The Drums – Interview with Johnny Pierce, Jacob Graham, Connor Hanwick (Static, 2010)
The cross overs. Every year has them; bands that get touched by the hand of hype and go from being blogged about to actually selling significant quantities of records/MP3s along with world wide tour schedules and high billed festival slots. This year one of those bands is Brooklyn’s The Drums who have certainly enjoyed a lot of column pixels and radio play on the strength of their back to basics c86 indie-pop as imagined by Phil Spector self titled debut album and its omnipresent lead single “Let’s Go Surfing”. Static’s Chris Berkley has a drink with three quarters of the band for a lesson in how to avoid being drowned by the waves of success.
Lydia Loveless – Columbus – 30 September 2011
A couple of songs into Lydia Loveless’s evening set, and it’s difficult to tell where Lydia the singer ends and Lydia the person begins. It’s simply hard to imagine a woman like this, barely in her twenties, and standing a little over five foot tall in her boots, could be so worldly and explosive. And yet, there she is, muttering a string of f-bombs during a song break because she can’t get her guitar tuned quite right. The attitude, the weathered, sarcastic smile. The edge. That’s pretty damn tough to fake.
Luke Haines – 21st Century Man
Luke Haines looks back at the 20th Century, and takes pop shots at the maligned and those who got left behind in typical Haines fashion.
Austra – Feel It Break
Electro-dance-goth-opera by way of Canada, Austra's debut album Feel It Break is akin to a good night out in loud, dark room. Kinda fun, but where's the door?
The Monochrome Set – The Independent Singles Collection
Cherry Red, 2008 [7/10] England 1979 -- punk was morphing into the more experimental post-punk and saw landmark releases from PiL, Gang of Four, The Cure, Joy Division and The Pop Group. And then...then there
Versus – On the Ones and Threes
Out of nowhere comes a near perfect album by a near forgotten band that rewrites their own history in one superlative-inducing swoop.