The Dirty Three

The fluid ease with which Dirty Three create the romance of tidal pulls and the despair of lonesome oceans in their new CD, Ocean Songs, is both tranquilizing and electric. Drums, guitar and violin serve a common purpose, swirling with deliberate ingenuity that lulls and soothes while cutting against the grain. Billowing sails and creaking timbers have room to stretch out. Gurgling mysteries lay simmering beneath the trio’s simple nuances and subtle twists.

Formed in a bar on the rough side of Melbourne, Australia, Dirty Three sound both weathered and full of life, deliberate, yet lazy. Warren Ellis’ winding gypsy fiddle skims and plummets while the cavernous drums of Jim White sound like sharp splashes and plodding depth charges. Their spacious longing can turn romantic and does so several times, stunningly in, “Sea Above, Sky Below,” while the sullen, barren slogging of “Authentic Celestial Music” forms a musical mechanical contraption that starts out of breath then steps up the pace. The ambling ambiance is both hypnotic and ambient, gracefully stumbling in slow motion then turning dangerously monomaniacal. No better example of this appears than Mick Turner’s breezy guitar playing on the whispery “Distant Shores,” a three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn from his crashing, savage churning in “Deep Waters.”

Life Of Agony

an interview with Alan Robert of Life Of Agony during the Whitfield Crane era

Stuck Mojo

When zealots declared “The South will rise again!” the farthest thing from their minds was a black man leading the charge, fronting a band inspired by Twisted Sister and World Championship Wrestling. But obviously, the people that swooned over “Sic Semper Tyrannis” had never heard of heavy metal music, let alone Fender guitars, Pearl drums, and Marshall stacks that project a din loud enough to stifle any Civil War cannon blast.

Enter Stuck Mojo, Atlanta’s metal godfathers, the South’s reigning kings of musical fury and onstage chaos, and underdogs turned favorites to topple the loud rock hierarchy.

Selling a combined 75,000 copies of their first two releases on Century Media Records, Snappin’ Necks (1995) and Pigwalk (1996), Stuck Mojo are indie-metal’s marquee attraction, having chiseled a name for themselves through aggressive touring, explosive live shows, and an attitude that defines heavy metal as it was always meant to be.

Lorenzo Music

Despite grumblings about the supposedly long lost Madison music scene, new and talented bands keep rising up as if nothing had ever burned or closed down. The better ones, like anywhere else, are those that seem to defy easy categorization. You hear a hint of this and a reference to that, but you can’t pin the group down. Such is the case with Lorenzo Music.

At the core are two musicians who have experienced the changing musical tides here between the lakes. Tod Schwenn spent a good amount of time in Rapscallion during the late-80s and early-90s, around the same time Tom Ray was in Fallacy. After those bands broke up, the two decided to start jamming and writing together. The songs came together so well that they decided to form a permanent band and, after finding the right musicians, did their first gig in March of 1996.

Lorenzo Music explores many areas of sound, going from keyboard- driven, Doors-like jams to lounge swings to power guitars in a single song. The key is that they do it gracefully, at times almost unnoticeably. Most of the keyboards are done on a vintage Rhodes electric piano that Ray bought for $150 when such instruments were out of style. Schwenn supplies the guitar and the two share the vocal work. Every musician in this band has experience: second guitarist Brandon Krueger was in Peep Show, bassist Mark Whitcomb played in Insanity A.D., Carl and Swiggo, and drummer Scott Beardsley also gigged with Swiggo as well as Mindox (which also featured Buddo of Magic 7 & Last Crack).

Coal Chamber

A decade ago, glam bands ruled Los Angeles. As big hair poked the ozone, the Sunset Strip resembled a drag show, and talent was judged by the quality of your groupies, not the integrity of your music.

No one was really surprised when the scene became a parody of itself, but they might be surprised if they took a look at the new breed of bands forging a path through the spoils of outdated leather and spandex. Say hello to Korn, the Deftones, and the latest heavyweights to take up prominence on the downtuned metal scene: Coal Chamber.

Frontman Dez, guitarist Meegs, bassist Rayna, and drummer Mike are a truly motley crew that have spent the better part of the last year on the road with OzzFest, Megadeth and Pantera. Along with fellow newcomers Sevendust