B-Sides

B-Sides: Five Great New Feminist Songs

Top 40 music seems to be undergoing a sea change lately. Cher has a feminist song on the radio and in the club. Neko Case is Top 40 music seems to be undergoing a sea change lately. Cher has a feminist song on the radio and in the club. Neko Case is taking gender identity straight to task. Frank Ocean and Macklemore are topping the charts with songs that carve space for queer-friendly voices in the machismo-drenched worlds of R&B and hip-hop. Ann Powers at NPR declared 2013 “Country Music's Year of the Woman,” and Jewly Hight at the Nashville Scene pointed out a similar trend last year, of female artists whose sounds still fit the country genre, but whose lyrics and personae push the boundaries of country femininity...

B-Sides: Dark Dark Dark

It takes chutzpah for an indie band just starting out to get rid of the acoustic guitar. But that’s... Read more »

B-Sides: Hysterics Go on Tour!

The Hysteric’s sole blog post has a neat hook. They’ve backdated it to October 30, 1989, suggesting two things: All Hallows’ Eve, and old-school punk rock. The date implies both the sugary rush of Halloween menace (“... Read more »

B-Sides: Myths

Vancouver, BC-based electroccult female duo MYTHS will enchant cities across the US and Canada on The Mythical Gymnastics Tour w/ Grimes and Elite Gymnastics. Don’t miss this! Read more »

B-Sides: Waxahatchee for the Changing Seasons

Temperatures are still in the mid 90s and the sun’s still setting after eight o’clock, but we need to brace ourselves for the eventual changing of the seasons. Luckily, we’ve got the perfect cure for, or accompaniment to, the end-of-summer blues: Brooklyn’s Katie... Read more »

B-Sides: In Defense of New Jersey, Screaming Females

One fateful evening in a kitchen in Brooklyn in the winter of 2008, I stood leaning on a window, freezing air seeping into the sweaty room. A woman emerged from the bathroom wearing a modest black dress with a white collar. In the smallest voice, she said, “We’re Screaming Females and we... Read more »

B-Sides: Laetitia Sadier's New Album is as Political as it is Pretty

Laetitia Sadier, who some may know as the bilingual frontwoman of ’90s indie-rock band Stereolab, just dropped her second solo album, Silencio, a couple weeks ago on Drag City. Sadier’s vocals were one of my... Read more »

B-Sides: Still Stompin' Strong

I first saw Tilly and the Wall some years ago at the Knitting Factory in New York. I had never been so immediately entranced by any band, nor had I ever seen so many feathers and balloons on a stage. They quickly became one of my favorites,... Read more »

B-Sides: Goat and the Feather

The advent of Garage Band as a major media outlet for musicians and songwriters has provided a great many opportunities for the reinvention of the earnest acoustic wheel in the last... Read more »

B-Sides: Potty Mouth!

It’s easy to imagine that Potty Mouth are, er, a gross band, but a quick listen to their Sun Damage EP reveals them to be far from indecent. The record is a letter of intent addressed directly to... Read more »

Pages