Enchanted with the ideals of the French Revolution, Beethoven originally dedicated his third symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte. But when Napoleon declared himself emperor, Beethoven tore up the title page and renamed the symphony the “Heroic symphony, to celebrate the memory of great man.
After a couple decades as a band, some developments are largely inevitable: You’ll have reached a certain comfort level with your music and your fellow musicians, you’ll have achieved a degree of technical prowess, and you’ll run out of album titles.
In an irony well-suited to the band's name, The Pimps used Mickey Mouse, then chucked him. The Rockford, Illinois, rock/rap/funk (and sometimes jazz and country) band signed with ABC/Disney subsidiary Hollywood Records ($1 million for two albums), released last year's To a Cool Person, Stay That Way, toured with Insane Clown Posse, nabbed a spot alongside Metallica and Limp Bizkit on the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack, and then left the label.
Jason Anderson likens his band’s drummer situation – looking for number four presently, after three years – to that of the legendary, imaginary Spinal Tap, and the comparison is pretty apt. Skinny Weirdo’s “Fist” is exactly the kind of crude rock-and-roll that Tap specialized in before the guys got old and flabby.
If you're a member of a young rock-and-roll band, that first show supporting somebody big can be nerve-wracking. So imagine being Miles and Daxx Nielsen of Harmony Riley on January 12, opening for the first time with Cheap Trick and ... dad? Yes, Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen's two sons will be setting the table for him on eight East Coast dates in January.
The first half of December 28’s Chamber Music Quad Cities concert at the Davenport Unitarian Church followed the course of a well-scripted drama: An uneventful setup moved into a desperate middle section, followed by a triumphant conclusion.
Thom Yorke is clearly the king of 2000. Looking over my list of favorite albums of 2000, I notice that the vocalist shows up three times: leading Radiohead through Kid A (obviously) but also doing duets on albums by Björk and PJ Harvey.
As misnomers go, Wicked Liz & The Bellyswirls is a doozy. First of all, there’s very little wicked about the vocal work of Wicked Liz, who goes by Liz Townsend when not on stage. She can growl in a most unmenacing way, but her voice generally runs from pop sweet to hearty.
The second album from Shane Johnson’s Blue Train, Big Legged Women, starts off with a song that exists primarily as a framework for hot-licks blues. The words and vocals serve primarily as a break from the fiery work of the guitarist who lends his name to the band.
Anton Dvorák and Bedrich Smetana are Czechoslovakia’s most famous composers. Full of folk tendencies and a love of their homeland, they expressed the tapestry of bohemian life in their music. While Smetana helped develop Czech nationalism, Dvorák made it popular.

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