Alternative and Contemporary Rock

Latest Articles

Love's life

Courtney and Hole stake their claim
Three hours late, Courtney Love stormed into the Ames Hotel on Court Street a week ago Wednesday, faced a small group of radio-station contest winners, and explained that her tardiness was the result of a mid-day romp in the sack with an ex-boyfriend who's now a professor at Harvard University.
By MICHAEL MAROTTA | June 30, 2010

One night, one jazz trifecta

Taylor Eigsti, the October Trio, and the BC Quintet
True, there aren't enough paying gigs for musicians, but the live music is out there — and last Wednesday, I had to scramble to make three promising shows.
By JON GARELICK | June 29, 2010

Review: Green Day: Rock Band

Repeat, repeat
Activision has pumped out rhythm games centered on a single band — Aerosmith, Metallica, and Van Halen have all had their own Guitar Hero . Harmonix has offered only The Beatles: Rock Band . Until now.
By MADDY MYERS | June 24, 2010

Against Me! | White Crosses

Sire (2010)
For a while, Against Me! were the most impassioned band on the planet.
By REYAN ALI | June 26, 2010

Freaks, Geeks, and Faux Bono

Boston-area subcultures keep the Bay State comfortably kooky this summer
As Bay Staters, we recognize that our European ancestors sure knew how to roll: scarlet letters, sticks up asses, if-she-drowns-she's-not-a-witch-if-she-floats-she's-a-witch-so-let's-kill-her legal applications.
By ALEXIS HAUK | June 20, 2010

Legacy act

Mean Creek look forward to a long road
What does it say about the current scene when the standard full rock band of two guitars, bass, and drums can seem novel?
By P. NICK CURRAN | June 11, 2010

The Big Hurt: Enduring the Billboard ‘Active’ chart

Who charted?
If you're not in the radio business, you might not know the term "Active Rock." It's not a genre, thank Heaven, but a radio format — the worst radio format.
By DAVID THORPE | June 01, 2010

Gravity and grace

Mono’s tender post-rock gets even bigger
Like most post-rock bands worth their “post-rock” tag, Mono — who come to the Middle East this Friday — just can’t help sounding immense.
By REYAN ALI | May 25, 2010

Photos: Pearl Jam live at the TD Garden

Pearl Jam, live at the TD Garden, May 17, 2010
Pearl Jam's Boston stop on their 2010 tour
By DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN | May 20, 2010

Living in the Now

Shryne’s ‘honest but polished’ pop-rock
There’s no denying the ongoing presence of what we’ll call melodic pop acts here in Rhode Island, bands comprised of guys in their mid-20s with a serious knack for penning sugary-sweet hooks and harmonies.
By CHRIS CONTI | May 12, 2010

Review: Against Me! at Port City Music Hall

Against Me!, live at Port City Music Hall, April 28
My sophomore year in college I met a girl named Erin. She had bleached blonde spiky hair, tattoos, and a lip ring. She had spent the previous year hitchhiking around the country and while I was attending outdoor arena concerts, she was at basement punk shows.
By BRIDGET M. BURNS | May 05, 2010

Codeine Velvet Club | Codeine Velvet Club

Dangerbird (2010)
Like a Glaswegian version of Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner’s Last Shadow Puppets , the Codeine Velvet Club project finds Jon Lawler of the Fratellis making retro-’60s supper-club pop with sweeping orchestral arrangements where the fuzzy guitars usually go.
By MIKAEL WOOD | April 14, 2010

The Big Hurt: Bieber fever

Plus U2’s purported fans, and Keane hits the green
Of the 45 headlines on mtv.com’s music-news section, nine are about JUSTIN BIEBER . That’s precisely 20 percent.
By DAVID THORPE | March 30, 2010

Red Sparowes | The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies The Answer

Sargent House (2010)
Post-rock bands are like silent-film actors — bereft of words, they tend to use broad gestures to ensure that you get the point.
By MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY | March 30, 2010

Nervous guy

Rhett Miller’s anxious and irresistible pop songs
In his better solo songs and the majority of the material he’s made with the alt-country band Old 97’s, Rhett Miller is a big-mouthed wannabe playboy on the verge of collapse.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | March 24, 2010

Tuneful throwdown

The 2010 WBRU Rock Hunt semi-finalists, Pt. 1
"The WBRU Rock Hunt is not designed to find the best 'alternative rock' act — we're out to find the best live act looking to earn more exposure along with some pretty cool prizes."
By CHRIS CONTI | March 17, 2010

Bands of brothers

'Hislopalooza' is a family affair
I'm living the most local life I've ever lived right now in Dorchester," says Chris Hislop, bespectacled guitarist in the long-running Boston band Piles.
By MATT PARISH | March 10, 2010

The other side of heavy

Harvey Milk scramble your metal detector
Loving heavy rock is a two-step process. Step one is easy: you hear something heavier than you've ever heard before, and you realize, "This is my thing." Step two is a little trickier: you wonder, "What is 'heavy'?" If you can accept the idea that a certain set of limitations leads to ultimate heaviosity, then — kudos! — you are a metalhead.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 02, 2010

Review: Rogue Wave at the Paradise

Rogue Wave, live at the Paradise Rock Club, March 1, 2010
On the first stop on their first tour in almost two years, Rogue Wave bounded onstage with what can only be called sheer delight, greeting the crowd like old friends they were pleasantly surprised to run into.
By ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | March 05, 2010

Ride that wave

Are Surfer Blood the only band from Florida?
Like a killer wave or a lousy metaphor, success can really sneak up on you.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | February 23, 2010

The Big Hurt: Aussie asses sued off

Plus creepy Macca spawn sings; iffy Ringo joke aborted
MEN AT WORK — best known for their 1983 hit "Down Under" — have just had their pants sued off by a dead schoolmarm and her 78-year-old Girl Scout song.
By DAVID THORPE | February 16, 2010

The Big Hurt: Dispatches from Splitsville

FOB fall out; Scorpions subsist; Tyler frightens shoppers
Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable has happened: Fall Out Boy have split up.
By DAVID THORPE | February 09, 2010

Candles + caring

Bob Marley’s b-day + downcity benefits
Former Best Music Poll nominee Mike Gendron and uncle Pete Gendron team up and unplug at the Greenwich Hotel on THURSDAY (the 4th), rocking the lounge free of charge til 12:30 am.
By PROVIDENCE PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | February 03, 2010

Flanagan’s empire

Native son Bill Flanagan — novelist and MTV executive — discusses big books, musical longevity, Irish Catholicism, and Behind the Music .
Once a staple of the pages of The NewPaper (original incarnation of The Providence Phoenix ), Warwick-born Bill Flanagan went on to become a prominent rock journalist whose credits include U2: At the End of the World , the definitive portrait of one of the world's biggest bands.
By MICHAEL ATCHISON | February 05, 2010

Excerpt: Evening’s Empire by Bill Flanagan

In this chapter, "The Drugs Don't Work," aging rock star Emerson Cutler and his manager, Jack Flynn, are seeking inspiration — and desperately trying to jumpstart his career.
By BILL FLANAGAN | February 05, 2010

Lightning strikes

Weather the storm with Roy Davis's third LP
When Hank Williams sang a song like "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy" he could sell it because he'd been down low: born with spina bifida, father with a paralyzed face thanks to a stroke, brother he never knew because he was already dead.
By SAM PFEIFLE | January 20, 2010

Tight but loose

Jangly + angular = Glowkid
I had never come across the adjective "jangular" until I visited the Glowkid website.
By CHRIS CONTI | January 20, 2010

In your ear

Minky + Shannon + Bogus + more
On THURSDAY (the 21st), FAR OFF PLACE stay close to home with a free gig at the Knickerbocker Cafe.
By PROVIDENCE PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | January 20, 2010

Review: Julian Casablancas at the Paradise

Julian Casablancas, live at the Paradise Rock Club, January 8, 2010
Casablancas's solo debut, Phrazes for the Young (RCA), is a bizarre and twisted romp through sophisticated musical stylings that, especially in a live setting, sound light years away from the compact garage minimalism of early Strokes. This was evident from the first notes of the show.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 12, 2010

Stroke of genius

Julian Casablancas goes it alone
Julian Casablancas is in control, for better or worse. Better, in the sense that he is finally seeing the release of his debut solo album, Phrazes for the Young (RCA), in which he steps out of the stripped-down style of the Strokes — his blockbuster unit for the past decade — and unveils a kaleidoscopic world of lush dreamscapes, arpeggiated classicism, and haunting balladry.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 05, 2010