Search Results for: indie

With the economy headed for recession and a Clinton running for the White House, it feels like the ’90s all over again. A spate of recent musical happenings in the indie world is supplying an appropriate soundtrack: The Lemonheads just reissued their 1992 album “It’s a Shame About Ray” and played the entire album at New York’s Bowery Ballroom; the Breeders released a new record April 8; and Liz Phair just announced she’ll issue a deluxe edition of her provocative 1993 disc “Exile in Guyville.” As more ’90s acts return and sign to indie labels, a particular set of challenges… Read more »

When rapper Flo Rida set a digital sales record with his single “Low,” which moved 470,000 copies the first week of January despite not being available on an album, it was emblematic of an intriguing trend. Digital hip-hop song sales are at an all-time high, but in terms of digital album commerce, hip-hop is lagging behind other genres. In 2007, of 500.4 million albums sold industry-wide, 10 percent were sold digitally. In comparison, of the 41.7 million rap albums sold, only 7 percent (2.9 million) of those were digital. So far this year (through the week ending February 17), according… Read more »

Luke stands on his seat and strums wildly on his copycat rock guitar. Isabel and Jasper pogo and body slam with the best of them in the mosh pit. Potential crowd surfers and stage divers are held back by minders. The gig is in south London, the star is “Mr Ray,” and the audience are mostly between three and four years old. This is “Kindie” — a combination of kids’ and “indie” or independent music and a genre which is taking hold of British pre-schoolers and bidding to oust the grinding of “The Wheels on the Bus” from the family… Read more »

Sean Lennon will score the indie vampire comedy “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead,” which stars fellow celebrity spawn Jake Hoffman and Devon Aoki. Hoffman (son of Dustin) plays an unemployed actor who gets his big break directing a bizarre off-Broadway version of “Hamlet.” But there’s a catch: The adaptation is written by a Romanian (John Ventimiglia, best known as chef Artie Bucco on “The Sopranos”) who happens to be undead. Aoki (daughter of Benihana steakhouse king Rocky Aoki) plays Hoffman’s love interest. Ralph Macchio will play a mob boss who ends up fighting vampires. Jeremy Sisto plays a bumbling detective… Read more »

In the last month, two very different West Coast live music venues have met two very different fates. In Los Angeles, the resolutely DIY noise and punk outpost the Smell celebrated its 10th anniversary with a series of shows featuring scene stalwarts like No Age and Abe Vigoda. In Seattle, however, music fans mourned the sudden closing of the Crocodile Cafe; the 16-year-old space, which was heralded as the “living room of grunge,” closed unexpectedly December 16. In an age where clubs seem to come and go in the blink of an eye, one that remains open into its teens… Read more »

Dance musician Moby has launched a Web site that gives his music away — to the right people, of course. He is licensing his music for free via mobygratis.com to help out indie and student filmmakers. “I was a philosophy major and I had a minor in film,” he says. “Ever since then, I’ve had a lot of friends in the world of independent and nonprofit film production. Their recurring complaint is that it’s really difficult to license music for movies that have no budgets, so I thought I would start this Web site which very simply provides free music… Read more »

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have depressingly opined that “there are no second acts in American lives,” but Nada Surf is certainly making the case for second acts in indie rock. The band had an accidental alt-rock radio hit in 1996 with “Popular,” only to be signed and then summarily dropped by Elektra. This sort of rise and fall would spell the end for many bands, but Nada Surf kept on going, buying back and reissuing its shelved major-label album, “The Proximity Effect,” in 1998. Since then, the band released two records on Seattle-based indie Barsuk: 2003’s “Let Go,” which has… Read more »

In 2004, U.K.-based independent label Memphis Industries released the sample-heavy, intentionally lo-fi and daringly jarring “Thunder, Lightning, Strike,” the Go! Team’s debut full-length CD. The buzz was deafening, so in 2005, the label entered a joint venture with Sony BMG to distribute the album internationally, with the major’s Columbia subsidiary handling it in the United States. It’s a turn of events that every band dreams of — unless that band is the Go! Team. The brainchild of Ian Parton, the Go! Team was never supposed to be mainstream. Parton set out to make “dirty” pop songs — danceable, catchy tunes… Read more »

In case you haven’t heard, the formerly unsinkable airship of cash known as the music industry is currently crashing down from the heavens in a ball of flames, hurtling toward the Earth at supersonic speeds. In fact, at this point it’s only a matter of time before it smashes into terra firma with the impact of 10,000 atomic bombs, blowing a hole clear through North America, causing the seas to boil and sending clouds of black soot skyward, blotting out the sun and eventually ending life as we know it.At least that’s how the members of Stars see it. “It’s… Read more »

The past few years have been bittersweet for music retail in Los Angeles. The opening of Amoeba Records in 2001 gave the city one of the stronger music outlets in America, but was followed soon by the closings of Aron’s Records and Rhino Records. Yet indie music fans not wanting to brave the Hollywood traffic to hit Amoeba had an outpost near downtown in Sea Level Records, run by Todd Clifford, merchandise man for the rock band Silversun Pickups. The store arrived as the city’s Echo Park neighborhood was undergoing a revitalization, and stocked a heavily curated catalog (top sellers… Read more »