The first time I saw As If they were playing a breast cancer benefit so bizarrely run it was hard to tell if it was for or against breast cancer. In between live musical performances, cancer survivors attempted to tell their stories on stage while members of the audience shouted, “Show us your tits!” I saw As If again several weeks later on one of those shitty, rain-pissing Saturdays that seems to be every Saturday in Akron — one of those nights where staying home wouldn’t be a terrible plan. But for those venturing out come hell or high water, it was record-store night in addition ...
Pulling up to the house in Jackson where The Big Sweet is holding their weekly practice, we can hear echoes of rim shots and bass from the driveway. “I told them to turn it down,” apologized Nick Regas, the father of lead singer and guitarist Sam, who met us at the door. “I don’t think they did.” And frankly, they won’t: The Big Sweet’s star is still rising, and there’s no telling how high the parabola will go. The four-piece indie-pop group is intimately familiar with the Northeast Ohio venue circuit, having played at Musica, House of Blues and the Tangier. They’re sta...
Pittsburgh’s alternative world rock band Rusted Root’s new album Stereo Rodeo brings back the feel-good relaxed vibe that made them a hit in the 90s. If anyone’s looking for a nostalgia trip then look no further than Stereo Rodeo. It has the exotic jam sound they’ve become known for. The combination of an acoustic guitar intertwined with an electric guitar and a smooth wailing saxophone, a massive wall of bongos, drums and tambourines that keep a constant upbeat tempo throughout their songs and the background singers who add in subtle echoes and hold notes to give the lead singer...
There’s something almost comforting about the cyclical nature of popular culture. Audiences seem willing to stomach only so much innocuous nothingness before they’re primed to savagely tear it down, clearing the way for a few innovators to fill that long-coming void. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, that’s exactly what a groundswell of U.K. punk did, putting bands like Kansas and Yes’s 40-minute drums solos out of their bloated misery and skullfucking the corpse. The Subhumans, currently on tour and playing at the Grog Shop April 9, were part of that groundswell, and Buzzbin recent...
In 2004, Dayton’s Hawthorne Heights released “Ohio is for Lovers”, a single on their The Silence is Black and White album that simultaneously rocketed them to serious MTV and radio airplay and cast the band as one of the standouts of emo rock in the midst of its first popular wave. Just like the genre itself, Hawthorne Heights’s music tends to be divisive, a love-’em-or-hate-’em kind of sound and image. The lyrics of “Ohio” fit the swoop-banged safety-pinned emo stereotype to a painfully exact degree: “And I can't make it on my own/ Because my heart is in Ohio...
While LeBron still waits in limbo on his new contract, Cleveland may still have a reason to smile. The Suede Brothers have created a homestyle flavor of music on their new album, The Night, an incredible 10 track explosion of ground-shaking bass and alluring vocals, best described as Rustbelt Rock. It’s hard as steel with a rusty quality, adding just the right amount of distortion on top of heavy riffs to provide a teeth-gnashing, headbanging album from a band that kills it from the first track to the last. This new sound mirrors the region from which it was spawned; slightly vintag...
With the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach announcing plans to move to Nashville while Lebron still waits in limbo on his new contract, Akron may still have a reason to smile. The Suede Brothers have created a homestyle flavor of music on their new album, "The Night," an incredible 10-track explosion of ground-shaking bass and alluring vocals, best described as Rustbelt Rock. It's hard as steel with a rusty quality, adding just the right amount of distortion on top of heavy riffs to provide a teeth-gnashing, headbanging album from a band that kills it from the first track to the last. This ne...
By: Julia Kazar Richard Christy from The Howard Stern Show and Tim Ripper Owens, the former lead singer for Judas Priest, were at The Tap House in Akron last night for a meet and greet before they launched their tour for their band Charred Walls of the Damned. The band came out to The Tap House to meet the fans, have a good time and to pose for plenty of pictures for Buzzbin magazine, which you can check out on our website. Don Jamieson, comedian and host of That Metal Show on VH1, also did a short set that evening. If you’re a metal head come check out Charred Walls of the Damned when th...
-->by E. M. Serensky The House of Blues’ Cambridge Room came to life on June 15th with music, energy, and fun! The Spring Standards opened for the New York-based indie-rock/pop band, Wakey! Wakey!. The room was full of faithful followers and soon-to-be fans. The Spring Standards, formed by James Cleare, Heather Robb, and James Smith set the mood for the evening with their lively rocking-folk sound and energetic stage presence. Even crutches didn’t slow down Robb’s driving vocals and rhythmic presence. The guitarists were equally as great, both singing lead on multiple songs...
The Speedbumps By E.M. Serensky When people think of speed bumps they think of having to slow down. However, for the Kent band The Speedbumps, this couldn't be further from the truth. On June 11th, they are hosting a CD release party at the Kent Stage. Who are they and what does this entail? Read on. Erik Urycki is the founder, guitarist, and lead singer of The Speedbumps. He founded the band in the summer of 2003. He headed east with a friend and ended up in Boston, sleeping on couches along the way. "It was my first taste of being poor and on the road. I loved it," says Urycki. ...
One-time purveyors of the ‘80s new wave gloom and doom set, Echo and the Bunnymen have always ceased to be just another band content with living in the past. They write about it and perform it with a new verve. Everything old is new again, in a sense. The Liverpool lads who began nearly 33 years ago, have been center stage in the world of alternative music and then have disappeared without a whimper. Whatever the case may be, they are slowly working their way back to the middle. And that middle includes embarking on a 14-city US tour to promote their eleventh studio album Fountain,...
By Anthony Cirincione The garage filled with Mom and Dad’s boxes of old knick knacks surround the band practicing, waiting until they get that chance to come out with their own CD. Childhood friends now trying to make cohesive music together to form an original sound is what is on the table. This is where Barberton’s The Woovs got their start and they have never looked back. The band actually started in peculiar way. Adam Lengyel, the lead singer, used to sing to keyboardist Bryan Delauder’s beats he used to make while at parties. Delauder said it all started “One nig...
NOW: Henry Rollins turned 49 in February … but the only sign that he is edging closer to the half-century mark is his graying short-cropped head. While many original punk performers have either died, failed at comebacks or become parodies of themselves, the former lead singer from seminal hard core punk band Black Flag is still on his game. He is still as sharp as a knife and he could still kick most people’s asses. But these days he wouldn’t do that, unless seriously provoked. Therein lies the difference. “As a younger person, there’s so much emotional sturm und dra...
The Danish group’s third album serves as a light treat in certain situations. The poppy simplistic rhythms accompanied by lead singer Steffen Westmark’s clean lyrics leave little in the way of artistic intrigue, but they do hit home in the way of artistic intrigue, but they do hit home in a Sunday-barbeque fashion. The band’s website attributes the CD title to their growth as men, and it is a step up from their previous CD’s in overt subject tones. It may not turn heads on first listen but it will grow on you for your summertime niche needs. “The Socialite” may well serve as music ...
White Drugs Records Punk Rock The sharp, stabbing psycho looping guitars on The Bronx’s “III” album opener, “Knifeman” would have Alfred Hitchcock and 1984’s George Orwell smiling. With lyrics that pierce deep into the monotonous machine and a building of suspenseful intensity are harnessed by an unforgiving chorus. That’s track one, and we’re just getting started. Lead singer Matt Caughthran has a delivery that is shockingly forceful yet melodically appeasing. This is punk rock, not punk-lite. “Past Lives” carries the same ambulence urgency: drums for a steady heartbea...
By Samson Stryker Dude, the idea behind the current record is cool enough to eagerly await the arrival of “A-Lex,” Sepultura’s newest contribution to the heavy metal fans of the world. The Brazilian born face-melting four piece is putting out another concept album based off the 1962 book “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess/ You’ve probably seen the 1971 Stanley Kubrik movie adaptation, and now you are about to hear the 2009 Sepultura audio interpretation. Before you listen, you should probably be more familiar with Sepultura than “A Clockwork Orange” because the band is ...
“All Hope is Gone” is the fourth LP from Des Moines’ favorite masked men. The album begins exactly as a Slipknot fan would hope: hard, fast and angry. “Gemantria (A Killing Name)” is named after a Hebrew numerical science, which consists of adding up the numerical value of a word and comparing it to other words with the same value. The lyrics mention that “America is a killing name,” suggesting there is little hope for this country and echoing the sentiments of many people in this time of economic crisis and political turmoil. Keeping up with the pace is “Sulfur” and “P...
Written by Tequila Mockingbird It’s a beautiful California afternoon. My cameraman, H., and I are at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood for our appointment with Mr. Lemmy Kilmister bassist and lead singer for hard rock/heavy metal gods Motörhead. It’s early for the Rainbow and the place is inhabited by the afternoon pizza and beer crowd. Lemmy strolls up to the bar for his trademark Jack and Coke. He is wearing a black cowboy shirt, the kind with the piping and snap pockets. His pants are super tight and he is wearing black and white German Eagle cowboy boots. H...
