Music to Lose Your Freakin’ Life Savings By
What do Lil Wayne, Joey Ramone, and CNBC's Maria Bartiromo all have in common? SPIN's Steve Kandell explains.
By Steve Kandell 10.09.08 9:03 AM
The entire world is in the grips of an economic meltdown so horrific that, in the unlikely event any of us can afford enough gin to want to procreate, our children will be lucky to wear burlap sacks and eat wood chips.
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Four Reasons Why Superchunk Still Matters
Break out your best flannel -- the seminal '90s band is playing a rare live set at Seattle's Bumbershoot this weekend.
By Steve Kandell 08.29.08 9:33 AM
AND THE FOUR REASONS ARE:
Every band you like owes them a debt.
Now entering their 20th (!) year, this Chapel Hill quartet virtually invented everything about indie rock worth emulating: economic self-sufficiency, creativity unchecked by careerism, perfect pop hooks, and songwriting chops that have matured at the same rate the band and their audience themselves.
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Oxford Collapse, 'Bits' (Sub Pop)
Diligent Brooklyn rock vets make unexpected great leap forward.
By Steve Kandell 08.04.08 10:38 AM
Your town probably has an Oxford Collapse -- a tightly coiled indie act, smart-but-not-too-smart, hard-working, well-respected purveyors of shout-along choruses who've never quite broken from the increasingly crowded pack of same.
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Wolf Parade: Animal Collective of Montreal
Following up a revered debut album with a more, um, challenging one often inspires catty backlash. But the scruffy Canadian indie rockers of Wolf Parade are too busy playing in 17 other bands to worry. Is this the new careerism?
By Steve Kandell 06.23.08 8:11 PM
Montreal is only 47 minutes from New York in a plane no bigger than a school bus. But on this cloudy late April morning, each of those 47 minutes is teeth-gnashingly, stomach-churningly turbulent, making it impossible to forget that you are, in fact, not on a school bus, but rather inside a thin metal tube careening rapidly 35,000 feet above the ground in a manner antithetical to man's nature.
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Weezer: Heck on Wheels
Thanks to a renewed sense of fun and a clutch of great rock songs about, um, rock -- not to mention some good ol' marital relations -- Weezer are riding high. Not literally, of course.
By Steve Kandell 05.26.08 11:12 PM
Our June cover story involves some old friends: Weezer. Deputy editor Steve Kandell checks in with the Weezer camp, taking stock of the power pop poobahs' perch at this point, six albums deep into their career.
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Mudhoney, 'The Lucky Ones' (Sub Pop)
Like the Ramones, but with seasonal affectation disorder.
By Steve Kandell 05.15.08 2:03 PM
