loose Lips*- 9.5- A cool protest song of sorts. “Fuck Bush and Fuck this war.” I can picture peaceful anarchsits screaming this song in the streets and dancing around burning flags, trying to persuade bystanders to join them. And when the cops come, they simply will start up again and “pretend nothing ever happened” as the song proclaims. It’s a moldy peachy version of an early Against Me! track I suppose. A fantastic sing along, to say the least. The “dupe” (or doop) thing tickles my fancy quite a bit.
4) Caving In- 9.3- The theme of her mom’s deteriating health arises again amongst other scattering thoughts. There’s a cool eastern guitar (probably not, but sounds sorta like it) in this track. This is sound, but not as good as the three that preceeded it.
5) Better Weather-9.3- Catchy as most of her tracks. In terms of music, for Kimya, as I have said before and she, herself as claimed, it’s all about the vocals. Most of the music is the same, not to say she doesn’t have range. In this tune, she delves into fatherhood, specifically her brother, who is now successfully raising his child. Uplifting :)
6) Underground-9.3- I think of 1960s radicals when I hear this song lol. One of the funniest lines appears in this song: “So, I tattoo instructions on my ass that say don’t ever put this body in a casket.” Kills me every time. She stresses that she DOES NOT want to live underground and who does?
7) I Like Giants*- 9.1-Nice and simple and catchy, like the others. I don’t have too much to say about this track. It’s a solid recording. I will note though, that there seems to be more going on then just guitar, or it’s better guitar playing? I don’t know. That xylephone (?) is back too lol.
8) The Competition- 9.2- Postive track about being special and saying “fuck you, I’m awesome, I don’t care what you think.” At some points, you feel sorry for the, young, poor, Ms. Dawson. Like, when people used to call her “fat” and told her that “she was better off dead.” Assholes. Well, it motivated her to make great music, so she proved them wrong. Yippie!
9) France- 8.9- Decent track, but nothing really stands out here to me. Though, I adore the lines, “David put that seven inch on…” “he said silly ass bitch that’s my favorite song.” David, you showed that silly ass bitch! Since, you got your song.
10) I Miss You- 9.1- An extremely brief, but really catchy tune!
11) 12/26*- 9.4- One of the sadder tracks about a massive earthquake in Indonesia on December 26. 2004. She then delves into the Iraq War and how it’s impossible to understand what these victims go through: losing their families, homes, etc. “A tragedy is a tragedy, no matter where it happens.”
12) My Rollercoaster*- 9.5- A superb finale about the ups and downs of this wacky world. Another fabulous sing along, well towards the end anyway, when abunch of folks sing the chorous and it gets real silly, but that’s the point. Just every day folks making music with their friends. Which brings me to my next point, where she incorporates lyrics from other famous songs like Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and ” Metalica’s “One.”
Overall, I highly recommend this “Outsider” album. I always appreciate ass kicking alternatives to traditional pop music. Remember that I LOVE YA!!! ;)
Comments: Love the band name! They sound eerily similar to their homosexual counterparts, Hunx and His Punx. What does that even mean? Well, if you are like Benny Boy Tan and don’t get the obscure reference, let’s just say lo-fi garage. If you listen to both bands, you’ll get a great idea. I don’t know if I just got a really crappy quality download or if this is the real deal, but if the vocals were clear this thing would be much better. We got some Herman’s Hermits in here! I would definitely see this guys live, so I better not forget them.
