We have five pairs of tickets to Diane Birch's show at the Grog Shop on June 26 ... Want a pair? All you have to do is send your name, e-mail address and phone number to freetickets@clevescene.com with the subject "Diane Birch." ... We'll pick a winner at noon on June 26 ... You can listen to "Valentino," one of the highlights from Birch's debut album, here: ...
This is what Curren$y's currency bought him ... Curren$y is a simple man. “Smoke and make music/I’m a modern day hippie,” he raps on a track off Fast Times at Ridgemont Fly , one of his many mixtapes ... And that he does. The weed-smoking, Chevy-driving New Orleans native rose to fame by putting out seven free mixtapes in 2008 before signing on with independent label Amalgam Digital, which released his debut album, appropriately titled This Ain’t No Mixtape , in 2009. Formerly signed
Don't call them post-rock ... A little more than a decade ago, Mono began crafting a compelling soundtrack of wordless experimental noise-rock that was equally indebted to Sonic Youth’s visceral clatter and My Bloody Valentine’s shredding guitar sheets. Yet they’ve always steered their own musical course. The Japanese quartet, led by founder/composer/guitarist Takaakira Goto, first made waves with its 2001 debut, Under the Pipal Tree (which was financed by experimentalist supreme John
Livin' things ... Last night’s Grog Shop audience did the time warp, and we’re not talking Rocky Horror Picture Show ... The seven members of the Apples in Stereo’s touring posse arrived onstage dressed in customized silver spacesuits ready to take fellow humans back and forward in time, fueled by their seventh album, Travellers in Space and Time ... Their goofy futuristic apparel — blinking sunglasses and all — planted smiles on everyone's faces, but it was their gooey pop goodness
Boy George called. He wants his look back ... Although he finished third on the 2008 season of American Idol , Jason Castro — the impossibly cute, dreadlocked tenor with the aw-shucks demeanor — always seemed like a reluctant star. He gave the distinct impression he never took the show or himself too seriously and didn’t seem to give a hoot if he won or lost. So the surprise is just how surefooted his self-titled first album really is. Had Castro actually won Idol , the resulting record
With the somber ballad “Cut a Hole” — the first track on his solo debut, George Lassos the Moon — Scott Lucas, one half of alt-rock duo Local H, makes it clear he’s moved on from his band’s Nirvana influences. Effectively employing accordion, violin and piano, Lucas delivers one love song after another. He wrote the songs with the intention of winning back a girlfriend, pouring his heart into tracks like “You Put a Spell on Me,” “What Fools Allow” and “Stolen
Mellow yellow squeezebox ... Daedelus is the perfect pen name for Alfred Darlington and his unusual musical imagination. As an inventor of unique electronic contraptions, his muse is not unlike that famous mythological Greek craftsman of human wings. Since 2002, he’s released a record every year on labels like Ninja Tune, Warp, Mush and his latest on Friends of Friends (Friends of Friends Vol. 1), building lifelike instrumental androids that fix hip-hop, dance and IDM with joy, drive and
Say hello to Aloha ... Atmosphere-soaked rockers Aloha, who used to call Cleveland home but are now spread out across the country, have a new album coming out on March 9 ... Home Acres is their fifth LP, and judging by the two tracks recently posted on Brooklyn Vegan, the quartet appears to be heading in a less dense, and more dynamic, direction ... We've always considered Aloha one of Cleveland's most unheralded bands. Then again, it doesn't help that only one member still lives here, making
Bridging rock’s evolutionary gap between 1970s punk and post-Pixies grunge, Hüsker Dü were one of the ’80s coolest and most influential college-radio bands. The group’s kinetic songs alternated vocal and songwriting duties between its creative core of drummer Grant Hart and guitarist Bob Mould. After Hüsker Dü’s 1987 split, Hart recorded solo and with a new band, Nova Mob, while Mould did his solo thing and formed the band Sugar. After disappearing from rock’s radar, Hart recently