Authors: Ricky Vigil
The Zion Curtain Falls Once Again: Brad Collins Returns to...
After ending his radio show Behind the Zion Curtain in 1991 and closing Raunch Records in 1997, Brad Collins became absent in Utah’s punk scene. Other record stores and radio shows carried on the spirit of the store and the show, but both became legendary parts of Utah’s underground lore. When Raunch Records reopened in December 2009, a void left in the Salt Lake punk scene was filled, but many old-school punk rockers still longed for the return of Behind The Zion Curtain. … read more
National CD Reviews – January 2012
New and recent releases from The Cure, The Devil’s Blood, Errors, Kepi Ghoulie, Laura Gibson, Majestic Downfall, Mickey Moonlight, The Slackers, Tim “Love” Lee and many more are reviewed. … read more
The Slackers: Rude and Reckless Radio Rebels
The Slackers aren’t a ska band. They aren’t a reggae band, or a punk band, or a garage rock band. According to vocalist/organist Vic Ruggiero, they’re a “Jamaican rock n’ roll” band. In listening to the band’s vast discography, you’ll find bits of The Velvet Underground crossing over with The Upsetters grooves, psychedelia mixing with dub, and Motown taking some heavy hints from Studio One. … read more
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Andrew Jackson Jihad: Optimism Through Pessimism
The music of Andrew Jackson Jihad often casts its gaze upon the darkest parts of humanity. The songs on Knife Man, their most recent album, deal with homelessness, selfishness, laziness, murder, hopelessness and more, but vocalist and guitarist Sean Bonnette doesn’t see his band as the ultimate bummer machine they appear to be. “I consider myself and our band to be pretty optimistic,” Bonnette says. … read more
Earth: Angels/Demons
In the world of heavy metal, the music of Earth has become legendary. The deafening style of drone doom pioneered by Dylan Carlson in the early ’90s helped to shape an entire subset of metal. But if one were to blindly listen to Earth’s recent aural offerings, metal would not come to mind. “I’ve always thought of genres as something the audience or the marketers place on you,” says Carlson. “To me it’s always just been rock n’ roll, and that’s enough.” … read more
Zerofriends: Creepily Accessible
The San Francisco-based Zerofriends creative collective has become known for their creepy art, largely inspired by classic horror movies. A friend recently asked Zerofriends artist Alex Pardee where the darkness of his art comes from. “I honestly don’t know—I never know how to answer that question. This is just something that has always been in me,” he says. It turns out that Pardee and Dave Correia just like scary shit. … read more
RSD Comics: Raunch
To celebrate the fifth annual Record Store Day, which takes place on April 21, 2012, we asked four Salt Lake record stores about the special relationships they’ve forged with some of their favorite customers. Brad Collins of Raunch profiled his favorite customer, Neb. … read more
Local Reviews: The Mooks
Before hearing it, I thought that the title track of this latest Mooks release might be a Spice Girls cover—these are SLC’s foremost purveyors of all things pop-punk and cuteness, after all—but that is not the case (though that probably would’ve been pretty cool, too). … read more
Converge: Honestly Aimed Arrows
“Every new record should be the best possible version of your band.” Jacob Bannon—artist, label owner and Converge vocalist—has taken time out of his day to talk to me about his band’s new album, All We Love We Leave Behind. “I’ve always held the idea that if you’re making art, then the next thing you do should be a new step forward for you. I want to push things further and become a more cohesive artist and more successful in some way.” … read more
Coliseum: Course Correction
“Humans hate change—they don’t accept it even 10 years later,” Coliseum guitarist and vocalist Ryan Patterson says. For nearly 20 years, Patterson has been making various forms of punk rock with the likes of National Acrobat, Black Cross and Black God among others, but it’s the early Motörhead-meets-Discharge material of Coliseum—who play Kilby Court July