Showing 1 - 11 of 11
Artist: Matt Harris
Multi-instrumentalist Matt Harris has recorded with Neil Young, Chicago, Richard Marx, Leon Russell, and others, though he didn't put out a release under his own name until 2002. That album, Slightly Elliptical Orbit, was issued on Russell's label, and Russell further lent a hand by co-writing nine of the 12 songs with Harris. Russell perhaps... [+] Read More
Artist: Captain Fathom
Formed in the early '90s and based in the small northern Washington town of Anacortes, Captain Fathom is an indie jam band with a better sense of variety, wit, and dynamics than most such outfits. Their debut CD, 1997's Dischordpatheos, has the expected long, fluid, elliptical tracks, with silvery interwoven guitar lines and occasional... [+] Read More
Artist: Philip Catherine
Philip Catherine has been called the "Young Django" by none other than Charles Mingus, and upon hearing his elliptical, rapid-fire, expressively melodic acoustic guitar, there can be no doubt as to whose records he was absorbing as a youth. Born to a Belgian father and English mother living in London during World War II, Catherine went back with... [+] Read More
Artist: Three Johns
A side group started in 1982 by Mekons co-founder Jon Langford, the Three Johns, originally made up of Langford, John Hyatt, Phillip "John" Brennan, and a drum machine, specialized in abrasive, politically charged, danceable rock. Sounding almost nothing like Langford's main band, the Johns were a silly-serious bunch of political and cultural... [+] Read More
Artist: Uncle Green
A jangly Southern power pop band in the classic mold, Atlanta-based Uncle Green featured vocalists/guitarists/songwriters Matt Brown and Jeff Jensen, bassist Bill Decker, and drummer Pete McDade. Naturally, Uncle Green looked to R.E.M. as a chief influence, but also drew from less elliptical power pop influences both classic (the Beatles,... [+] Read More
Artist: Brandon Evans
New York-based multi-instrumentalist Brandon Evans was born in San Francisco in 1972. He began playing music as a teenager while a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, and later began studying and performing with jazz saxophonist Sonny Simmons. Eventually, Evans relocated to Connecticut to study composition with Anthony Braxton at... [+] Read More
Artist: Galaxie 500
Though criminally overlooked in their own lifetime, Galaxie 500 later emerged as one of the pivotal underground groups of the post-punk era; dreamy and enigmatic, their minimalist dirges presaged the rise of both the shoegazer and slowcore movements of the 1990s. The group formed in Boston, MA, in 1986 and comprised vocalist/guitarist Dean... [+] Read More
Artist: Drive Like Jehu
Although they weren't around for long, Drive Like Jehu had a tremendous impact on the evolution of hardcore punk into emo. Underappreciated during their existence in the early '90s, the band was sometimes overlooked next to post-hardcore kin like Fugazi and Quicksand; at the time, many critics also lacked the frame of reference to place their... [+] Read More
Artist: Dino Valente
A fascinating enigma of the San Francisco psychedelic scene, Valente is most famed as the author of "Get Together." This definitive '60s love-and-peace anthem was recorded on the Jefferson Airplane's first album, and taken into the Top Ten by the Youngbloods. Valente was also an original member of Quicksilver Messenger Service, although drug... [+] Read More
Artist: Stan Ridgway
One of the most unique singer/songwriters in American indie music, with an unforgettable adenoidal vocal delivery that makes him sound like a low-level wise guy in one of those old Warner Bros. gangster films of the '30s and a lyrical obsession with the themes of pulp crime novels and film noir, Stan Ridgway is a true original. From his early... [+] Read More
Artist: Pavement
With their fractured songs, unexpected blasts of feedback, laconic vocals, cryptic literate lyrics, and defiant low-fidelity, Pavement were one of the most influential and distinctive bands to emerge from the American underground in the '90s. Pavement, along with Sebadoh, were the leaders of the lo-fi movement that dominated U.S. indie rock in... [+] Read More
