Sick Pills — Sickening Earlier today I was blasting the new CD Sickening from the New Bedford-based band Sick Pills. With all that ground thumping new wave goodness pouring from my open window, my normally bucolic, suburban street was transformed into what the Bowery must have sounded like some 40 years ago when Television or […]
It can be a gamble when a band tweaks their sound, especially when everything they’ve done beforehand is simply brilliant. Enter Boston’s Mean Creek, starting out with multidimensional bluesy Bruce Springsteen meets The Replacements alternative rock and progressing into an angsty, emphatic punk monster. Mean Creek keeps it highly amplified from the first track to […]
Every day more and more party goers are starting to embrace the underground music scene. I come from the early ’90s rave era, and I’ve noticed the new generation of ravers is no different from the early days of underground warehouse events. Everything is exactly the same — unity, love and respect in conjunction with […]
Surf rock that strays from the simple sounds of the sea and adds a little punk In the early 1960s, much of American Top 40 rock & roll was dominated by a Southern California phenomenon known as the surf sound. Made famous by the likes of Jan & Dean, The Rivieras, Dick Dale, and […]
If you should live out in Toad Suck, Arkansas (it’s a real place, look it up), the name Hope Anchor probably doesn’t immediately conjure up much, except perhaps some vaguely nautical term. But residents of the first colony to declare its independence from England know Hope Anchor is a direct reference to the seal of […]
We start this week off with some sad news: that Dave Lamb of Brown Bird is still battling leukemia. The band has been unable to earn a living for almost a year now due his illness. Thankfully friends and fans have rallied to the cause with generous donations to help them get by in what […]
DJ Dublin discusses EDM The term EDM has metamorphisized more quickly than any term in dance music since I can remember. EDM is short for electronic dance music, which could conceivably describe any music with a beat made on a machine. But in practice, it describes something more specific. Everything that’s presented as EDM falls […]
Musical Month of April 1. Friday, April 11: WBRU Rock Hunt Finals featuring Jetty, The Rare Occasions, The Stilts; $5; 7pm doors / 8pm show; All ages; The Met, 1005 Main St., Pawtucket, RI. Spring is here, and so is the annual WBRU Rock Hunt finals. The contest is often the shape of the local pop alt […]
April Shows that Cover Decades of Music Okee dokee folks… Technically it’s spring, though it isn’t spring in my book until the peepers start peeping. Those little frozen froggies should have been thawed and tweeting by now. They are late. Something is amiss. The “peepers” are generally pretty punctual. Right around St. Patrick’s Day […]
Josh Grabert tears through competition It looks like the good folks with the WBRU Rock Hunt got it right again this year. They usually do (not counting 1993 when a band intimately related to the author of this article lost out to Angry Salad…but I digress). And as with acts like The Schemers in 1982, […]