Subject: Indie Rock and Indie Pop

• From Indie to Outie

  July 31, 2008

• Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll?

  June 15, 2006

• What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?

  June 15, 2006

• Ramble On

  May 19, 2005

• Striking Poses

  July 26, 2001

• Maximize your Bonnaroo experience by sticking to what (and who) you know

  June 11, 2009

• Bonna-Roast: It's Gettin' Hot Out Here

  That's the breakfast of champions right there, I tell ya. Tomorrow we're cooking duck. If I could make funnel cakes on the grill I'd be the happiest man on earth. The Itals' sweet reggae harmonies got the day started right and I had to skip Animal Collective because there were WAAAAAY too many people -- I can't think of anything worse than thousands of Animal Collective fans freaking out in broad day light. Now it's time to steal a good spot for Santigold and start on our way towards drunken o

  June 12, 2009

• Bonnaroo: Day 2, Pt. 1: Welcome to the Terrordome

  Arriving just earlier today, my Bonnaroo experience is only in its sixth hour. Most things I have to report are those you already know: it's hot, there's mud, and a shitload of people here. I'm only just now snapping out of that initial period of sensory overload involved when making the transition from the outside world in here. With my face generously kissed by the sun already, my ankles crying out in pain, Bonnaroo so far has only served to remind me just how old I've gotten -- or maybe I sho

  June 12, 2009

• Roo-minations: What The Spin Can Tell You Thus Far

  America the Beautiful...or not.* "A 40% chance of rain" is about the most noncommittal forecast ever. Every time we see a cloud, we contemplate taking shelter. Typically, we go with our gut, stay where we are and just keep drinking. * Individually, Bonnaroo volunteers seem to each only have a tiny piece of the big picture as far as their responsibilities go. This results in things like: A) Driving to the wrong camping entrance because the traffic-director lady was a bit too cavalier with her or

  June 12, 2009

• Roo-minations: The Spin Rages On

  * Drunk people running to catch an artist they're late for = pure gold. Sorry. It's true. If you're going to shriek "Oakenfold!!" with your arms outstretched as you fall flat on your face, you should expect someone to laugh at you. Don't be so defensive. * Good turnouts for all of the Nashville talent this year. Heypenny seemed to attract some attention by stomping about in their marching-band uniforms in Centeroo. * Despite rumors of a cancellation, Phoenix started their set last night right

  June 13, 2009

• Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear & TV on the Radio at Bonnaroo 6/12/09

  Photo by Steve CrossAnimal Collective's Panda Bear For more photos, check out the slideshow. After a rain-drenched rager of a first evening, Camp Spin woke up Friday amid a swamp of fishy-smelling (Phishy-smelling?) mud puddles with Ghostfinger's Richie Kirkpatrick as a neighbor. (By the next day, folks from the Lake Fever and Mercy Lounge crews would move into the hood as well.) While trudging through the muck toward Centeroo, we came across local Road to Bonnaroo 8 off 8th champs Heypenny in

  June 15, 2009

• The Crowd Kills Indie Rock, Christopher Weingarten Kills It

  Here's music writer Christopher Weingarten holding forth at the recent 140 Character Conference. He's in the midst of reviewing 1,000 albums on Twitter (that's what the "140" is about in the conference title). Yes, he laments the death of traditional journalism. Yes, he makes fun of Phish, and indie rock, and NPR, and Fleet Foxes (especially Fleet Foxes). I'm pretty sure he contradicts himself a couple of times in there, but very well, he contradicts himself. The part where he says "everythin

  June 17, 2009

• Handsome Furs at Exit/In

  July 9, 2009

• M. Ward Discusses Hold Time, Zooey Deschanel, Monsters of Folk and More

  Frequent Scene contributor Chris Parker filed this entry.  Matt or M. Ward has been making music as a solo artist for a decade since the demise of his trio, Rodriguez. During that time his stark haunted folk-blues sound has grown richer and more robust, culminating with arguably his most beautiful and certainly most baroque album, Hold Time. Last year he completed and toured in support of She & Him, a project with actress/singer Zooey Deschanel, and he's awaiting the September self-titled

  July 24, 2009

• Lambchop's Singalong: Wagner & Co. Steal the Show at Merge's 20th Anniversary

  Brad Searles​Merge Records just turned 20 years old--a totally datable age, if you can look past some slight emotional immaturity and an inability to purchase booze. To celebrate two decades-worth of remarkable releases, Merge put on a massive self-congratulatory celebration--we're not the only ones who do it--that featured performances from Superchunk, Spoon, a reunited 3Ds, She & Him, Daniel Bejar, Wye Oak, local pride-and-joy "alt-country/soul/chamber-rock/gospel hybrid" outfit Lambchop

  July 28, 2009

• Press Release Round-up: Hot Shows Coming to Mercy Lounge

  D. Ricky RodriguezAll Juggalos welcome, except for this one​ Yesterday our good friends over at the Mercy Lounge tried their damnedest to confuse our spam filters by blasting us with five press releases in the span of 61 minutes. Since it would be a gratuitous waste of bandwidth to post about these shows individually I've opted for a bit of press release round-up. Here goes: Boom! Lord T and Eloise will provide a night of hipster-trash aristo-crunk on Sep. 4. Al Kapone [sic], of Hustle a

  August 5, 2009

• Road Trip to Memphis: Built to Spill at Minglewood Hall Oct. 21

  ​Built to Spill's new album There Is No Enemy (their first in three years after 2006's You In Reverse) comes out Oct. 6. They've scheduled a fall tour that kicks off in Oregon in 10 days, taking these masters of bendy, heartfelt bombast down the West Coast and to states like Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. States just like ours, only in cities that will make us feel like shit when we find out that they won't be playing in Nashville, but Memphis. What's Memphis ever done for anybody? I kid. Hey, wo

  August 10, 2009

• White Rabbits w/Fiery Furnaces at Mercy Lounge

  August 13, 2009

• Super Secret Special Guest to Appear at Tonight's 8 off 8th [Who Can It Be Now?]

  Will it be as epic as this was? If you follow the Mercy Lounge on Twitter then you've undoubtedly noticed their recent daily tweets alluding to a super-secret ninth band who are presumably flying into town to play a super-secret set to close tonight's 8 off 8th festivities. By examining these tweets we know that this is a band who: ...hate Kings of Leon but love to make you dance... is very popular with boys and has had over 7 bassists...will perform at next month's All Tomorrow's Parties...h

  August 17, 2009

• The Fruit Bats are a real band now, but they aren't The Shins

  September 3, 2009

• Our Noise Could Be Your Noise

  ​Could Our Noise, out Sept. 15, be the best-read rock book since Our Band Could Be Your Life? It tells the story of Merge Records, and how the bedroom-born label, started in the '90s in Chapel Hill by Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance, has not only stuck around for 20 years, but has also shaped the careers of the Chunk itself--as well as modern-day indie-rock knockouts Lambchop and Arcade Fire. In between, it has promoted/distributed/championed records by a shit-ton

  September 11, 2009

• The Darrin James Band at The Basement

  October 15, 2009

• Mirah at Mercy Lounge

  October 15, 2009

• Sea Wolf

  October 22, 2009

• After losing her voice, Land of Talk's Elizabeth Powell learns to sing again

  December 3, 2009

• Back in Your Head: Tegan and Sara Play The Ryman March 31; Presale Tix Available Dec. 10

  ​Your favorite Canadian twin-sister duo Tegan & Sara, masters of the brash and intimate navel-gazing croon, play The Ryman March 31. I've always dug Tegan and Sara immensely, even though they do occasionally veer a little too far into Indigo Girls territory on earlier records and right up till So Jealous--I still preferred that record's rawness to the follow-up The Con. And, anyone who doesn't add "Walking With a Ghost" to their list of the best pop songs of this decade is crazy. Totally crazy

  December 4, 2009

• Working on My Year-End List: 40 of the Year's Best Records

  ​Back in June, I blogged that I was already beginning to consider my options for albums of the year. The annual Pazz & Jop Poll--which is half the reason I started this blog--is hosted by our former overlords at Village Voice, and they've again asked for our opinions regarding 2009's strongest albums. Sweet of them, considering we at the Scene aren't a part of the corporate family anymore--though I'm not entirely sure they realize that.

  December 16, 2009

• Vampire Weekend Play The Ryman April 5

  These guys make "African" music.​Two years ago, I had a friend. Let's call him Josiah. Josiah had what I'd call "good" taste in music. One day, he put on a CD and started excitedly dancing around and singing about Oxford commas and Cape Cod. At first, I laughed and said, "Josiah, why are you getting so into Jimmy Buffett right now--are you rocking out to this ironically?" Then the next track started, after throwing up a little in my mouth, I was forced to proclaim, "Jesus fucking Christ

  January 4, 2010

• 2009: Grimey's Top Sellers and Staff Picks

  ​If you're one of the few people who actually paid for records in 2009, then you likely paid for them at Grimey's New & Preloved Music--Nashville's favorite record shop. If there's one group of geeks in this town who trump us with their music knowledge, then it's easily the staff at this beloved local establishment. Hell, Doyle Davis probably knows more about Guided by Voices than Mr. Miyagi knows about karate--Bee Thousand is the crane kick of indie-rock, BTW. This morning, Grimey's "indi

  January 4, 2010

• If Quasi Played Nashville on April 29, Would You Go?

  Just last night I was presented with a peculiar and somewhat troubling scoop by a source most familiar with the Nashville rock 'n' roll booking scene. Our source, who typically helps book shows down on the Rock Block, informed us that he was contacted by Quasi several weeks ago. The legendary indie-rock duo (now a trio, actually) apparently put out feelers in an attempt to hit Nashville on April 29 as part of their upcoming tour. They were turned down. Not just once, but by three separate smal

  January 5, 2010

• The Octagon at The Basement

  January 7, 2010

• Road Trip to Indio, Calif.: Coachella Lineup Announced

  Music geek porn.While we here in Middle Tennessee have no shortage of long, large-scale, sun-drenched music festivals to look forward to, it's hard not to be jealous of the lucky fucks in Southern California today. And it's not because their hot days are dry, winters don't exist, they aren't a decade behind the cultural curve and they have an ocean. This bit of coastal-envy is inspired by the Coachella line-up that was announced yesterday. It's un-fucking-real. Peep it after the jump.

  January 20, 2010

• De Novo Dahl at Mercy Lounge

  January 21, 2010

• Wax Fang at Exit/In

  January 28, 2010

• Silent League at The Basement

  January 28, 2010

• Bonnaroo Lineup News: The Flaming Lips to Cover Dark Side of the Moon, Paul Simon a Go and Paul McCartney Rumored

  ​In case you haven't heard, everyone's favorite fearless freaks of the festival circuit, The Flaming Lips, will perform Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in a late-night set at Bonnaroo 2010. This according to Lips frontman -- and Raffi of indie-rock -- Wayne Coyne, who yesterday revealed his bands intentions to Spinner, claiming: ...we're gonna do it at Bonnaroo at the midnight slot, the first night... We do a Flaming Lips set then starting about 2:30 we do this 'Dark Side of the Moon'

  February 3, 2010

• Girls' album Album

  February 4, 2010

• Bonnaroo 2010 Lineup: Jay-Z, The Flaming Lips, John Fogerty, Weezer ...

  ​Today's the day that the Bonnaroo lineup "unfolds," as we were told would happen. The unfolding sure feels a lot like a trickle, but let's not get caught up in semantics, right? There's also supposed to be a big "unveiling" at 11 a.m. our time, so we shall be on the lookout for that. Meanwhile, we'll update this post throughout the day as we find stuff out. It looks like artists' sites are the source of some initial confirmations, as is the case with the Fogerty. Here's what we know so

  February 9, 2010

• Rites of Spring 2010 Lineup: Phoenix, Drake, Ben Harper and More

  Land Rover Parking LotHey, we thought it took 12 hours to release a festival lineup, so when InsideVandy.com released the deets on this year's Gathering of the Flip-Floppalos, we just figured they were gonna use "social media" to make us wait all day for ... aw hell, we were in a meeting and none of us saw when it went up this morning. We had important stuff to discuss! Also, we anti-climaxed enough yesterday to last us a lifetime. Anyway, looks like this year's Rites of Spring headliners are Be

  February 10, 2010

• On Beacons of Ancestorship, Tortoise stick to few winning basics

  February 11, 2010

• Jason Boesel at Mercy Lounge

  February 25, 2010

• Road Trip to Knoxville: Big Ears Festival 2010

  Click for detail.​Next week, SXSW will kick off the 2010 festival season, which will reach critical mass in the U.S. with Middle Tennessee's very own Bonnaroo festival in June. Of course, you already know of those happenings. A festival you may not be aware of, however, is Knoxville's Big Ears Fest. A mere two weeks away, this East Tennessee carnival of ear candy features a diverse lineup of artists ranging from distinguished guitarist (and Nashville resident) Adrian Belew to motivational

  March 10, 2010

• Vetiver w/Scout Niblett & Caitlin Rose at Exit/In

  March 4, 2010

• Cymbals Eat Guitars grow up on a steady diet of indie rock

  March 4, 2010

• Savior Adore

  March 11, 2010

• Hockey at Mercy Lounge

  March 18, 2010

• Neutral Milk Hotel Tribute at The 5 Spot

  March 18, 2010

• From the Jersey Shore, Real Estate make a surf-rock record for the rest of us

  March 18, 2010

• Critics' Picks

  March 18, 2010

• SXSW: DPR's Day Three [Miike Snow, Dr. Dog, The xx, French Miami & More]

  About 20 percent of the line at La Zona Rosa during Superchunk's set. :(​Note: Gold will provide coverage of Superchunk, Les Savvy Fav and Fool's Gold later. My past 36 hours have likely been some of my blurriest ever. After The Love Language and Lou Barlow's remarkable sets Thursday night in Cedar Street Courtyard -- they played to a crowd that was probably just shy of half-capacity thanks to a post-She and Him outflux ... snooze -- I crashed at the hotel for the better part of 12 hours

  March 20, 2010