Somewhere between the skeleton suit and the arena rigging, Phoebe Bridgers stopped being anyone’s secret. It was the first night
Somewhere between the skeleton suit and the arena rigging, Phoebe Bridgers stopped being anyone’s secret. It was the first night
Read More
Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile named themselves after the gray hills of mine tailings that still sit over northeast Oklahoma. The Picher field supplied more than half the lead and zinc used in World War I, and the waste, called chat, was left in the open for decades. Families picnicked on it. Kids sledded down it. Nobody tied the piles to the lead in those kids’ blood until much later, and by then Picher was on its way to becoming a ghost town. The OKC quartet sounds like that debt being collected. At Radio/East on a Thursday night, they played like demolition crew, and Austin, a city that has always made room for bands willing to inflict pain, took every hit. Who Loves the Sun is the latest in a catalog that keeps getting heavier and angrier, and nothing about this set suggested they plan to let up.
Read More
Last night, October 12 fast-rising Austin act Die Spitz returned to Salt Lake City for a make up show at Soundwell from August that had to be rescheduled due to member Ava Schrobilgen injuring her shoulder. The SLC date was one of a few shows the group had to reschedule. The sold out Monday crowd at the downtown spot that caps out at 650 seemed unfazed and respectfully watched Farmer’s Wife the indie rock band Die Spitz had brought along from Austin as their support act. The front row appropriately reflected the young female makeup of the foursome as the rail was lined with of age and underage young women ready to live out their rock and roll dreams with the ladies from ATX.
Read More
Detroit’s Jack White has spent close to three decades treating rock and roll like a contact sport. He locks your phone in a pouch at the door, keeps young bands pressing vinyl through Third Man Records, and lately has had less patience than most of his peers for keeping his politics to himself. Frozen Charlotte, his seventh solo record, picks up where 2024’s surprise-dropped No Name left off: blown-out blues, short fuses, garage rock with the grime left on. The band hasn’t changed, and that’s the point. Patrick Keeler on drums, Dominic Davis on bass, Bobby Emmett on organ. On a Wednesday night at Moody Amphitheater, Austin turned out again for Jack White, and in numbers. he gave them a set that hit hard, turning Moody Amphitheater into a Detroit garage and left fans with something to chew on afterward.
Read More
Built to Spill has been a reference point for indie rock music for more than three decades. The Boise band helped write the 90s indie rock playbook, and bands a generation younger are still working from it. Doug Martsch has been the singer, guitarist, chief songwriter, and only constant since 1992. Ten albums in, the songs hit as hard as they did the first time fans heard them. On Friday, September 25, Martsch brought the current trio, with Melanie Radford on bass and Teresa Esguerra on drums, to the Central Machine Works stage built last year. The show sold out. The crowd was split between lifers and newcomers, and both got 90 minutes of indie rock loyalty for their trouble.
Read More
Hours after playing a once-in-a-lifetime bill at Portland, Maine’s Thompson’s Point with Dinosaur Jr and Turnstile, Boston post-hardcore legends Fiddlehead weren’t ready to end their weekend just yet. At 2:30 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, September 27, a post came across my social media feed announcing a pop-up show at the MBTA’s Alewife Train Station in Cambridge, MA – going down in 12 hours. The post read “we may get shut down, we may be able to get thru one song or maybe multiple…” – by the morning the post was gone – but the word was out. An Instagram story confirmed the band would be playing around 2:30 p.m., telling people to show up early, but not too early and encouraging attendees to respect employees and commuters around them.
Read More
The Cavalera name is heavy metal royalty. Brothers Max and Igor dragged Sepultura out of Belo Horizonte and turned it into one of the most feared bands on the planet, then walked away. Whatever Sepultura did without them is a footnote. What the brothers did next is a sprawl of bands and records that hasn’t let up, and the bloodline didn’t stop with them. Max’s sons and stepson fill out his lineups and run outfits of their own. The family business is metal violence set to a downtuned riff, and business is good. On Monday, September 21, the Cavalera clan took over Come and Take It Live on Riverside for a full night of musical brutality with Soulfly, Nailbomb and Incite. Nobody in the building showed any sign of slowing down.
Read More
Ripplefest returned to South Austin’s Far Out Lounge September 17 through 20 for its sixth year of doom metal excess. The crowd came ready for all the sludgey riffs they could handle. Founded by Ryan Garney of Lick of My Spoon Productions, the festival has built a name as a family reunion for the stoner doom metal scene, pulling bands in from across the globe. The Cosmic Clash team was on the ground for all the Ripplefest action. Here’s what stuck with us.
Read More
What could bring out a crowd of experienced music lovers on a hot, sticky Tuesday, September 8 night? The progressive mastery of Stick Men. With Tony Levin on Chapman stick, Markus Reuter on touch guitar and Pat Mastelotto on drums, they are one of those three piece bands that somehow create a much larger sound than should be possible. The trio played a well crafted and substantial set supporting their September release of Let’s Thrak Again. This album is a direct descendant of King Crimson’s Thrak and that relationship set the musical agenda for the evening.
Read More
Los Angeles hardcore supergroup Squid Pisser hosted a packed lineup at Austin metal stronghold The Lost Well on Thursday, August 27, bringing their horror-infused attack to town. The masked outfit shares members with GWAR, Cancer Christ, Duck Duck Goose, and more. The Lost Well’s Airport Boulevard location is thoroughly broken in now, the bookings keep stacking up, and the underground metal scene keeps flourishing under the ownership of longtime Austin venue operators Marcello and Tasha Murphy.
Read More
Getting your first copy of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols is a rite of passage for kids getting into punk rock. Somewhere around 13–16 years old, everyone manages to get a copy of that record, either as a gift, a burned CD, or because someone’s hot older sister shoved it into your hands. Well, that’s how it went in my day. Now we’ve got playlists and Spotify, so the natural order of things has changed. But whatever. Kids are still finding out about the Sex Pistols, and that’s always a good thing like they did September 12 at Emo’s.
Read More
You must be logged in to post a comment.