AltWeeklies Wire
Sarah & Octopusnew
Sarah & Octopus have jazz chops and tons of ambition, and their complex pieces can wear you out with their car-crash meter shifts and wild leaps across the harmonic spectrum.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
02-04-2009 |
Concerts
Tags: indie rock, Sarah & Octopus
Sam Phillips Strips Down for 'Don't Do Anything'new
As on all of her best work, Phillips is humble and open-hearted, invitingly tuneful but unsparing in her assessment of the emotional wreckage she sees.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
08-13-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Sam Phillips, Don't Do Anything
Bubba Hernandez Finds Life After Brave Combonew
Two decades of Brave Combo beat deconstruction--turning "Satisfaction" into a cha-cha or "Stairway to Heaven" into a swing tune (with Tiny Tim on lead vocals, no less)--provided Hernandez with an invaluable musical education, but it also made him hungry for a chance to explore his own ideas.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
08-06-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Paul Westerberg Drops the Biggest Format-busting Format Buster of the Digital Agenew
Westerberg released 49 through TuneCore, a digital-music delivery service, and since TuneCore charges artists only $9.99 a year per track (and 49 is technically only one track), Westerberg could simultaneously be looking at the lowest sales price and the greatest profit margin in the history of the music industry.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-30-2008 |
Music
What Laura Says Brings Together Baroque Pop and Rustic Folknew
What Laura Says is really the product of two different bands -- an offbeat pop duo called What Laura Says Thinks and Feels, and a dirty blues trio, called the Expatriates.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-30-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Jacksons' 'Destiny' Reissues Foreshadows the Rise and Fall of Michaelnew
After an awkward stretch which saw them leave Motown, split with brother Jermaine, and languish in bad-song hell, Destiny found them taking over the production reins, writing their own material, and re-establishing themselves as the first family of bubblegum soul.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-23-2008 |
Reviews
Jay Reatard: Wonderfully Messynew
When you get past Reatard's productivity (17 original tracks over a two-year period), you notice how seamlessly these disparate singles flow together, as if one song picks up a thought he left unfinished three months earlier.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-16-2008 |
Reviews
Dog Men Poets Swap Juvenile Lyrics for Something Bluenew
On the back cover of their new CD, Dog Men Poets list the artists who inspired each of the disc's 10 tracks. The roster, which runs from Stevie Wonder to George Clinton to Amy Winehouse to Robert Randolph, is pretty impeccable.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-09-2008 |
Reviews
Thoughts on Katy Perry's 'I Kissed a Girl'new
"I Kissed a Girl" (currently the number-one single on Billboard) is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition, but if you’re not careful, it'll shatter your critical faculties.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-02-2008 |
Music
Alejando Escovedo: The Forrest Gump of Musicnew
Whenever seminal events happened, he was usually in the vicinity.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
06-18-2008 |
Reviews
Leona Lewis is Like Whitney Houston for 2008new
On the plus side, she seems like a nice, self-effacing person who hasn't yet learned to browbeat her associates for handing her a lukewarm Red Bull. Her exotic features play well on VH1, but as a singer, she's strictly a cut-rate generic brand.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
05-07-2008 |
Reviews
Tejano Conjunto Festival Offers a History Lessonnew
When Juan Tejeda launched the festival in 1982, he was consciously battling negative stereotypes about conjunto, and eager to prove that this music deserved to be regarded as art.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
05-07-2008 |
Concerts
Blowing Trees Goes Grandiosenew
They set the bar for themselves pretty high, and on their debut release for the New York-based Glassnote Records, they achieve their objective more often than not.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
04-30-2008 |
Reviews
Madge vs. Miminew
Madonna and Mariah Carey take their battle to the record stores and dance floors.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
04-30-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tiempo Libre Goes Orchestralnew
It's not easy for them, but the members of Tiempo Libre are learning to control their energy.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
04-16-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
