Cheetah Chrome, guitarist for revered underground punk bands Rocket From the Tombs and Dead Boys, has died, his PR company announced Monday night.
The punk-rock underground legend, whose real name was Eugene Richard O’Connor, died Sunday in Nashville at age 71, according to Reprobate Media.
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David Yow’s could very well lingering in obscurity without his iconic tenure as the frontman of the Jesus Lizard (and Scratch Acid) before that. But he’s also sprinkled in some bizarre side projects along the way, including his abstract-art “music” album Tonight You Look Like a Spider, released in June 2013 on Joyful Noise; a stint as the vocalist for L.A. underground rock trio Qui that culminated in their 2007 album Love’s Miracle; and guest appearances at concerts by Shellac, Melvins, the Dicks, Girls Against Boys and Cop Shoot Cop.
But one of the most notable excursions Yow – who self-deported from the U.S. for Portugal during the Trump regime – took in his equally florid and flatulent career was when he took on the role of vocalist for influential punk band and one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite groups, Flipper. After forming in 1979 and taking a decade-long break from 1994 to 2004, Yow filled in for ailing singer Bruce Loose during shows in 2015. Four years later, Yow reprised his role as substitute vocalist for Flipper’s 40th Anniversary Tour in 2019; at that point, Yow was effectively a member of the band, which advertised their shows as “Flipper with David Yow.”
But little do fans know – if any – that Yow wasn’t a shoe-in for Flipper’s replacement vocalist. Chris Spencer, frontman of Unsane – another hugely influential noise-rock band from decades past, along with the Jesus Lizard – recently revealed in an interview with this writer: “I was really a big Flipper fan, despite them having 30-plus members over the years. The ethos of that band was just great.”
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This Q&A with The Format – an influential indie-rock duo consisting of Nate Ruess and Sam Means that reunited last year – was conducted on Friday, September 11, as part of The Bad Penny‘s ongoing On Tyranny series. The feature focuses on how fascism damages artists artistically, emotionally and personally; provides them with space to discuss their fear, anxiety and anger toward the Trump administration; increases solidarity among like-minded artists; and lets them set an example for other musicians (young ones in particular) that it is legal and just to criticize and protest.
Of the 100-plus artists with whom I’ve spoken for this series, you guys are actually putting your money where your mouth is and doing a lot of good work. Please tell my readership what you’ve been up to and the catalyst for getting involved helping immigrants.
Nate Ruess: We’re focusing right now on direct organization and “Saturdays in the Park.” When we’re on tour and in a city on a Saturday, we find a park and set up our PA system and let everybody come and watch us play for free. We’ll invite about eight to 12 different organizations to come and set up tables at this free show, and in between us playing a few songs acoustically, we’ll invite them onstage for five minutes to explain what their organization is all about and why people might want to join or get more information. It gives everybody an opportunity, instead of just feeling good about themselves for donating, to take more direct action.
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Excitement is building as the release date for the sixth studio album by red-hot Boston rock band Slothrust nears. But there’s some additional news that, while not as seismic as the unveiling of What They Grow in the Garden will be on September 18, band leader Leah Wellbaum (vocals, guitar) exclusively told The Bad Penny that Slothrust is now a foursome.
“We’re both multi-instrumentalists,” Wellbaum said during a video interview on Monday, referring to herself and drummer Will Gorin writing and recording music together in the studio. “He played bass on this last record [2021’s Parallel Timeline]. And it’s been really fun seeing him step into other instrumental roles.
“He’s obviously an incredible drummer and also a really great guitarist,” Wellbaum continued. “It was really fun to see what he would do, what he did on the bass to play with himself and to interact with the music that he was so involved in crafting. And because we both play all the band instruments, it’s fun to be able to explore as a two-piece in that way. That being said, it’s really nice to be able to perform with more people.”
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Just a couple of months after ‘90s indie-rock/post-hardcore legends Shudder to Think announced four autumn concerts for later this year, Monday brought even more seismic news: Craig Wedren and his band of misfits – well, they used to be in their younger years; now they’re matured into very fine gentlemen – are putting out their first record in an eyeball-bursting three decades.
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Deliberately or not, Maria BC broadened their horizons and engaged with the world in a way the artist hadn’t done before with Marathon, an album that teems with more sincerity and human emotion than the past two releases. Those records were certainly noteworthy, but Marathon felt like a truer work of art in that it recognized, if not empathized — an action that is actually very difficult to accomplish, even though marketing companies recklessly overuse and thus distort its meaning — with Americans and the hardships they are currently experiencing.
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It seemed inevitable from the moment that Brandi Carlile walked onstage to perform a massive benefit concert in the wake of the ICE-provoked melees that occurred in Minneapolis six months ago that her performance would be historic. Now the soaring singer-songwriter is helping solidify the importance and magnitude of the show by making it available for free on YouTube for all to see.
Continue reading2BYG – WYW remix feat. Tahjaee single (Def Jam)
Accursed Womb – Hymns of Blasphemous Fornication (Nespithe)
Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Songs for Sad Poets Vol. III (American Dreams)
Argul – Soledad & Orgullo (Personal)
Azatoth – Carnal Lust of Blasphemy (Extremely Rotten)
Black Marble – Life in Small Spaces (Sacred Bones)
Mark Ciani – Utopia (self-release)
Destin Conrad – Roadrunner (Above Ground/ Empire)
The Cramps – Greatest Gravy (unreleased 1977 album produced by Alex Chilton) (Vengeance)
Cutthroat – Purge EP (M-Theory)
Dark Funeral – Beast to Praise (Century Media/ InsideOut)
Deathgrave – Hell Is Evil (Tankcrimes)
Dream Phases – Little Blue Magnolia single (self-release)
Enhypen – Sin: Bliss EP
Famous Strangers – s/t (self-release)
Feeders – Dark Days
Fen – Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth (Prophecy)
Brandon Flowers – Thrasher (Island)
Foglights – Nous Deux EP (Skep Wax/ Slumberland)
French Film – Yours + Five (Solid Brass)
From Ashes to New – Die for You (feat. Neoni) single (Better Noise)
Riviera Gaz (feat. Steve Shelley) – Catacroma (Vampire Blues)
GB – Herzsprung (Posh Isolation)
Ghost Hounds – Justified
Giraffe – Towering Inferno With Bongo Drums (Org Music/ Aquarium Drunkard)
Hey, Nothing – Hound (Music Soup/ Interscope)
Sawyer Hill – Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy (AWAL)
Paris Jackson – Happiest Day of My Life (Republic)
Jamie James – Steppin’ Back 2009 (Oglio)
Lexi Jayde – Lover Girl (Columbia)
Coco Jones – Love Me Through single (High Standardz/ Def Jam)
Korpse – Forbid EP (Unique Leader)
Lambchop – Punching the Clown (Merge)
David Bowie made “Heroes” in 1977 with co-writer and electronic-music pioneer Brian Eno and co-producer Tony Visconti, both of whom regularly collaborated with him throughout his 54-year career. Bowie had moved to West Berlin to escape cocaine addiction and the madness of the L.A. years. He was living austerely: a Spartan life, as he described it, for a person of his means. He worked at Hansa because it felt dangerous and alive in equal measure. His closest collaborator, producer Tony Visconti, described it as a stark, scary place with exciting nightlife. It is widely believed that such an environment was what Bowie required in order to write new music, given his mental and emotional state at the time.
Fresh off playing a co-headlining set in Tokyo with another legendary idiosyncratic group, Sparks, Cornelius (real name Keigo Oyamada) is finally turning his sights again to his illustrious music career even though he’s engaged in loads of admirable endeavors over the years. Cornelius’ new album – which marks his eighth studio effort – is called Refractions, a title that appears curious at face value but speaks to the changing sounds that permeate the album.
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The Bad Penny (beta) 