As a side project for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s guitarist Judah Bauer and his brother Donovan, 20 Miles is more blues influenced then Jon Spencer.   However, this is no traditional blues group.  The brother’s draw from the late 60’s early 70’s Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart’s Faces, as well as R.L. Burnside and the Grateful Dead.   With a jam band  foundation, 20 Miles could be compared to such contemporary bands as  Phish or Blues Traveler. The bands first studio effort, 1998’s Continue Reading

With the buzz of static and the whirring of sounds of unknown origin, we enter the lofty and epic world of Dredg’s second concept album to date: El Cielo. Stirring Zepplinisms, and ad hoc prog aplenty it’s hardly a very cautious follow up to the recently re-released, Leitmotif album (Interscope). Together for nearly a decade, Dredg’s often intense yet strangely melodic sound is something of an acquired taste. Fluid, though endlessly tangential, fans of the band are becoming well accustomed Continue Reading

Released in the UK on 9 December and featuring a typically innovative and contentious tracklisting of Pop, Fan, Remix and Live selections by journalists Miranda Sawyer and John McReady, former Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, New Order’s ‘Retro’ looks set to keep those pub arguments fresh and alive if nothing else. Everyone has their favourite and everyone always appears to align themselves with one particular order: the ‘singles’ New Order, the ’12 “’ New Order, ‘Early’ Continue Reading

Picture yourself tied to a bed in a motel room in downtown New York in a motley but strangely erotic get-up of rubber and black leather. You might be a director. A movie star. A private detective. A voyeur of sorts. And lying there you are beset by a swarm of pounding, heavy wrist action guitars and hammer beats. The blinds are down and the rain curls like the veins of a neighboring psycho from the ceiling. You are in Continue Reading

Sometimes they appear out of the blue, directionless: untried and true. These are Curt Kirkwood’s words from the song ‘Untried’, but they just as ably summarise the lightning strike success of Novoselic’s former band, Nirvana. And it’s inevitable that we start here, as this is surely what everyone wants to be talking about. But lets end it here too: lightning rarely strikes twice, if at all in exactly the same location. It’s an imponderable task asking oneself where Kurt Cobain Continue Reading

Originally from Nashville, Tenn, Bullets of Orange have acquired rapid CMJ chart success. With this achievement, the alternative rock band sign with Larkspur, California-based 33rd Street Records and prepare to nationally release their self-titled album on January 28, 2003. Bullets of Orange unite a post-grunge attitude with a Brit Pop sensitivity that has become so popular in the wake of such groups as Coldplay, Oasis, and Travis.  However, Bullets have a unique way of constructing songs, which sets them apart Continue Reading

Elvis Costello is quite possibly one of the most prolific artists to emerge from the punk/new wave scene in the late 70’s.  While his earlier work was angst driven with a pop enthusiasm, Costello has experimented with literally every genre throughout his career.  From the Country influenced Almost Blue, the R&B flavor of Kojak Variety to classical music on The Juliet Letters, it seems there is nothing this Elvis won’t try.  After his collaboration with Burt Bacharach, Painted From Memory, Continue Reading

Well – it wouldn’t be Christmas without Del Boy Trotter, Harry Potter or Lord of The Bloody Rings now would it? And though it’s arguable which is likely to be the more remarkable resurrection in 2005 – the bringing back to life of J.R.R Tolkien or the elusive comic faculties of ‘Fools’ creator, John Sullivan – it’s likely to keep on going for years to come – whether we like it or not. Howard Shore’s music for the hugely successful first Continue Reading

Agent provocateur to the ‘quiet is the new loud’ of 2001 and tall, bespectacled one half of Kings of Covenience, Erlend Oye. Whilst the results of his whimsical nordic science are due out in earnest next Spring with the release of his first serious solo effort, ‘Unrest’ the crossover electronic world of indie-spock can be gently prepared by the 12“ vinyl only release of ‘Symptom of Disease’. Soft, spooky and crackling along like a small yuletide fire,’Symptom of Disease’ is not Continue Reading