Music
▼ Music
Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, Hillbilly Herald, Zengrez
If you grow up playing guitar as I did, Guns N’ Roses, and thus Slash, are essential reference points for your musical cultural education. What’s more was that my dad came of age during the height of butt rock, so driving in his Jimmy, I became well acquainted with Appetite for Destruction and GNR’s covers, like “Nice Boys,” which would shape my sense of guitar listening. With that sense of rock tradition, I was stoked to share this experience with my dad. Needless to say, I was MEGA STOKED to see Slash’s stylings on the axe. … read more
My Ticket Home with Sights Sounds, I Am King, Night...
For SLUG’s end-of-the-year wrap-up last year, I chose My Ticket Home’s To Create A Cure as one of my Top 5 albums, and I’ve been watching the news for a while, waiting for my chance to hear them live. There’s just something about them that I loved right away, especially after watching the video for “New Breed.” Plenty of bands do the heavy-and-light mix, but I thought there was a genuine passion in their take, an earnestness that stood out to me. Touring to promote their new album, Strangers Only, they finally announced a Salt Lake show in the second half, bringing along Night Verses and I Am King to round out the bill. … read more
Wavves with Koala Temple
Wavves sound meaner live than on record, more taut, as if they’re being jerked around by strings suspended from the rafters. Audience members lap it up. There’s a vibe here. My girlfriend calls it “snotty indifference” but I’m not so sure. They’re with it—they’re bashing it out hard. It seems genuine. They’re saying to us, “You fuckheads really wanna know what happened to Milo Aukerman? He didn’t go to college! He moved to Tijuana and started huffing a bunch of copier toner! Then he killed his girlfriend and buried her in the desert! BWAHHHH.” … read more
Reviews: Judicator – Sleepy Plessow
Everything on this album seems to be just a step away from something really special. In a sense, it seems like it was only partially finished, hampered by flat production and a rote, repetitive take on typical power metal riffs. … read more
RUSH @ USANA 07.31
Nearly 20,000 faithful devotees put their lives on hold Wednesday night to gather together in a very large venue to sing praises to three men whom many hold in near diety status: the RUSH concert at USANA Amphitheater. … read more
Gogol Bordello, VIZA @ In the Venue 08.05
The lights went out and the stage was flooded with blue light. Then, I saw the silhouetted figure of Eugene Hütz, followed by the rest of Gogol Bordello, walk out on the stage and take their places. Hütz started singing into the mic and with compliance from the audience and the rest of the band, Gogol lit up the stage with “Wanderlust King.” From then on, the madness continued throughout. … read more
Soft Metals @ Kilby Court 07.31 with Beachmen, Kyle Luntz
Portland’s electronic pop duo Soft Metals, after a recent move to L.A., have just released their second full-length album, Lenses, on Brooklyn’s Captured Tracks imprint and have embarked on a massive American tour to support it. They played a short but entrancing set last Wednesday at Kilby Court. … read more
Spitting Iconic Fire
“We have so many good nights out with our friends, we write about when we have so much fun that we never want the night to end. You love your friends and you kind of just want them to feel what you feel,” Caroline Hjelt says of the inspiration behind the killer, upbeat dance tracks that the Swedish pop duo Icona Pop has been producing over the last few years. … read more
