Music Interviews
Waking Up with Jimmy La Valle: The Album Leaf’s New-Dawn...
Jimmy La Valle is The Album Leaf. His music is about sonic textures—not sonic fads. He creates fantastic instrumental compositions with depth and honesty while leaving room for the listener to interpret his work as they listen. It’s so well thought out and crafted with a spirit of progression (instead of the spirit of pretension) that it is easy to state that his music is among the best out in the indie world today. … read more
THE COUNTERCULTURE WILL BE TELEVISED: A Story About the Vans...
The Vans Warped Tour has become somewhat of a traveling punch in the face to underground and independent punk music. With a slew of corporate sponsors, Clear Channel Broadcasting support and extended MTV coverage, some may say the tour has nothing to do with punk rock at all. All opinions aside, the tour goes across
Out of the Coffin: Kim Nekroman Resurrects the Nekromantix
… and Carries On with the Horrorpops The Nekromantix’ Kim Nekroman, with his homemade coffin bass, stayed at the forefront of the European psychobilly scene for almost 16 years, until the band’s relocation to L.A. With his wife Patricia on upright bass, he picked up the guitar and formed the Horrorpops, who tread all over
Sample Jack: An Interview with Meat Beat Manifesto
It was around 1990 when I was staying up late on Sunday nights to watch 120 Minutes on MTV when Meat Beat Manifesto first grabbed my attention. The video to “Psyche-Out” came on. I was touched with the finest electronic music that aided in my discovery of the Wax Trax musicians. I began scrawling “Meat
When You Wish Upon A Star: An Interview with Ethan...
While researching previous Comets on Fire interviews in preparation for my own, I came across a word several times that I think adequately describes the direction or aesthetic of this band: organic. When I first read that word, and several times thereafter, I was curious how, or why, organic. Was it provincial? Was their sound
Versified Street Life Reinventing Bar Rock Hype: Interview with The...
I was doing a lot of drugs when I first heard the Hold Steady’s debut release, Almost Killed Me, in January 2004, and I was enraptured. I thought, “These guys are brilliant, they live the crazy drug lifestyle and use their experiences to produce this unbelievable art that people like me can really relate to.
Hardcore Realists: Death from Above 1979 Sneer at Glory
My impression of Canadian two-piece Death from Above 1979 pre-interview was that they don’t suffer a fool. That turned out to be true, but it also turned out to be true that Jesse Keeler, bassist for DFA1979, is non-fakely nice; he granted a 35-minute interview to SLUG while everyone else in the tour group was
Analogical Resurrection: An Interview with Erasure
When Erasure set out to promote 2003’s Other People’s Songs album, they hadn’t toured in four years; neither Vince Clark nor Andy Bell were sure if the fans would still be there. Perhaps they considered wearing the “irrelevant” tag the British press had so kindly tried to pin, with a nail gun, to their chest.
Tiny Horses in a Big, Big World: An Interview with...
Every little girl wants a pony and never gets one. Every teenage boy wants to be a rock star and never becomes one. There is hope, however, in this world full of forgotten dreams and empty stables. Enter The Ponys, the Chicago four-piece responsible for making some of the most exciting music in years.
Smoking to the Filter
The Struggles, Troubles, Steadfast and Momentum of Smoke or Fire There once was a band called Jericho…actually, there were two bands called Jericho. One was an aging Christian rock group trying to groove their way into heaven; the other was a punk band in Boston. One will embark on a reunion tour of the Bible