Moonpools & Caterpillars: The Peak Of Nothingness
The married half of L.A.'s Moonpools and Caterpillars -- singer Kimi and guitarist Jay Jay -- are lounging in their label's Manhattan offices. Fresh from a massive spread of Indian cuisine, the fledgling popsters, whose debut Elektra release "Lucky Dumpling" is moving steadily up Billboard's Heat Seekers chart, chart the course of their new careers with Rolling Stone Online correspondant Benjamin Wagner.
RSO: What's going on with Moonpools at the moment?
Kimmi: We're right at the peak of ...
Ben Folds Five: Wonder Bread Alternative To Alternative
Heavy skies are falling onto gray concrete outside as members of Ben Folds Five loiter unnoticed in their Midtown Manhattan hotel lobby. Though tired and haggered from their sold-out, industry-packed Irving Plaza performance the previous evening, the Chapel Hill-based trio is heavily caffinated and anxious to move onto their next gig in Philadelphia.
Since forming nearly two years ago when singer/pianist Ben Folds recruited punk bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jesse to slesh out his ...
J. Mascis Unplugs The Dinosaur
With sarcastic stops and stutters, coughs, hoops and hollers, Dinosaur Jr. leader J. Mascis held the would-be moshers at bay, charging haphazardly through an hour's worth of solo acoustic material at SoHo's dingy Mercury Lounge Thursday night.
Best known for pioneering the garage-rock jet set with the distortion-soaked Bug and Green Mind, Mascis production for seminal grunge-popsters like Buffalo Tom (Bird Brain) and Tad (Inhaler) shaped a sonic aesthetic. But alone with nary a distortion ...
Edwin McCain: ‘Mr. 100,000 Units’ 10 Year Plan
Edwin McCain's whispy blonde hair smothered the singer/ guitarists' swollen, sleep-stained face. Jarred from a much needed couch-bound slumber, the South Carolinian -- whose debut release, Honor Among Thieves, is cruising up the charts on the strength of "Solitude," his duet with Hootie and the Blowfish's Darius Rucker -- gained consciousness slowly. Speaking in a patient, gutteral drawl with Rolling Stone Online Correspondant Benjamin Wagner, McCain covered everything from falling from ...
Shane MacGowan: Boozing Celtic Crooner Does Not Disappoint
When former-Pogue frontman Shane MacGowan finally yielded to Guiness-soaked pre-show bellowing and lumbered on stage at New York's Irving Plaza Thursday night, the boozing Celtic crooner did not disappoint. But when introduced as "a man who won't be around much longer," expectations are low.
Wrapping punk's rhythmic momentum and Joycean lyrical darkness into a furious Celtic brew, MacGowan and his Pogues imported their Clash-meets-Cheiftains aesthetic to college campuses stateside to great ...
Buffalo Tom @ The Acadamy: Loud, Fast And Out Of Control
Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz took a broad stab at his dual Marshal amplifiers, twisting his volume knob past eleven as the Boston trio tore their current single, "Summer," to post-punk shreads. With eardrum-splitting deftness, the band ripped through nearly twenty songs in just over an hour, drawing heavily from 1993's Big Red Letter Day and their recently released Sleepy Eyed.
Bassist Chris Coulburn struggled to match Janovitz's rush of distorion-frenzied guitar, motioning for volume ...
Ani DiFranco At Irving Plaza: Powerful, Peerless
Songstress Ani DiFranco performed a powerful, peerless set -- the second of two sold out shows at Manhattan's Irving Plaza -- despite a barrage of setbacks that included shoddy monitoring, stubbornly out-of-tune guitars, broken strings and visable exhaustion.
The 25-year-old songwriter was armed only with her Alvarez acoustic guitar, black-taped Lee Press-On Nails and a catalogue of sometimes poignent, often confrontational and always brilliant songs. Drummer Andy Stochansky bolstered ...
Superchunk Pummells Sold-out Crowd
Superchunk's Mac McCaughan's convulsed with dizzying recklessness Tuesday night as Chapel Hill's reigning hook-monger pummelled the sold-out crowd with seething bursts of guitar noise.
Spinning and faltering like a Tazmanian across Irving Plaza's stage, McCaughan came perilously close to knocking pogoing uber-bassist (and former girlfriend) Laura Ballance into the wings. But Ballance and drummer John Wurster grounded McCaughan's madness, their driving low-end all but saving the gaunt singer ...
Luna Abandons ‘Penthouse’ For Stage
Though frontman Dean Wareham's deadpan delivery and perpetual straight face were little indication, Luna's shimmering guitar pop shone brilliantly Saturday night, illuminating the bleak and twisted landscape Wareham navigates with such svelte.
Waking their latest triumph, Penthouse, from its mordant and mellow foundation, Wareham and Sean Eden's wall of swirling, simmering guitars blared a full-tilt, cosmic radio clamor. Stomping through a transcendent set that included all of Penthouse's ...
The Mainstreaming of Better Than Ezra
It's a sweltering summer afternoon when Better Than Ezra's Cary Bonnecaze shows up late from soundcheck 24 floors above the impending clamour of the MTV Music Awards. The band is in New York City to kick of the CMJ New Music Festival with a show at The Academy, collect their gold record and, apparently, shop.
Things are moving quickly around the Louisiana trio since the February release of their Elektra debut, Deluxe. Three hit singles later, including the infectious power-pop anthem, ...
