The News Review:
- Café Tacuba | Music Artist | Videos News Photos & Ringtones |…
- Surf Punks Oh No! Not Them Again!
- … Kid Rock And More In New Releases – News Story | Music…
- ‘All the key elements of Joy Division’s sound are represented…
- Berlin brings punk to Brewery
- MUSIC REVIEWS: Pop country/roots jazz and classical releases
- Dead classy – Sunday Magazine – Sunday Star-Times
Café Tacuba | Music Artist | Videos News Photos & Ringtones |…
MTV.com – Oct 9, 2007
getRhapRssFeed(710396 “artist” getRhapTracksRSS); Full BiographyWith rare objection Café Tacuba is credited far and wide as the preeminent band to have arisen from the rock en español movement of the early ’90s. The Mexican four-piece unfortunately isn’t well characterized by the rock en español tag for the “rock music sung in Spanish” descriptor does little justice to the stylistic diversity and creative strides showcased by Café Tacuba over the course of their career. No Café Tacuba album sounds quite like another for the band generally pursues a grand artistic vision for each project that goes all the way from the scope of the album to which musical styles will be fused to which collaborators are best suited for the performances to the actual packaging design of each respective release. For such creative reasons Café Tacuba is beloved by critics and cultural observers who appreciate such ambition and originality. On the other hand legions of followers worldwide are enamored with the band simply because of the music which is broadly appealing not only because of its distinction but also because of its fun madcap and ever-changing manner. This is especially true of the band’s first few albums — Café Tacuba (1992) Re (1994) and Avalancha de Éxitos (1996) — all of which are endlessly entertaining roller coaster rides of willfully whimsical stylistic fusion… In the wake of touring not to mention the streak of three popular and critically praised albums in a row Café Tacuba withdrew for a while. When they returned to work they holed themselves up in their own studio and spent roughly a half-year on experimental music that encompassed ambient electronica and musique concrète as well as collaborative work with the Kronos Quartet. Santaolalla liked the resulting music and deemed it ready for release as is. WEA had other ideas however and balked at the prospect of releasing an entirely instrumental album of experimental music; after all Café Tacuba had become one of the most popular bands in Mexico by this point and were on the brink of breaking into the international marketplace. Much was at stake — commercially that is. In the end WEA and Café Tacuba reached a compromise: if the band would record a second album of more conventional material the label would release both as a double-disc package and sell it for the cost of a standard single-disc album. And so Café Tacuba resumed studio work this time digging into their vast backlog of previously written material not yet released.
Surf Punks Oh No! Not Them Again!
PopMatters – Oct 9, 2007
There’s punk and then there’s the aimless musical fragments that serve as the backdrop for Steele’s narratives about girls cops “real” surfers and poseur surfers. Never mind the establishment or society’s ills. In Surf Punks’ world a crisis issue is “Too Many Guys Out” messing with their wave karma. The music itself is shrinky-dink played on silly-sounding keyboards and clumsy electronic drums. Oh No! Not Them Again! might be tolerable a sort of early-Barenaked Ladies-style piss-take were it at all clever. But the closest it comes is the deadpan TV send-up “People’s Court”. A hard-rockin’ cover of the Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” shows that beneath all the juvenilia there’s some real taste and SoCal ballad “Klo-Rene” is evidence Dragon and Steele could write actual songs.
… Kid Rock And More In New Releases – News Story | Music…
MTV.com – Oct 9, 2007
Rotem’s fingerprints all over it and is underscored by the first single “Do It Well. Jesus Superstar: Make no mistake about it Kid Rock hasn’t lost a shred of his ego in the four years it took him to put together his new LP. But the Devil Without a Cause has apparently found salvation since then as he’s now transformed into Rock N Roll Jesus. Dedicated to recently passed Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun the disc finds Rock backed by his Twisted Brown Trucker Band over songs like “Blue Jeans and a Rosary” “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” and “Half Your Age” a jab at someone who won’t be telling Rock she loves him anytime soon: the recently re-wed Pam Anderson. Forever Young: She Wants Revenge are still fresh having just released their self-titled debut last year but now they’re back with a… The disc produced by frequent Modest Mouse and Shins collaborator Phil Ek has been getting glowing reviews having made Rolling Stone’s annual Hot List. Especially colorful song titles include “Cigarettes Wedding Bands” “Lamb on the Lam (In the City)” and “The General Specific. Moving Units?: Doing the dance-punk thing are Los Angelenos Moving Units who hope their moniker comes to fruition following the release of Hexes for Exes. The group’s second LP sounds bigger than the act’s previous releases thanks to additional electronic-drum and synthesizer sounds and contributions from a new fourth member guitarist Victor Velazquez. “The Kids From Orange County” points out the fact that said L. neighbors can’t live without the metropolis while “Paper Hearts” a song about lost love takes the album in a darker direction.
‘All the key elements of Joy Division’s sound are represented…
NME.com – Oct 9, 2007
It?s a shame particularly in light of all the recent attention focused on them for both reasons good (Control) and bad (the death of Tony Wilson) that two of the band?s key members should be at loggerheads but let?s forget about that for the moment; this after all is the soundtrack to a film about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis and should therefore be judged on how well it tells the story of their first band. The answer to that question is well? succinctly. Along with some of Joy Division?s finest recordings (?Love Will Tear Us Apart? ?Atmosphere?) and even an impressively doppelgänger-ish ? and thus utterly pointless ? take on ?Transmission? by their screen alter-egos all the key elements of Joy Division?s sound are represented here: the mechanical non-grooves of Kraftwerk?s ?Autobahn? and Iggy?s ?Sister Midnight?; the cold Eno atmospherics of Bowie?s ?Warszawa?; the wake-up-call punk of the Buzzcocks and the Pistols (amphetamine-addled live versions of ?Boredom? and ?Problems? respectively) and those prior-to-punk touchstones of every early-?70s teenager Roxy Music and the Velvets. There are more obscure inclusions (John Cooper Clarke?s ?Evidently Chickentown? rant Supersister?s ?She Was Naked?) and an adequate Killers cover of ?Shadowplay?. The truth is 90 per cent of the music here originates from albums that if you don?t own already you should. This music works brilliantly in the context of the film but if you?re looking to delve deeper into the mindset of Ian Curtis and Joy Division there are better ways to spend your money. 7 out of 10 Share this story:… Along with some of Joy Division?s finest recordings (?Love Will Tear Us Apart? ?Atmosphere?) and even an impressively doppelgänger-ish ? and thus utterly pointless ? take on ?Transmission? by their screen alter-egos all the key elements of Joy Division?s sound are represented here: the mechanical non-grooves of Kraftwerk?s ?Autobahn? and Iggy?s ?Sister Midnight?; the cold Eno atmospherics of Bowie?s ?Warszawa?; the wake-up-call punk of the Buzzcocks and the Pistols (amphetamine-addled live versions of ?Boredom? and ?Problems? respectively) and those prior-to-punk touchstones of every early-?70s teenager Roxy Music and the Velvets. There are more obscure inclusions (John Cooper Clarke?s ?Evidently Chickentown? rant Supersister?s ?She Was Naked?) and an adequate Killers cover of ?Shadowplay?. The truth is 90 per cent of the music here originates from albums that if you don?t own already you should. This music works brilliantly in the context of the film but if you?re looking to delve deeper into the mindset of Ian Curtis and Joy Division there are better ways to spend your money. 7 out of 10 Share this story:.
Berlin brings punk to Brewery
Penn State Digital Collegian – Oct 9, 2007
It’s not everyday that a well-known music magazine like Alternative Press claims a small punk rock band from Philly is the best thing since At The Drive-In and Fugazi. “It’s pretty mind-blowing” drummer Jeff Meyers said. “The very first sentiment [in the review] pretty much tells people to ‘forget about your Fugazis and At the Drive-Ins. ‘ It’s kind of uncomfortable because those are the bands that made us what we are and are big influences of what we do. It’s very flattering that they think we’re doing something even as good as them or even better.
MUSIC REVIEWS: Pop country/roots jazz and classical releases
Modesto Bee – Oct 9, 2007
Amorosi THE MEKONS “Natural” (Touch n’ Go 3 ½ stars) “Natural” as in au naturel stripped-down and folkie. That’s a bit unexpected coming from the Mekons the punk rock consortium of Jon Langford Tom Greenhalgh Sally Timms and other subversive pranksters that came together at Leeds University thirty years ago. But if the Mekons aren’t making such a big noise this time around their excursion into British folk minstrelsy around an end-of-days campfire is as winningly ramshackle as always if a tad darker than usual. “Dark Dark Dark” to be exact as Greenhalgh puts it on the first song. Still this music is as resilient in its own way as high-volume rebellions like the 1989 album “Rock `n’ Roll” and songs such as Langford’s reggae bounce “Cockermouth” and Greenhalgh’s clangorous “Zeroes and Ones” spread the bad news with mischievous glee. -Dan DeLuca JOSE GONZALEZ “In Our Nature” (Mute 3 ½ stars) Jose Gonzalez’s “In Our Nature” may be the loudest quiet album of the year… But if the Mekons aren’t making such a big noise this time around their excursion into British folk minstrelsy around an end-of-days campfire is as winningly ramshackle as always if a tad darker than usual. “Dark Dark Dark” to be exact as Greenhalgh puts it on the first song. Still this music is as resilient in its own way as high-volume rebellions like the 1989 album “Rock `n’ Roll” and songs such as Langford’s reggae bounce “Cockermouth” and Greenhalgh’s clangorous “Zeroes and Ones” spread the bad news with mischievous glee. -Dan DeLuca JOSE GONZALEZ “In Our Nature” (Mute 3 ½ stars) Jose Gonzalez’s “In Our Nature” may be the loudest quiet album of the year. With little more than his acoustic guitar and soft tenor voice Gonzalez works up a tense insistent atmosphere built on droning bass notes and percussive finger-picking. A Swede of Argentine descent Gonzalez recalls South Americans such as João Gilberto and Caetano Veloso and Brits like Nick Drake and John Martyn. However his second album doesn’t sound like an echo of the past: its exploration of the nature of violence and war are fully contemporary.
Dead classy – Sunday Magazine – Sunday Star-Times
Stuff.co.nz – Oct 9, 2007
Fellow Dunedinite Michael Prain plays drums. And recent Australian addition Lachlan Anderson is on bass. Together they knock out a minimalist punk racket so punchy and passionate it renders most of the audio wallpaper being made in this country instantly irrelevant. The recipe is simple enough. Anderson and Prain lay down rhythms that are fast and heavy yet groovy as hell because they leave tiny gaps in precisely the right places. Like Duke Ellington said it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. And Wilson bashes a stream of splintery riffs out of his guitar and shouts barks screams and yelps rather than sings… “I also loved The Skeptics Straitjacket Fits The Clean The Chills The 3Ds. They all wrote songs that felt like they said something about this country and as teenagers we could really relate to them. Our music definitely shares a lot of qualities with those bands; you sense a certain isolation in it and frustration but also some kind of optimism. ” For the past few years these unlikely looking Aotearoa punk ambassadors have relentlessly toured Australia America the UK and Europe often sharing the stage with cult bands such as Wolfmother Blood Brothers and Slint. During a rare break in their touring schedule in August Carter joined them in New York to record the album. “He helped us to develop a lot more emotional range” said Wilson. “We’ll never be an easy-listening band by any means but this new record is a lot less brutal than our first one.