To understand why the Beta Band have captured the imagination of the British music press and the hardcore geeks who read them, picture the obsessive record store clerks inHigh Fidelity , Nick Hornby's seminal literary ode to music geekdom. Listen to the Beta Band's full-length, self-titled debut album and it's easy to envision the clerks making a list of their top five comparisons. Take your pick: Fairport Convention remixed by King Tubby; the Vaselines meet Stereolab; Beck and RZA...Read More

The culinary concept of Cibo Matto's debut album, Viva La Woman , left a bad taste in the mouths of members of the New York-based band, says Miho Hatori. Reacting to the entertaining album, which named songs after dinner entrees, vegetables and other treats, food was all anyone she and band mate Yuka Honda met - fans and critics alike - wanted to talk about.

"People thought it was just gimmick," remembers Hatori. "We didn't get a lot of questions about the music at all. Peop...Read More

When Frank Black, then known as Black Francis, broke up the sonically charged Pixies in favour of putrid solo albums, I had written him off, and so did his record company. The truth be told, I heckled Black in the fine Detroit tradition when he opened for They Might Be Giants shortly after his first solo album.

Now back with a band, the Catholics and two excellent straight-up guitar rock albums, Frank Black and The Catholics and Pistolero, on Sonic Unyon, I won't be screamin...Read More

The Go-Betweens shaped a six-album legacy as a no-hit wonder before calling it quits in 1990. Nearly a decade later, the group's two principal songwriters are thinking about mounting another attack on the pop charts.

Buoyed by the release of a new best of album, Bellavista Terrace , Grant McLennan and Robert Forster recently hit the road for ten-week tour of North America, Australia and Europe. The flattering response to the duo's set of old Go-Betweens chestnuts, songs from...Read More

"All I can tell you, brother, is it was like catching the Holy Ghost," says Violent J of The Dark Carnival, the one thing that sets his group Insane Clown Posse apart from the rest of the hip-hop universe.

ICP (Violent J and partner Shaggy 2 Dope) are a duo of wicked serial killer clowns who act as prophets of The Dark Carnival. When they entered the hip-hop world in 1990 as Inner City Posse, with the gangsta sounds ofDog Beats , they encountered numerous beat downs by the r...Read More

"People can't palate this record very easily," according to Len's Marc Costanzo (aka Burger Pimp) of their latest,You Can't Stop The Bum Rush . It's true. For their major label debut, the quirky quartet (Marc, sister Sharon, and old friends DJ Moves and D-Rock from Hip Club Groove) have combined their different musical directions and passions to create an album of total diversity. It moves from commercial candy pop ("Steal My Sunshine") to old school Kraftwerk-style electronica ("T...Read More

"I think that I became one of 'the faces of electronic music' in the early to mid-'90s because I was one of the only people willing to do some of the conventional things that musicians had always done, like play shows and do photo shoots and interviews. I certainly don't think that I was making music that was better than anybody else's at the time - I'm just kind of a populist and I was a little more visible."

He can be an understated guy, that Moby. Thinking back to the ear...Read More

Loving Randy Newman is a solitary proposition. Not just because his is music for home listening, unsuitable for stadiums, raves or even small parties. Not just because it's music for listening , not a pleasant backdrop. No, loving Randy Newman is a lonely life because there just aren't that many of us: old enough to vote, but with taste buds not yet so deadened that we'll submit to the creamy innocuousness of adult contemporary.

It's unfair that Newman gets such short shrift...Read More

Despite their block rockin' sound and hip-hop sampling technique, the Chemical Brothers' million-selling albums have also contained a peculiar strain of pop. Their debut, Exit Planet Dust, squeezed in vocals by the Charlatans' Tim Burgess and trip-hop chanteuse Beth Orton. And their doubly successful second album, Dig Your Own Hole , skyrocketed with Oasis's Noel Gallagher's contributions to the Beatle-y "Setting Sun."

Now amidst the expected hip-hop, electro and funk sounds...Read More

Sometimes when we rock, the honesty's too much.

That's how Matt Murphy felt about his previous band, Halifax favourites the Superfriendz, before they splintered in 1997. Shortly after the break-up, Murphy resurfaced with the Flashing Lights (including bassist Henri Sangalang, drummer Steve Pitkin, keyboardist Gaven Dianda), whose sound he describes as a "'60s rave-up band."

Initially, the Flashing Lights were a side-project cover band, dwelling on Nuggets-era garage p...Read More

It was 18 years ago, when singer, guitarist, big haired and mouthed firebrand Buzz Osborne picked up a guitar, that the confusing story of the Melvins begins. At that moment, he gave birth to one of the most fearsome three pieces ever to abuse the auditory sensibilities of the musical world. Over the course of their existence, the Melvins (completed by longtime drummer Dale Crover and recently recruited Cows bassist Kevin) have done everything they can to become a force in the worl...Read More

Here's some insider news - Ministry and R. Kelly have been working side-by-side at Chicago Trax's recording studios for the last two years. An industrial rock/R&B crossover would be a corporate nightmare, but the parties aren't speaking.

"No, there is no collaboration," reveals Ministry's Paul Barker. "He's not really a very talkative guy." It is probably safe to say that the two camps don't share the same recording techniques. While R. Kelly may have been sipping a Courvois...Read More

Even though the Planet Smashers continue to act like juvenile drunks, don't start thinking they haven't grown up, at least a little. The Montreal five-piece have been showing alarming signs of maturity on their newest release, the aptly-titledLife of the Party .

The new album showcases a cleaner, more polished sound that was lacking on their two previous albums. It's what singer/guitarist Matt Collyer calls "more of the Smash, less of the Planet"; that translates into more m...Read More

In 1999, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are a band that probably shouldn't exist. Their last album, 1996'sOne Hot Minute , was a crime against music that should have done them in. They've had as many guitarists as Spinal Tap had drummers, and they can't seem to hang on to any of them for a variety of reasons, mainly drugs. Their trademark sound - a combination of punk and funky white boy posturing - has been stolen and/or improved upon by countless newer acts.

So why is their new...Read More

Ron Sexsmith says there's at least one major reason he and producer Mitchell Froom fashioned the tracks for his third album, Whereabouts , with a more polished, upbeat and produced tone. All that pop music finery - multi-coloured layers of Acadian organ, strings and gently-tooted horns - was added to help sharpen Sexsmith's rock and roll edge.

"I wanted to leave no doubt that I'm not a roots and tradition artist, which is what I won the award for last year at the Junos," exp...Read More

From the opening bars of "Narcolepsy," on Ben Folds Five's third full-length, it's clear that visions of sugarplums are dancing in their heads more than ever before. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner welcomes you with singing violins, heralding the grandness of this new spectacle. Burt Bacharach's world in song is heard throughout, most notably on the suite of songs that closes the album, and arrangements such as the Flügelhorns on "Don't Change Your Plans."

Bac...Read More

Dale Morningstar may be known as the sound scientist in charge of Toronto's Gas Station studios and as the ringleader of Dinner is Ruined, but it was a life-changing incident in California that set him on his rock'n'roll path.

"Hockey was my life," he recalls from his Toronto Island home. "I played Triple A for Niagara Falls for about seven years. We went to California for a hockey tournament when I was 17, and I got busted at Disneyland for smoking pot. Then I got kicked of...Read More

Sometimes, as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Interesting then that a small, isolated country such as Iceland is home to a mother lode of highly inventive artists. With a total population of only 300,000, the island best known for its volcanoes, remarkably high literacy rate, and Björk, houses a vibrant collective imagination.

Filmmaker and Gus Gus songwriter Siggi Kjartansson explains. "There is this unbelievable creative energy in the Icelandic natio...Read More

In the 1980s, at the height of the Dungeons and Dragons craze, if you made up your own characters, constructed costumes and wrote yourself a detailed, involved mythology, you'd be a geek, relegated to the after school clubs room where you could nit-pick for hours over your 20-sided dice. But if you did all this on stage, accompanied by some thrashy speed metal, you could be famous, or at least infamous. Gwar is.

You'd think that Danielle Stampe, aka Slymenstra Hymen, would t...Read More

Evolution is a funny thing. It can take millions of years for a decaying sun to collapse into a black hole, in turn becoming the densest and most destructive force in the galaxy. Yet it took just 14 years for Relapse recording artists Neurosis to accomplish the sonic equivalent.

Neurosis is much more than a mere metal band - it is an artistic project gone horribly astray while retaining moments of beauty among the brutality. Their sound, elements of which have been stolen by...Read More

The rise and rise of the Prodigy, aka Liam Howlett, rode the crest of the tsunami wave of techno rushing from cult phenomenon to global language. His production of breakbeat standards built in intensity from 1990's kiddie-show sampling "Charly" and 1994's malicious "Poison" until the general public could not help but be engulfed by 1996's incendiary smash "Firestarter."

The Prodigy's subsequent album, 1997'sThe Fat Of The Land , was a worldwide number one, launching Liam and...Read More

Tom Waits thinks I'm a cop.

Less than 30 seconds into a discussion about his first album in six years, Mule Variations , I ask an ice-breaking question about Waits' current rural residence - which I later discover, through outside sources, is near Santa Rosa, California. This leads to a counter-interrogation from one of America's greatest and most evasive songwriters.

"Are you a cop? Are you from the census bureau? Is this a deposition? Are you in real estate? I'm not...Read More

"That thing almost discharged in my face," says Von Zipper leader Alan Wayne, chuckling away from his Calgary home. He is, of course, referring to the double barrel shotgun used in the recording of the song "Automatic," from their debut full-length release,Bad Generation . If that isn't rock'n'roll enough for you, Mr. Wayne excitedly asks "Did you know that ambulance siren on 'Kill That Guy' is real?"

Fortunately, it's made clear later that the ambulance sound was just the r...Read More

"We started that band and stopped it for the same reason: boredom." Former Archers of Loaf front man Eric Bachmann isn't afraid of the changes that come with time. In the early '90s, the Loaf helped inspire a generation of shoe-gazing college boys to start loud guitar bands, but with time, the novelty wore off for Bachmann. He grew tired of the tumultuous Loaf and began trying new tricks as Barry Black. The self-titled Barry Black debut showcased Bachmann's talent on a variety of i...Read More

For a group oft referred to as "downbeat supremos" Groove Armada sure love their house music. While house is the exception rather than the rule throughout their new album, the wonderfully soft-spoken Vertigo , British duo Tom Findlay and Andy Cato are clearly wide-eyed fans of the classic American sound - going so far as to title one track "Chicago." "That's definitely our homage to the early warehouse sound," Findlay enthuses. "It builds from there though; the song has that kind o...Read More

"They wanted me to keep my hair pink forever," sighs Kelis. It's just one of many suggestions she's fended off since signing a major label contract, but forthright and self-assured, Kelis isn't the type to collapse to the whims of spin-doctors. Her lack of a fabricated veneer is a refreshing and distinctive antidote to contemporary R&B's cookie-cutter mentality, but she still faces unfounded stereotypes. "No one expects me to have a clue," she says doggedly. "No one really thinks I...Read More

It's an enviable position for any band to be in. In eight years, with only a handful of recordings under their belt, they've become one of the most respected hardcore bands in the underground. They've logged endless hours on the road building a rabid fan base. Now, Buffalo, NY band Snapcase has not only achieved underground success, but are actually on the verge of something much bigger - the opportunity to make an impact not just in the insulated hardcore community, but to registe...Read More

When christening her debut album Kiss My Arp, British producer, composer, musician, vocalist and DJ Andrea Parker thought that she'd have a spot of fun. "I use my Arps in every single track on the album, so I found it extremely funny," she laughs. "Some people thought that I was being a bit arrogant, others have asked 'Why have you spelled ass wrong?' It can be a great thing for journalists to ask a woman what an 'Arp' is, because then I can go on about analogue synths instead of w...Read More

It's been a decade since Maestro Fresh Wes "Let Your Backbone Slide" and took hip-hop music in Canada into uncharted waters. It was a pioneering moment for Canadian hip-hop - home grown talent making a mark around the world, in a medium spawned and dominated by Americans. Since then, artists in Canada have honed their skills, and have slowly gained respect on their own distinctive terms from hip-hop aficionados worldwide. But while the scene changed from the ground up, and the skil...Read More

In a recent British interview, Welsh band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci laid it all on the line: They were sick of the Welsh thing, sick of the gnomes thing, and sick of the psychedelic thing. While it's not surprising they'd want to head off the more clichéd journalistic approaches - like L7 talking about gender or Blur about Oasis - many Canadians have only their reputation to go on. The band's first five albums have only been available as expensive imports, first on Welsh indie label An...Read More

Rage Against the Machine is an anomaly in the desolate wasteland that is popular culture - a band composed of diverse ethnic backgrounds (black, white, Chicano), fiercely subversive political agendas (advocating class warfare and supporting lefty cause celebre like Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Mexican revolutionaries the Zapatistas), and a band whose music is as incendiary, riot-inducing and controversial as it is infectious. Yet somehow they've managed to balance critical ...Read More

Two years after the amicable demise of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell has returned with his adventurous solo debut, Euphoria Morning , an album that may garner as much praise for its eccentric rock and brooding experimental ballads, as it may draw scorn and derision from Soundgarden fans. Talking with Cornell, it becomes painfully obvious that he isn't worried about pleasing anyone but himself - not fans, critics, or his label.

"My job isn't to create a body of work that can be ...Read More

"I've read, or not read, as many books as the next guy. I drive a 1983 Chevy Silverado truck with a hot rod engine in it. I take out my trash and cut the grass. Life is life." Except life for 29-year-old Ben Harper, in the last six or seven years, has included touring the world and recording four excellent albums that have seen him evolve into one of the best guitarists, singers and songwriters in rock'n'roll, a medium increasingly lacking in dedicated heroes.

And dedicated ...Read More

To paraphrase Canada's venerable hard rock troubadours April Wine, no one ever told Kyle Bishop rock and roll was a vicious game. But as the screamer for the vanguard Toronto-area new school hardcore/emo quintet Grade found recently, it most certainly can be. The band had finished one of their trademark roof-raising sets before a throng of mostly adoring fans in Syracuse, New York, home of one of the most militant and unfortunately belligerent straight-edge scenes in the U.S., when...Read More

It would seem elfin-faced Mortiis is a cursed soul. That probably shouldn't be a surprise to this one-time member of Norwegian black metal outfit Emperor - after all, that band is best known for burning rustic Norwegian churches to further their dark cause. But Mortiis claims innocence - that his prosthetic goblin look is just an image, just like another seemingly evil, but harmless fellow, Marilyn Manson.

Mortiis switched artistic direction in late 1993, leaving behind the ...Read More

Early in his recording career, Stephin Merritt realised he had more songs buzzing around in his head than could be released by one band, so the New York studio wünderkind startled juggling concepts. In short order, his indie-pop synth-rock band the Magnetic Fields was joined by the like-minded Future Bible Heroes, which paired Merritt with his boyfriend Christopher Ewen, the Gothic Archies, a bubblegum goth band, and the 6ths, a band that employs a variety of well-known indie rock ...Read More

There are dozens of indications that Stereolab is a band its audience take very, very seriously, but none greater than that offered by group co-founder, Tim Gane, by way of an apology. Stereolab's incredible new album, Cobra & Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night , was distributed to media by their North American label as a muddy-sounding cassette - good enough to make plain that this album (their sixth) is their best yet, but an inadequate medium for a band whose elaborate...Read More

There are three ways to grow old in music. One is to become mired in a quicksand of complacency, accepting the fact that your greatest glories took place in your increasingly distant youth. Another is to sadly attempt to replicate the fire of your early work without recognising that time has changed you and your audience, a fate that befalls more than just classic rock musicians.

The final option is to never turn back, challenging yourself and unconsciously incorporating new...Read More

It's said that one can never be too rich or too thin, but bandleader Luke Haines knows all about suffering the effects of being too British. A year after its initial release, Black Box Recorder's England Made Me is finally being unveiled in the colonies. Haines wonders if the band's poison-pen tribute to his home and native land will strike a sympathetic chord in North America.

"The Black Box Recorder record was so English it was very difficult to get it released in America,...Read More

When Guided By Voices first began to delve into bigger sounds a few years back, it proved difficult to stray too far from the faithful old four-track. With the release of this month'sDo The Collapse , their eleventh album, GBV meets face to face with Mr. Big Sound and shakes his hand. Bandleader and songsmith Robert Pollard is eager to dissect his current pop work.

"I consider Under The Bushes, Under The Stars (1996) and Mag Earwhig (1997) to be mid-fi. We still sprinkled fo...Read More

"I wanted Broken Girl to be a little thing that wasn't attached to me - I wanted it to be apart from me as a person." Many artists have hidden behind different names, identities, even glyphs, separating themselves from the on-stage identity of songwriter and storyteller, but Julie Doiron's desire to hide seems a little odd.

It's difficult to imagine an artist whose work is less apart from her life. The subject matter of her songs has never been anything but personal - intens...Read More

Since the days of the Fat Boys and Doug E. Fresh, the art of beat-boxing has survived on that principle of simple expression first coined by Biz Markie: "Just make the music with your mouth."

Rahzel, the self-proclaimed Godfather of Noyze, has lived according to this adage for years while performing with the Roots, and now with greater fruition on his solo debut,Make the Music 2000 . With his penchant for emulating everything from the staccato in a Timbaland break, to the vo...Read More