A brief list of things I collect: 1) Music. 2) Beer. So when Diffuser asked me to pair 21 brews of my choosing with their alt/indie/rock album equivalents, well, the work was already done. This was a labor o— hiccup! Er, sorry. What was I saying? Oh yeah: pop cap, hit play, cheers.
Queens of the Stone Age, kings of the stage
“It’s not hyperbole to say that QOTSA is one of the hardest working live bands in the business. For all their sludge and skronk and stonerishness and strapping machismo, they’re unerringly precise. They’d have to be. Otherwise neither the hulking, off-kilter black anthems of 2007’s Era Vulgaris nor the incredibly dense stuff of 2002 favorite Songs for the Deaf would sound right — raw, mean, anything but lean.”
Last week’s Club Nokia benefit for cancer-stricken Eagles of Death Metal bassist Brian O’Connor was nothing short of phenomenal. Queens played L.A. for the first since 2008. Eagles were excellent. Last Shadow Puppets and Alain Johannes played surprise sets. Read bout it here, via Spin.
England’s The Duke Spirit specializes in primal blues-fueled rock whose emotional subtleties are blasted forth on a take-no-prisoners wave of guitar squelch and sass. So it comes as some surprise to learn that the band almost called it quits before recorded last year’s Neptune LP out in the California desert with Queens Of The Stone Age producer Chris Goss. Singer Liela Moss talks about this, about spending seven weeks in the Palm Desert, and about Miranda July in this interview.
And for good measure, a ballad:
Chris Writes Things 