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MATT PARISH
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Reformation
This weekend (January 20-21) brings a two-night stand at Brighton Music Hall for post-punk godfathers Mission of Burma, who have somehow morphed into a band that's equal parts internationally renowned throwbacks and prolific local underdogs.
Evolver
It already seems like ages ago when Mission of Burma announced their reunion.
William Gibson's randomized experience
William Gibson — the writer who famously coined the term "cyberpunk" and whose classic tech-punk novels like Neuromancer and The Difference Engine helped spawn a couple generations' worth of bleak, busted fantasies — is now on tour promoting his first collection of nonfiction.
Game changer
"The paper quickly began its operations, grabbing all of the talent money could buy."
Holidays in Cambodia
For all the kitsch and B-movie flair of Dengue Fever, there are still a few aspects of their obsession with Cambodian pop that they haven't put on record.
Brah/Jagjaguwar (2011)
It's tempting to point to the recent tsunami in Japan as having a heavy cosmic connection with Shinji Masuko's first solo record, a full-immersion blackout of churning, oceanic drones and melodic eddies.
Musical afterlife
It must be a relief to realize that when you hit the stage, people know what they're going to get. O'Death have spent the past several years banging out a reputation as grizzled folk punks who run their sets like moonshine raids.
Endless road
Some things just don't go as planned, though you can't say that would surprise you if you've been listening to Lou Barlow's music for any fraction of the past 25 years.
The Sebadoh frontman on life, love, and J.
He may have been born in Dayton, Ohio and settled down in Los Angeles, but for a lot of us, Lou Barlow will always be a Western Mass kid.
Closing the garage
At the end of the day, by what unit can one measure the career of a band like the Konks? Records? Few and far between. Radio play? Not a whole lot. Ticket sales? Never mind.
Antiques roadshow
It was on a whim roughly 25 years ago that a young David Lowery called up a friend at SST Records to see how SST had been promoting records that year. "He just said, 'Hey, we've been sending a lot of our stuff to college radio stations, and they seem to be playing them a lot.' I mean, this is literally like how this all started."
Mute (2010)
Double-disc IV brings us up date with everything these industrial grandpas have done since frontman Blixa Bargeld left Nick Cave's Bad Seeds.
MORR Music (2010)
The opener on this bright debut floats along on the bleating of a couple of wonky wooden recorders and some chirping Icelandic vocals.
The last laugh
"I never thought something like that could happen to a boy who was getting into trouble living in squats when he was 15 years old."
Erickson finds his way off life's elevator
Erickson finds his way off life's elevator
Blitzkrieg pop
Last month, when scraggly local trio Young Adults wandered out on stage at the Middle East downstairs to open for hyped lo-fi darlings Best Coast, college indie brats were already thronging the room.
A synth-pop legend reluctantly accepts his past
Gary Numan has never been one for nostalgia.
Call it a Comeback
"I had already pretty much been around the block at the time," says Thalia Zedek.
Sub Pop (2010)
What are a couple of LA noise rats like No Age trying to say with a stargazing track like "Katerpiller" smack in the middle of their new album?
Don Giovanni (2010)
Screaming Females are one of those rare examples of a band who fester so long in the dark — in this case, the teeming basements of New Brunswick, New Jersey — that they sour into something great by the time anyone’s heard of them.
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