Posts by Zach Johnson

New Wave was a peculiar genre of music by default, producing dozens of oddball one-hit wonders back in its early 80s heyday. One such example was Toni Basil’s quirky 1982 hit “Mickey”, a song that really blew up thanks in large part to its iconic cheerleader-centric music video that was in heavy rotation on a […]

The last time this writer had the pleasure of seeing Ty Segall at Thalia Hall, he started his performance by crawling up to the microphone, sporting his trademark Sloppo baby mask. He proceeded to rip through a delightfully demented set chock-full of tunes from his brilliant Emotional Mugger album, which had just come out at […]

Yesterday’s Manic Monday selection featured a heavy band that occasionally flirted with alternative elements, whereas today’s offering comes from a band that was alternative to the core, but often injected a healthy dose of frantic/noisy intensity into their sound on a regular basis. Talking about the Pixies of course, who were one of the first […]

For today’s Manic Monday, we’re spotlighting perhaps the best sludge band to come out of the UK in the 90s, the underrated and somewhat obscure Fudge Tunnel. For those not privy, Fudge Tunnel was led by frontman and lead guitarist Alex Newport, who went on to enjoy a very successful career as a music producer […]

Many names come to mind when thinking about some of the most legendary oddballs throughout music history, but perhaps none more so than the late great Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart). Indeed, the man personified the notion of “weird” in practically all respects, producing some of the most off-kilter and challenging records ever recorded […]

Does anyone else out there have a seasonality to their music listening habits? If winter compels dark, icy,cerebral, introspective selections, and summer more warm, celebratory, and fun offerings than whatdoes Spring conjure up? For this writer, the answer has always been psychedelia, which suits the vibrantand temperamental nature of the season (vivid colors blooming, thunderstorms […]

It had been a very long eight years since perhaps the best noise/sludge band of the past decadeproduced the follow-up to their critically acclaimed album Gold, but Atlanta’s finest trio of malcontentsfinally did just that last week with the release of their new album War. Talking, of course, about Whores whose name is a sardonic […]

Continuing our spotlight on legendary and singular southern alternative bands born in the 80s who hit the big time in the ’90s, we have the enterally peculiar Flaming Lips, who originated from Oklahoma of all places. Maybe it was a combination of the heat and living in the southern US during the Reagan administration that […]

When thinking about some of the most provocative and subversive bands born in the 80s, you would be hard-pressed to top San Antonio’s finest, the one and only Butthole Surfers. Like many trailblazing alternative bands from the 80s, they achieved greater notoriety and success during the subsequent alt-rock explosion in the 90s. Still, they spent […]

If Tool represents Maynard’s masculine side, and A Perfect Circle is that of his feminine side, then Puscifer is clearly the best representation of his inner weirdo. So, to round out our salute to all things Maynard this week, for his 60th birthday today, we’re spotlighting his most subversive band with this bizarre performance of […]

Continuing with our salute to Maynard James Keenan on his birthday week (see yesterday’s Manic Monday), today we’re spotlighting another one of his critically acclaimed bands (safe for their last album anyway), A Perfect Circle, who burst onto the Y2K scene to much fanfare roughly 24 years ago.  Initially started as a side project while […]

This week, we’re paying tribute to everyone’s favorite Jui-Jitsu practicing, Jungian psychology studying, winemaking multi-platinum selling vocalist extraordinaire, the one and only Maynard James Keenan, who will be celebrating his 60th birthday this coming Wednesday. To kick things off, we’re throwing it back to the very infancy of his music career with this incredibly visceral […]

Fans of 80s-era King Crimson were no doubt stoked to hear news last week that Adrian Belew and Tony Levin will be bringing along Tool drummer Danny Carey and guitar virtuoso Steve Vai for a fall North American tour celebrating Crimson’s classic albums Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair. This is of course […]

Speaking of albums celebrating their 30th birthday this year (see Manic Monday), often lost in the sea of great records from 1994 is Jawbox’s career highlight For Your Own Special Sweetheart. In fairness, 1994 was stacked with fantastic albums from iconic bands like Nine Inch Nails and Pearl Jam, along with breakout albums from Green […]

For a special solar eclipse edition of Manic Monday, there were certainly no shortage of selections that could potentially fit the bill. “Black Sunshine” by White Zombie comes to mind, along with “My God is the Sun” by Queens of the Stone Age, or of course “Total Eclipse” by Iron Maiden, just to name a […]

Rising from the ashes of the Minutemen, Mike Watt and George Hurley soon met Ed “fROMOHIO” Crawford and valiantly carried on the spirit of their prior band by forming fIREHOSE in 1986. And while it would have been practically impossible for fIREHOSE to eclipse the Minutemen in terms of influence and excellence, they got pretty […]

Does anyone out there miss Minutemen and the late great D. Boon? It’s really hard to overstate just how significant Boon’s tragic death was back in 1985 (as a result of a traffic accident) not just to the punk scene, but really in the broader history of rock music as a whole. Indeed, in just […]

Does anybody out there actually know what the song “Mr. Roboto” is about?  Most everyone knows the song itself (it coined the Japanese catchphrase “Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto” after all), but is the narrator actually supposed to be a robot? And who is “Killroy”? Such (nerdy) questions no doubt initially perplexed fans of insufferably cheesy […]

The Smashing Pumpkins personified the loud/quiet/loud dynamic perhaps better than any band in the 90s (well, safe for Nirvana of course), but the interesting thing about Billy Corgan and company was their ability to push their sound to extremes in both directions. They could be blisteringly heavy (“X.Y.U.” anyone?) and on the opposite end of […]

If there’s a subtle theme with our selections from MTV’s Spring Break glory years this week, it’s that the weirdest bands often delivered the best performances. Primus’s acid-fried jam from Manic Monday, Radiohead bumming everyone out with “Creep” on Tuesday’s Gone, and for today’s Weirdo Wednesday selection, we have a baby-faced Ween performing “Push th’ […]