Search Results for: power-pop

Jimmy Eat World completely bleed American, which might be why their Canadian visit to the Kool Haus (their second Toronto stop in the last couple of months) remained fairly conservative. Beginning as emo-pop cult favourites and now mid-deep in their crossover to sweaty arena-style power-pop, the Arizona quartet continues to churn out dorm-ready tales of teenage melodrama. Instead of pseudo-edgy, bleach-blonde glamourizing of teenhood tribulations, however, Jimmy Eat World present a more ragged – if no less romanticized – portrait of the American Eagle set: less cocaine, more beer stains; less OC, more One Tree Hill. Yet despite being mostly… Read more »

Los Angeles – Saturday night’s double shot of pop-punk bands Good Charlotte and Sum 41 at the Universal Amphitheater may have been kids’ stuff, but there were plenty of ’em there for it. Taking the closing spot, Good Charlotte was clearly the bigger draw. Screams from the teen and pre-teen girls told the story. The Florida band – especially frontman Joel Madden and his twin brother, singer-guitarist Benji – are the tattooed rock boys you can bring home to mom. There were plenty of moms present, too, with 12-, 13- and 14-year-old daughters in tow. A stage decorated with tombstones,… Read more »

Who can forget that scene in Fast Times At Ridgemont High where Phoebe Cates takes off her red bikini top to the tune of “Moving In Stereo” by The Cars, delighting pubescent boys all over the world, not to mention Judge Reinhold. It seems that the antics of Jeff Spicoli and co. rubbed off on some that weren’t even born when the movie came out. Take Massachusetts rockers Damone for instance, who have named their band after the concert ticket scalping weasel character in the flick, and take to the stage to the very Cars tune Judge Reinhold waxed the… Read more »

Back in May we told you that Hanson had completed a new album but had no immediate plans to put it out, seeing as they parted with their label, Def Jam, earlier this year. Well, the brothers Hanson still don’t have any new product to unleash upon the world, but fans will get a chance to hear the band’s new songs in a live setting this summer. The three Hansons – Isaac (now 22), Taylor (20) and Zack (17) – will hit the road for the first time in three years. Not only will the boys be playing new songs,… Read more »

At the very least, give credit to New Found Glory and Good Charlotte for getting teenage girls enthusiastic about rock that has real guitars and real drums. More than that, those two pop-punk bands deserve to be saluted for the energy and enthusiasm they displayed at their show Wednesday night at the University of California, Irvine’s Bren Events Center. But no one can applaud them for nuance or finesse. Their performances are like this: Go from zero to 60 in 6.5 seconds, and keep it there. The kids who filled the Bren Center loved it. They screamed, sang along (especially… Read more »

When drummer Pat Wilson described Weezer’s latest live show tendencies recently, he separately mentioned Neil Diamond, Spinal Tap, Tool and Phish in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, the band’s summer tour should be interesting. Dates have not been announced, but Wilson and frontman Rivers Cuomo said Weezer will spend six weeks hitting amphitheaters across America with Dashboard Confessional beginning in mid-July. The Stokes will also join the bill on a couple of dates. “It’s gonna be awesome,” Wilson said. “The sound just goes. In an arena, it sounds stupid, but when we hear stuff and it goes out… Read more »

At an age when most rockers are just trying to get their careers started, singer/songwriter Ben Kweller is already working on his second musical life. The subject of a sprawling profile in the New Yorker magazine at age 16 when he led the grunge trio Radish, Kweller has been woodshedding for the past several years, developing a new sound and vision. “Radish was basically my high school punk band with my two best friends,… only we got to put out a record on a major label,” Kweller said. Now 20 and recording under his own name for the Dave Matthews-founded… Read more »

Twelve hours, four stages and more than 40 bands marked the end of the three-day Skate and Surf Festival on Sunday. Held at the Asbury Park Convention Hall, the second installment of the now annual event featured performances from Bouncing Souls, Face to Face and the Descendents, among many others. While the Warped Tour travels from town to town with many of skateboarding and BMX culture’s best-known athletes and favorite artists, the stationary Skate and Surf tends to be more down-home, offering quarter-pipes and rails to anybody bold enough to show up with a bike or a board and a… Read more »

Even in a world saturated by mass-marketed hard rock bands, no one can accuse Flying Tigers of manufacturing angst. The band’s tuneful, turbulent self-titled debut was born of frustration and hard times, and the group profits from the pain. The disc chronicles the former lives of frontman Ryan Martin and drummer Gary Benson in their grungy power-pop band Frankie Machine, and what happened in the days following the release of that band’s debut album, One, in 2000. “The week it came out everyone at the label got fired, then we got dropped,” Martin recalled. “At the time we thought it… Read more »

Amid rampant tabloid rumors, Britney Spears and ‘NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake have issued a statement insisting that they are still very much a couple. “To set it straight, both of them are very busy and focusing on their careers,” read the statement, which was issued Wednesday (March 20). “They love each other very much and have not broken up. The demands on their time have naturally created a significant time apart, which could be misconstrued as a more permanent situation.” Spears herself shot down the breakup rumors in an interview with MTV Italy over a week ago, but the rumor mill… Read more »