Category: Music
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Carl Hancock Rux
Carl Hancock Rux is a grown man with grown-up views on race, sex and politics that burst out of his lyrics with humor, rage and angst. In a world where the pop success of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and Wyclef Jean shows that the mainstream audience won’t reject roots, culture and protest if they can…
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Carl Hancock – Rux Revue
Artist: Carl Hancock Title: Rux Revue Label: 550 Rating: 7/10 Carl Hancock Rux’s biography calls Rux Revue ‘an experiment of sorts, a kind of science project’. It is something alright, but I’m not sure whether you get Dr. Jeckyl or Mr. Hyde. Rux is a renowned poet whom The New York Times selected as “One…
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Ryan Shupe & The Rubberband
Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand are a breathtaking blast of manic musical virtuosity. Sheer joy seems to pour out of the speakers when they start playing, and it may be that they sound that way because the five members of the band–Roger Archibald (guitar, vocals), Colin Botts (bass, vocals), Craig Miner (banjo, bouzouki, guitar, mandolin…
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The Ramones
The Ramones are the first punk rock band. Other bands, such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, came before them and set the stage and aesthetic for punk, and bands that immediately followed, such as the Sex Pistols, made the latent violence of the music more explicit, but the Ramones crystallized the musical…
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The Rentals
Matt Sharp vocals Rod Cervera electric and acoustic guitars Jim Richards moog and arp synthesizers Kevin March drums a movement of decadence and celebration drifting loosely in and of short days and long nights in the back of a taxi rolling through scenes of afterhour discos and all night sex shows a quiet house without…
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The Rentals – Seven More Minutes
Artist: The Rentals Title: Seven More Minutes Label: Maverick Rating: 7/10 The new album by The Rentals, Seven More Minutes, is absolutely packed with great music. This disc has it all, from music that makes you want to jump around the house, to sweet and wistful refrains. Weezer’s ex-bassist Matt Sharp is the man responsible…
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The Rockfords
Carrie Akre (vocals) Mike McCready (guitar) Chris Friel (drums) Danny Newcomb (guitar) Rick Friel (bass, vocal) and special guest Nancy Wilson (vocal, “Riverwide”) It’s really quite simple. The five musicians who comprise The Rockfords share twenty years of personal friendship and professional music-making. In 1999, they came together in their home town of Seattle to…
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The Roots
1987. Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, second day of school. A student named Ahmir Thompson walks into the principal’s office seeking a lunch pass. At the same time, a freshman named Tariq Trotter stumbles in, gripped by school guards who caught him engaging in “extracurricular” activities with a ballerina in the…
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The Rockfords – The Rockfords
Artist: The Rockfords Title: The Rockfords Label: Epic Rating: 5/10 Not knowing what to expect, I took the Rockfords with me on a day of errands. The first track, “Adelaide”, starts off as a pop rocker and then the guitar solo comes straight out of a hair band video. I didn’t get the connection because…
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Remy Zero
The title of Remy Zero’s new album, The Golden Hum, could also be interpreted as their state of mind these days. Their 11 song Elektra debut mines both fragile and transcendent territory, breaking provocative new ground that truly places the fivesome in a category of their own. The band is quick to point out that…