Author Archive

Cracktorch’s …Is Not the Problem

Written by Joe S. Harrington on August 13, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Boston has always been a city brimming with aggro-rock outfits, which befits its image as an old, cold colonial town. Cracktorch is the latest in a long line of thunderheaded hard-rock bands from that city, and probably the best of this breed in a while. Boston is also one of the bastions of the coed
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Ex-Sebadohan Jason Lowenstein

Written by Joe S. Harrington on July 16, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

This little guy became notorious as a member of Sebadoh for writing the songs not written by Lulu Barlow–which meant the ones that normally disrupted the flow of an otherwise good album. But by the time of the group’s last good album, Bakesale, in ’94, he was finally learning how to come up with a
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Richard Youngs’ May

Written by Joe S. Harrington on June 11, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

About a decade ago, I read a review in a fanzine about a strange LP called Lake by a British avant-garde duo that identified itself only as R!!!S!!!. The review gave an address, located in the UK, and when I wrote to the mysterious perpetrators I received a very cordial reply from one Richard Youngs,
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Mooney Suzuki’s Electric Sweat

Written by Joe S. Harrington on April 16, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Rock ’n’ roll lives for at least one more day in the form of New York’s Mooney Suzuki, a declasse bunch of musicians who look like Billy Hopeless of the Black Halos dresses them. They look like a band made up of Thurston Moore or Brian Jones, Lenny Kaye or Pete Zaremba, David Johansen or
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Hellacopters’ High Visibility

Written by Joe S. Harrington on April 16, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Some weasels have argued that the gaunt-rock stab of Sweden’s Hellacopters, which more or less recreates classic Motor City mayhem mixed with primal Aussie skid, is a mite too studied. While I would disagree with this meager premise alone, I would go so far as to say that the Copters have actually surpassed their influences.
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Emancipation Suite #1

Written by Joe S. Harrington on April 2, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Excellent trio performance by these three honchos, bound to please the dwindling yet faithful free-jazz audience. Actually, "free jazz" is a misnomer–since Silva plays something called "orchestra synthesizer," this could just as easily be termed electronic music with jazz overtones. Bassist Parker, while a renowned jazz cat, is amorphous at this point: he’s made so
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Vacationland’s Urbane Effrontery

Written by Joe S. Harrington on March 26, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

In Portland, ME, where I live, it’s possible to walk up and down the length of Congress St. and in one 20-minute interval run into all the luminaries of the local music scene. Things are that local, that centralized, that incestuous. The nexus of this "scene" is the Skinny, which was named in a recent
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New B. Jonestown/Warlocks Releases

Written by Joe S. Harrington on February 19, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Rise and Fall Warlocks (Bomp) Two excellent neo-psych renderings by two of the best the West Coast has to offer. The Jonestown are legendary for all their interband squabbles as well as feuds with their record label. The long-awaited followup to their–so far–only major label outing, Strung Out in Heaven, has yet to materialize. Like
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The Faint: New-Wave Kleptomaniacs

Written by Joe S. Harrington on February 5, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

With the "punk revival" having run aground, it was inevitable the next retro flashback was gonna be "new wave"–how much so became apparent with the release of the latest New Order album in September. The whoosh of the snap-drums and the hum of the synth–not to mention the nouveau romantique pose–signified a full-blown revival of
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There’s Much Bliss to Be Found on David Kilgour’s A Feather in the Engine

Written by Joe S. Harrington on January 22, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

New Zealander David Kilgour is one of the founding members of the Clean, perhaps the preeminent Kiwi son-of-Velvets outfit. On their latest album, last summer’s Getaway, the trio scraped away at their usual Velvets scrabble, which has won them a devoted following all over the heavily factionalized indie landscape. This new solo album by the
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