Pity the poor pop singer. There seems no place for them in our lives (we’re talking the Mark Lindsays and Paul McCartneys)or at the very least on the radio. Four decades or so ago, Brett Harris might have had a bright future ahead of him. Nowadays, one just shrugs and wonders how he would reach […]
Chris Parker
Bio: After a fond stint in the Triangle, Chris Parker lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where he writes about music and politics for a variety of newspapers and magazines. He has written about music for INDY Week since 2002.
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Morning Benders’ “Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)”
Listen up! or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. At first blush, “Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)” song sounds like the product of tweejangling guitar line, cooing high tenor vocals, the gentle background toot of keyboards. It’s much more idiosyncratic than that, though. There’s a […]
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Pierced Arrows fly back onto the road, from the shadows of Dead Moon
Especially for bands, success can come either like a winning lottery ticket or the slow earnings of a savings bond. If you’re not going to be lucky, you’d damn well better have some patience. Those investments can take a long time to mature. Patience has never been a problem for Fred and Toody Cole. For […]
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Tonight: Music Hates You, loud at The Reservoir
Athens, Ga., trio Music Hates You aren’t about to let you off easy. Like Jesus Lizard sunning on molten, accelerated Black Sabbath grooves, the Athens trio are hot to the touch and likely to drop right through the floor of your third story apartment. Frontman Noah Ray’s performances are possessed. He’s always been comfortable as […]
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Feeding the Fire’s Disinfonation
Perhaps a little kind bud is the necessary ingredient to finding pleasure in Feeding the Fire’s lack of memorable melodies and abundance of deeply rutted grooves, sophomoric lyrics and expansive prog-rock pretensions. They’re capable enough musiciansand maybe that’s the rub. Great music is more often the product of spirited amateurs gutting themselves for the audience […]
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Blag’ard’s Mach II
In the same sense that no matter which Fugazi album you listen to it sounds like a Fugazi album, whether you’re talking Capsize 7 or Blag’ard there’s something inimitable about Joe Taylor’s guitar playing. It connects the spasmodic melodicism of Capsize 7, his mid-’90s indie rock band, to the prickly ring of his current duo, […]
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Dirty Little Heaters’ Champions of Imperfection
Great design never dies, even if it passes out of fashion. That’s the overriding emotional response in the presence of the Dirty Little Heaters. The thundering quake of their approach hurls you back into a Jurassic park, the tremor in the water signaling T. Rex’s imminent arrival. Indeed, the Triangle quartet is the elephant in […]
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Supersuckers’ “Breaking Honey’s Heart”
It’s unusual hearing a band like Supersuckersknown for their freewheeling, drug-lauding, party-time rock ‘n’ roll attitudewrite a song so heartfelt and sentimental. It’d be like AC/DC trying to pull off “Beth,” he difference mainly being that “Breaking Honey’s Heart” is a far better song than “Beth.” They do share a similar ethosboth are apologias, except […]
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As The Public Good, two one-time Popes finally find their faith
Separating music from fashion is inherently a fool’s errand. From disco to grunge to rap-metal, some time-bound cultural aspect always floats one form or another to the top. But sometimes trends preclude appreciation for the simple or timeless, overshadowing superior craftsmanship with the gleaming allure of this year’s model. “Every day, Pitchfork has someone slamming […]
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Scientific Superstar’s Doomed Lucky Day
Animal, vegetable or mineral? Half the fun of Scientific Superstar is trying to guess what they are. The Durham trio defies traditional genre markers, blending guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and samples in very unusual ways. Add vocalist Junko Berglund, who sings largely in Japanese, and you have perhaps the Triangle’s most unconventional group. Formed nearly […]