Review Playboy.com May 2005 Rating: Three of Four Bunnyheads It’s a bad sign for a politician when animated monkeys dis your war record. That’s the state Dubya finds himself in with the release of Demon Days, the latest album from the virtual hip-hop collective Gorillaz. On the smoldering track “Dirty Harry” — which starts out […]
Feature DiningOut Chicago Spring/Summer 2005 Long considered a cheap shot that can lead to salacious behavior, tequila has earned a bad rap. Misconceptions about the spirit abound, all contributing to its unfounded reputation as a foul-tasting “cactus juice” only fit for college parties. In reality, tequila is a refined, complex spirit. And the true story […]
Feature Chicago Tribune June 10, 2005 When Spoon singer-songwriter Britt Daniels began writing songs for the band’s latest album “Gimme Fiction,” he was already focused on the end. As in The End. “I was thinking about the apocalypse,” he said. “There are a lot of people in Texas and in the Bible Belt who believe […]
Movie Review Playboy.com June 2005 Reconceiving Batman requires radical thinking, and Memento director Christopher Nolan takes a revolutionary, and revelatory, approach with Batman Begins. Waking from a recurring flashback of his childhood fall down a bat-filled well, Gotham’s most famous son Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) finds himself in a place many of us would consider […]
Feature URB May 2005 Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore remembers endlessly listening to a homemade tape filled with his favorite hardcore songs. He recalls touring the country during the ’80s in a van with a monstrous, sticker-stained boom box blasting tunes. And he still treasures the mix tapes bestowed by older and wiser friends and […]
Show Preview Time Out Chicago May 2005 Hip hop thrives on the excitement of visceral, spur-of-the-moment freestyle rapping—but few groups improvise a whole set the way locals Modill did at the Empty Bottle in May opening for DJ Spooky. When showtime arrived and a guest MC never showed up—making the set list and the vinyl […]
Feature Time Out Chicago April 2005 “Sometimes, I feel like the invisible man of Detroit techno,” says Anthony “Shake” Shakir. Being in the right place and being connected can make all the difference. But sometimes, even those big breaks aren’t enough. Working during the ’80s in the studio of dance music icon Derrick May (who […]
Music Review Playboy.com January 2005 In any class covering hip-hop history, the prof will undoubtedly devote much of the semester to Bronx B-boys and L.A. gang members. But Run the Road, a British rap compilation hitting U.S. shores this month, may be the most cogent argument yet that overseas artists aren’t merely copying U.S. styles […]
Feature Chicago Tribune November 2004 Anthony Kiedis, singer for the multiplatinum funk-rock Red Hot Chili Peppers, released his epic autobiography, “Scar Tissue,” this week. It’s full of the type of wild stories — watching his father deal coke to a football player as a kid, trading in a guitar signed by all of the Rolling […]
Concert Review Chicago Tribune November 2004 Though many rappers rely on flashy diamonds and street credibility to get attention, underground rap kingpin Daniel Dumile needed just a mike and a metal mask to rock the Abbey Pub Monday night. Performing as the mysterious MF Doom, a character named after a Marvel comic book antagonist, Dumile […]