When Jerry Garcia died 17 years ago, after what would go down in history as The Grateful Dead's final show, the band's faithful following of “Deadheads” splintered — some jumping onto the bandwagons (pun intended) of up-and-coming jambands like Vermont's Phish and Georgia's Widespread Panic, and some trading their tie-dyes for neckties to go from Deadheads to yuppies. Some Deadheads remained on the never- ending Dead tour, however, by following the various remnant bands, such as rhythm guitarist Bob Weir's Ratdog and bassist Phil Lesh's Phil and Friends, as well as remnant supergroups...
First things first: Jamie Stillman, founder of Akron's independent stompbox manufacturer, EarthQuaker Devices, does not want to be considered a “boutique” pedal maker. By definition, though, that’s what he is. “Boutique,” for Stillman, is “a shitty word with a bad reputation.” This is partly because “major companies are now using it as a selling point,” he said, but also because it denotes builders who make “tube screamer clones, steal your money and never deliver. We’re not one of those companies.” In Stillman’s view, boutique gear in general is a thing of the pa...
When musician Bill Corgan lost Pat Beck, his longtime friend and former bandmate from The Nimrods, the reality of mortality set in. It was time to finally do something he’d always wanted to do: learn to play the banjo. Life, after all, is fleeting. As a youngster, Corgan had enjoyed bands like Kiss and Mötley Crüe. Black Sabbath brought him eventually to heavier music and finally to punk rock, which in turn led to a period of all angst-ridden music, all the time, he says. “It got to the point where I had so much negativity that I kind of broke down, and I stopped listening to altoget...
When summertime hits and Cuyahoga Falls begins its Rockin’ on the River concert series, local musicians flock to the shows clutching acoustic instruments, leaving the cases on the ground to collect tips for their street-performing efforts. For Johnny and the Apple Stompers, it was the catalyst for the formation of a full band, or at least as full as one can be in the alt-country scene. Johnny Miller, a twenty-something who looks like a brunette Kurt Cobain in suspenders and a fedora, leads the band on acoustic guitar, along with vocals not unlike those of Ryan Adams or Bob Dylan at the Co...
The Franklin, Ind. -based and provocatively named punk-rock outfit Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes will make an appearance at the Buzzbin Art and Music Shop on January 20, in the midst of a tour that runs from Anaheim, Calif., to Cape Coral, Fla. The tour also includes stops in Las Vegas, Indianapolis and a handful of other Florida locales. The punk trio’s sound might be described as a mix of classic Breeders and the Dead Milkmen, with a noise-punk framework that is often interspersed with more straightforward musical sections. The song “White Cow,” for instance, begins as a riffy pu...
Dave Douglas and Rachel Hoskins have left behind the full band days of their musical pasts and developed into a power pop duo with a big, polished sound called Attack Cat. As for developing into a duo, Douglas says, “it wasn’t our intention at all — we originally were a five-piece and it just kind of happened that way,” with Hoskins adding, “and it just happened that we became a duo when it became popular.” In short, this is no bandwagon duo, so to speak, but the indie duo pigeonhole is one into which Attack Cat is often cast.” The live show, however, sets the band apart fr...
