Everybody had such high hopes for 2000 and beyond. Flying cars. Robots. Artificial-reality sex suits where you could get jungle-deep with glamazon love-bots in the privacy of your own underwater pleasure chamber. But here we are; it’s practically 2003, and we’ve got none of that. Indeed, the future has failed us. So perhaps it’s fitting […]
Josh Hooten
Posted inMusic
I Am Old
But You’re Never Too Old for Hardcore
Snapcase Wed Oct 9 B Complex I love Snapcase. There. I said it. It’s a safe bet that I’m twice as old as most of their fans. I’m a veritable dinosaur in the hardcore scene. When I go to shows the kids try to carbon-date me. (Or they think I’m the landlord.) But, whippersnappers be […]
Posted inMusic
Battery
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Battery Thurs Sept 12 Aladdin Theater Dear Battery, The World’s #1 Metallica Tribute band, I’M A HUGE FAN!!! Not of your band; I’ve never heard your band (technically), but I’m a huge Metallica fan. The good years, i.e. anything up to The Black Album. From Load (Load of crap!) onwards, Metallica can suck it. I’m […]
Posted inMusic
Strike Anywhere
American hardcore punk music, generally speaking, is only good when Republicans are in office. Let’s look at the bigger bands during the Reagan/Bush years: Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, MDC, Suicidal Tendencies, Minor Threat. It seemed like every band that dared call themselves hardcore had at least a passing disdain for politics, and said so in […]
Posted inMusic
Bust Loose
!!!=Fun Fun Fun
!!! Thurs June 6 Crystal Ballroom Art school has a way of producing great artists by frustrating them until they turn into musicians. So it was with the Talking Heads at the Rhode Island School of Design in the early ’70s, and so it was with !!! in the mid-’90s, whose members came together on […]
Posted inMusic
Meet The Melvins
Rock ‘n’ Roll Shut-ins Represent
Melvins Sun May 19 Crystal Ballroom You’re in a long-lived and never-more-popular rock band. Two, actually. You’ve played Ozzfest. You live in Hollywood. (All right, North Hollywood.) You’ve got legendary hair; hair people talk about, hair that gets noticed. People love you and follow you around. Yes, the lights of fame have fixed themselves on […]
Posted inMusic
The Uplift in the Get Down
Blackalicious Drops Blazing Arrow
Blackalicious Blazing Arrow (MCA) The Gift of Gab, emcee of the Bay Area’s Blackalicious, is the Rain Man of rap. If you’ve ever seen him perform (with DJ/Producer Chief Xcel, Blackalicious’ other half) you know what I’m talking about. His rhyming skills have evolved to a point that, at times, they resemble a psychological aberration […]
Posted inMusic
The Haunt
Milemarker Pulls Back the Curtain
Milemarker Fri Jan 25 Blackbird Milemarker will put the haunt to you big time. It’s partially the eerie tones pulled out of the keyboard and the chilling voice of Roby Newton curling around the cacophony, but mostly it’s the psychological terror in the lyrics that’ll give you the shivers–“trading individuality for a pre-packaged identity” kind […]
Posted inMusic
Live Fast Die Young
Hilarity, Sincerity, Obscurity
CHARLES BRONSON Complete Discocrappy (625/Youth Attack/Disgruntled) Charles Bronson (the band) played fast and snotty hardcore between 1994 and 1997. Complete Discocrappy is a two-CD release of 124 songs, plus a short film of live performances and outtakes from various Charles Bronson (the actor) movies. Hailing from DeKalb, Illinois, Bronson (the band) had an appeal few […]
Posted inMusic
A Beacon of Light
No Slayer, No Love. Know Slayer, Know Love
Slayer Dec 4 Roseland Theater There are a million stories out there that begin like this: “I saw Slayer and it was fucking nuts.” Here’s mine: Knowing the show would sell out, I got my ticket the day they went on sale, Reign in Blood playing on my Walkman as I bought it. My humungous […]
Posted inMusic
Rebel Girls
Plugged-in Summer Camp Aims to Empower
Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls Aug 20-25 Portland State University Great ideas have a way of forcing themselves into reality. Misty McElroy has had a great idea for nine years that is finally going to see the light of day on August 20th. Misty’s idea is the Rock ‘n‘ Roll Camp for Girls–a week-long […]
Posted inMusic
All Grown Up Now
No Longer 15-Year-Old Meatheads
Berzerk w/ Toys that Kill, Scared of Chaka, Pale Thurs Aug 9 Pine Street Ask lead singer Joanne Belesiotis when Berzerk started, and she can tell you the exact day: “November 14th, 1995. We celebrate our anniversary. We’re cheesy, ” Joanne confesses, her emotional attachment to the band obvious in her sheepish grin. She can […]