Posted May 07, 2014in The Sound
It was three Aprils ago now that I was first introduced to Love Songs For Lonely Monsters. The band had just played Gross Domestic Product, and when I spoke to its members for one of my first ever Sound articles, they were flush with excitement about the full-length album they
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Posted April 30, 2014in The Sound
Despite being known as a kind of “metal band’s metal band,” Anvil’s pre-2008 existence is a comedy of errors. Plagued by poor decision-making, questionable management and bad advice, Anvil toiled in almost complete obscurity, bolstered mostly by modest European record sales. But then came the documentary film “Anvil! The Story
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Posted April 23, 2014in The Sound
Read some of the out-of-town interviews with The Faint’s Todd Fink — and he’s recently done plenty of promoting of the band’s newest album, “Doom Abuse” — and you’ll quickly notice that they all start the same way: with a pleasant surprise that good music could come out of a
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Posted April 16, 2014in The Sound
It’s hard to talk to Joe Bonamassa and not talk shop. The urge springs from the desire to deconstruct what he does, in an effort to find out how someone — anyone — who can do it so well. Bonamassa got his start the same way masters ranging from Mozart
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Posted April 09, 2014in The Sound
Combichrist — the aggro-tech brainchild of the Norwegian-born Andy LaPegua — has been accused in the past of being overly aggressive, misogynistic, racist and glorifying of violence. It’s nothing that metal and goth acts haven’t been dealing with for years, but LaPegua looks at his critics and sees cognitive dissonance.
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Posted April 02, 2014in The Sound
Wayne “The Train” Hancock is about as close to no-nonsense, blue-collar America as you can get. “I don’t have a tour bus. I don’t have a fancy house,” said the man whose last album, “Ride,” peaked at No. 68 on the Billboard Country charts. “I live in a trailer park
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Posted March 26, 2014in The Sound
The Des Moines Music Coalition (DMMC) is notoriously tight-lipped regarding the lineup for each year’s 80/35 Music Festival. While the bands are booked months in advance, details are kept under lock and key until about a month before the festival, at which point the DMMC lets information out in a
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Posted March 19, 2014in The Sound
Molly Ringwald has pretty much always been a singer. “I started out singing jazz with my dad when I was 3,” Ringwald recalled during a phone interview. At the age of 6, the ingénue had recorded her first album “I Wanna Be Loved By You: Molly Sings” with her father
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Posted March 12, 2014in The Sound
For the Trampled Under Foot, the blues have always been a family affair. “The core of the band consisted of me and my brothers Nick and Kris,” explained bassist/vocalist Danielle Schnebelen. “Our parents both played blues growing up, so we were always surrounded by it.” Schnebelen’s parents were longtime participants
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Posted March 05, 2014in The Sound
Few states in the Union tout their native sons quite like Texas. And in a state as rich in musical history as the Lone Star State is, few are touted with as much full-throated respect as Robert Earl Keen. The Houston native has been writing, singing and performing his own
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