When Garbage broke out with their self-titled debut album in 1995, their alluring but abrasive sound—dark power-pop melodies topped by Shirley Manson’s alternately growled and whispered vocals—enticed listeners like sweet pink candy with a messy center. Their second album, 1998’s Version 2.0, expands on this recipe of fuzzed-out guitar and distorted vocals with multilayered tracks […]
Author Archives: Kirsten Lambert
Posted inArts & Culture
Remembering Michael Martin
From Chicago to New Orleans, the performer, playwright, director, producer, and raconteur created deep connections.
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Tank & the Bangas embrace connection and the wacky side of isolation on Friend Goals
When New Orleans band Tank & the Bangas invited their friends and family to help them cover Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s pop classic “What the World Needs Now Is Love” in January, they embraced the song’s earnest call for kindness, sprinkled in spoken word urging people to come together in peace, and wrapped up […]
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Fantastic Negrito merges rootsy sounds on his new Have You Lost Your Mind?
Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Xavier Dphrepaulezz, better known as Fantastic Negrito, takes us on a trip through his consciousness on his latest album, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? (Cooking Vinyl/Blackball Universe). He confronts heavy issues such as mental illness, addiction, and gun violence, and filters them all through the lens of his own life […]
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Twenty One Pilots get conceptual on Trench
Beyoncé has her Beyhive and Taylor Swift fans call themselves Swifties, but no current pop fandom rocks ski masks or face paint quite like the Skeleton Clique—the devotees of Twenty One Pilots, the Columbus-based duo famous for obscuring their faces with dramatic skeleton makeup and other disguises onstage. Members of the Clique follow the band […]
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Day of the Dowd 2 aims to stock the shelves at Pilsen food pantry
When Chicago drummer Gerald Dowd released his first full-length album, Home Now, in 2014, he threw a daylong release party with the tongue-in-cheek name Day of the Dowd. Over the course of 13 hours, Dowd sat in with 16 of the artists he’s accompanied during his long career, including children’s musician Justin Roberts and alt-country […]
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Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard puts her soul into Jaime
The thought of publicly airing painful events from your past may make you cringe, but soul baring can also be cathartic or even necessary. Brittany Howard, the guitarist and front woman of Alabama Shakes, shares a glimpse into some of the challenges she’s faced on her new solo album, Jaime (ATO), named for her sister, […]
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UK singer-songwriter Barns Courtney explores existential themes on 404
After Dave Grohl broke his leg early in the Foo Fighters’ 2015 tour, he performed the rest of the dates with his leg in a cast, sitting on a throne of his own design. Singer-songwriter Barns Courtney took Grohl’s shtick up a notch after breaking his foot jumping from the stage at Milwaukee’s Summerfest in […]
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Genre-crossing musician Gary Clark Jr. shows his versatility on This Land
Good luck slapping a label on Gary Clark Jr. The Austin native won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance in 2013, but his music cuts across genres, including blues, rock, and hip-hop. In the 2015 Rolling Stone mini documentary Gary and Eve, Clark says he once imagined following in the footsteps of a soulful […]
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With All Blues, Peter Frampton honors classics amid his own loss
Peter Frampton’s got a right to sing the blues. The versatile guitarist recently revealed he has a degenerative muscle disorder called inclusion body myositis, which means his fingers might eventually stop letting him play his treasured instruments, including his iconic Les Paul. The diagnosis is a cruel blow for Frampton, who while still a teenager […]
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‘Diamond’ Diana Ross marks a half century of ruling the stage
This year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival seemed beset by bad juju: the Rolling Stones begged off due to Mick Jagger’s heart surgery, and Bob Seger bowed out, blaming a scheduling conflict. But Diana Ross, fresh off her “Diamond Diana” residency in Vegas, showed up in a big way. In the first Jazz Fest […]
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Rock and baseball greats team up for the annual Hot Stove Cool Music benefit
You never know who might show up at Hot Stove Cool Music Chicago, an annual benefit concert that brings the city’s baseball and music communities together to support nonprofits helping urban youth and families. In past years, Eddie Vedder has crowd-surfed, Jimmy Chamberlin has hit the skins, and Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson have played […]
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Sebadoh cranks out timeless yet timely tunes on Act Surprised
Listening to some of the tracks on the new Act Surprised (Dangerbird/Fire), Sebadoh’s ninth studio album, you could almost imagine yourself back in 1992. But though the band’s signature lo-fi sound remains, their lyrics place them squarely in the present. Perhaps that’s the logical progression for Sebadoh, which formed as a duo in Northampton, Massachusetts, […]
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On Mint, global citizen Alice Merton unpacks her nomadic lifestyle
Europe was way ahead of the United States with Alice Merton: Her 2016 single “No Roots” made it to number two on the German charts in 2017 and charted all over the continent—including in France, Italy, Belgium, and Poland—before finally hitting the American market hard last year. If you’ve heard the song’s opening riff and […]
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The Squirrel Nut Zippers are still giving ’em hell on Beasts of Burgundy
You wouldn’t be alone if your first response to a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert listing was to wonder, “Are they still around?” Ardent fans excepted, listeners mostly lost track of the Zippers after their late-90s heyday—but the show ain’t over yet. The Squirrel Nut Zippers formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1993 (taking their […]