Ezra Ace Caraeff

Top 10 of 2005 Since everyone else gets to do one, here is my top 10 list for the year. 1. Jamie Lidell – Multiply To this day I still can’t tell if this is a self-parodying genre exercise, or somehow this white British dude found a way to channel the sex and swagger of […]

The concept for Goldrush’s Ozona was birthed when the Oxford band found themselves broken down in Ozona, Texas—a peculiar stretch of no-man’s-land desert. Making the best of a bad situation, the band befriended the town, shot some guns with the locals, and later dedicated an album to the little Texas town that sheltered them. The […]

Best. Idea. Ever. In an act of pure simplistic genius, music fan Patrick Misterovich of Springfield, Missouri invented PEZ MP3, which, as the name implies, is a PEZ dispenser with built in MP3 player. Holding 512 MB (about 120 songs or so) and run on a single AAA battery, it’s activated by a flip of […]

For close to 10 years now, Badman Recordings has become one of the most well-respected, yet underrated, indie labels around. Focusing primarily, yet not exclusively, on “slow rock” and singer/songwriters, Badman artists (My Morning Jacket, Mark Kozelek, Hayden) all share a distinct level of quality and individual charm. Label founder Dylan Magierek talks about the […]

You forget that 30 years ago, Bruce Springsteen wasn’t a star. Instead he was the latest in a series of “next Bob Dylans,” who was two albums deep into a career that was all hinging on one more shot: the “holy-crap-I-just-spent-six-months-writing-one-song” opus that would become the album Born to Run. Now handsomely reissued as a […]

Being an indierock band today is harder than ever. Take the case of Swords (or for those still holding on to 2002, the Swords Project), a local band that seems to have everything in line to make that jump from day-job indierocker to successful indierocker. They’ve toured alongside well-established bands (Stephen Malkmus, the Gloria Record), […]

“I dreamed I was Richard Pryor/Running on fire down the Sunset Strip/And as the flames burned brighter, my head grew lighter/And I watched the flesh fall from my fingertips,” so starts Wall to Wall Sessions, the latest from Chicago singer/songwriter Chris Mills. It’s a bold and auspicious introduction to an album that is large in […]

After a brief breakup and the departure of their most well-known member (Jimmy LaValle of the Album Leaf), San Diego’s Tristeza has resurfaced. With a revamped lineup and a more streamlined sound, the instrumental quintet seems to have finally hit their stride and released their most ambitious album in their seven years of existence. A […]

Although you probably don’t think you know it, you know Todd Barry. The actor/comedian has been seen on Chapelle’s Show, Sex and the City, Dr. Katz, and The Larry Sanders Show, as well as in such fine cinematic works as Road Trip and Pootie Tang—not to mention an upcoming DVD release on Sub Pop. Part […]

Yeah sure, you love that new Sufjan Stevens album, and we all know you’re just totally nuts about the Iron and Wine/Calexico split. But what about all those records that slide under the cracks—the great albums by bands that not even you, Mr./Ms. Indie Connoisseur, have heard of? Here is a little roundup of some […]

Lil’ Kim may be in prison, but I am not about to feel bad about her 366-day perjury sentence, which stemmed from a grand jury investigation regarding a 2001 shootout at the world’s most dangerous commercial radio station, New York’s Hot 97. Fact is, Kim’s sentence has been well used to bring attention to the […]