Speaking of lads who can’t seem to catch a break, one of modern popdom’s most jinxed stars finally returns after a decade-long absence this week. That’s right, ex-Culture Club maven Boy George his badself is back with “Ordinary Alien,” released through Ultra Music Digital.
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OK, the way we see it, you have two San Francisco choices today. You can sit around at home, moping over the inherent gravity of Groundhog Day. Did Phil see his shadow? And what, exactly, does that mean for this already disastrous winter? Or you can head on down to Cafe Du Nord and catch one of the coolest new artists of the year, Britain’s Bobby Long, as he mounts a sweeping two-month assault on these shores, backing his folksy, just-issued ATO outing “A Winter Tale.”
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Can an album cover subliminally reveal what’s on an artist’s mind? Could very well be, when it comes to Deryck Whibley. The grainy black-and-white photo that adorns “Screaming Bloody Murder” — the proto-punk’s return with his Canadian combo Sum 41, out March 29 — is a Wee Gee-creepy shot of a miniskirted female hipster, lying dead in the seedy street.
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In more Anglophile news, that tall, spectral spookster from The Horrors, Faris Badwan, isn’t basking in the ethereal glow of his group’s successes. He’s just launched an equally eerie new duo called Cat’s Eyes with Rachel Zeffira — a gorgeous, operatically trained soprano from Canada who’s currently residing in London. Their eponymous debut will see Stateside release May 3 via the artist-driven imprint Cooperative Music USA.
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So you thought lad-rocking Britpop was dead, did ya? Don’t tell that to boyish-faced young UK strapling Lee Newell, who hails from the working-class hamlet of Slough, home to the fictional Wernham Hogg paper company, as managed by Ricky Gervais’s bumbling David Brent in the original overseas version of “The Office.”
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After an illustrious, nearly three-decade career, in red-hot outfits like Guns N’ Roses, Snakepit and Velvet Revolver, axeman extraordinare Slash does, indeed, get by with a little help from his friends.
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As a keen-eared composer, Interpol guitarist Daniel Kessler says many aesthetic ingredients went into his quartet’s self-titled new fourth set. One was the 1960 anniversary-model Gretsch, hooked up to a vintage Princeton amp, he employed to sketch angular tracks like “Lights,” “Barricade” and “Safe Without.”
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Alt-country kingpin Steve Earle could easily rest on his award-winning laurels. Not only did he snag a 2009 Grammy for “Townes,” his tribute to his songwriting hero, the late Townes Van Zandt, he’s just been nominated this year for his song “This City,” featured in the HBO series “Treme” (in which he also played the character of Harley, a role he’s reprising in the upcoming second season).
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Only a few years after firebrand outfit The Strokes released its influential “Is This It” debut in 2001, fans were left wondering: Was that truly it for the New York rockers? After a lackluster third set, “First Impression Of Earth” in 2006, the group splintered into separate projects, with frontman Julian Casablancas making the most headway with his inventive “Phrazes For The Young” solo record. But in a phrase, that is not it for The Strokes.
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OK, so it’s only January. But we’ll go out on a prognosticating limb here and say this: The coolest new band you’ll hear all year is an angular little British quartet called The Vaccines. No joke.Their debut disc, coming in March — bearing the snarky title “What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?” — clocks in at a rapid-fire 35 minutes, but compresses so much Ramones-tight, Goth-tinged melody into said space it’s simply stunning.
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She looks like a cuter Nicole Kidman, sings and plays keyboards like a vintage vaudeville performer and truly has one of the most unique slants on pop songwriting you’ll hear today. And chances are, you’ve already heard her, via her whimsical, worldwide smash hit “The Show” a couple of years back. So, it’s with great pleasure that we announce the return of clever Aussie auteur Lenka, who issues her sophomore album “Two” on April 19.
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Ah, the fickle music business. Florida proto-punk Tom Gabel’s reward for making “White Crosses” — his recent soul-baring, Butch Vig-produced masterpiece with Against Me! — wasn’t a trip to Disneyland, but a one-way ticket to the cutout bin. Although the paperwork isn’t finalized, the label, Sire/Warners, has dropped the band from its roster. Gabel is fighting back, with a new outtakes anthology on his old imprint Fat Wreck Chords and a self-financed tour that hits Slim’s for two nights next week.
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At 23, Trixie Whitley — the whiskey-throated singer in Daniel Lanois’ new blues-reggae outfit Black Dub, which plays San Francisco on Sunday — might seem like one of rock’s freshest faces.In reality, she started professionally playing drums, then bass, at age 10, then hit the road with a European theater company at 11.“So by the time I was 15, I was sick of it,” she says. “I just wanted to be a normal teenager, so around that age I just stopped everything for a while.”
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Talk about your comebacks. In September of 2008, Blink-182/Transplants drummer Travis Barker nearly died in a harrowing Lear jet crash. But he’ll soon be returning to the rock scene in the grandest way possible.
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Attention, all Sting fans! You know you’re out there — might as well come forward. Fancy taking a little road trip? It will be worth you while. The man and his missus, Trudie Styler, will be appearing in Southern California for one night only, Feb. 15, at the Mark Taper Forum at the Music Center of Los Angeles County.
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/people/tom-lanham?page=54&quicktabs_6=0
