5 questions with Allah-Las

California is important to psych-garage band Allah-Las. The Los Angeles quartet formed while its members — drummer Matthew Correia, bassist Spencer Dunham, and guitarists Miles Michaud and Pedrum Siadatian — were working at the city’s famous Amoeba Records. But it’s not a mere matter of geography. The attitude and the sonic history of the Sunshine State […]

5 (or more) questions with The Budos Band

On its first three records, Brooklyn’s nine-member Budos Band has teased soul, funk and Afrobeat into its sweltering instrumental music, which slotted perfectly with similar-minded bands on the vaunted Daptone Records. But on its fourth and newest record, Burnt Offering, The Budos Band gets heavy, alchemizing ’70s psychedelic rock and proto-metal into its unique, horn-driven […]

The War on Drugs talks gear, songwritin­g and Asheville as a second home

It was gear that brought singer-songwriter and guitarist Adam Granduciel to Echo Mountain Recording Studios, one of five studios in five different states where he recorded The War on Drugs’ latest effort, Lost in the Dream. (The band also recorded parts of 2011’s Slave Ambient there.) Granduciel wanted to use Echo Mountain’s Fairchild 670 stereo […]

Big Freedia, Queen of bounce, plays New Mountain on Sept. 30

It’s just after noon on the final day of 2013’s South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. The fatigue that the marathon music festival inflicts is readily evident in a grand ballroom in Austin’s labyrinthine convention center. A small crowd has gathered to watch New Orleans rapper Big Freedia (pronounced FREE-duh) perform a daytime set, but their […]

Long may he reign: Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright reflects on a decade in North Carolina

Greg Cartwright had long been a pillar of the Memphis, Tenn., music scene and an éminence grise in the still-thriving garage-rock revival. Jack White and Dan Auerbach name him as an influence and inspiration; the late Jay Reatard counted him as a friend and mentor. But back in 2004, Cartwright didn’t have a lot tying him […]

Reigning men

“Tomorrow’s Hits” is the band’s fifth record in as many years, discounting 2013’s gap-filling alternate-takes collection Campfire Songs. And the band is as hard-working as it is prolific, stringing together a seemingly infinite number of tour dates. The Men’s current tour, a month-long jaunt, comes to The Mothlight on Thursday, May 1.