“Rabid In The Kennel” appeared on Bastille Day with a very special guest: the one and only Visqueen, playing a special, drummer-less session for us in support of their awesome recent LP , A Message to Garcia, and then the members, including dashing, powerful-throated singer Rachel Flotard, sat for a long 35-minute chat, including lots of funny sexual innuendo.
More recently, we tried a special new wrinkle on our established format, by presenting all music and no chat with seven less established, but equally deserving new bands, called “Best of the New Breed, Vol 1.” This began airing just last week!
On behalf of all of us here at bigtakeover.com and Big Takeover Magazine, I bid you welcome to our newly redesigned site! Looks cool, doesn’t it? Our print magazine is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, going back to a good 15 years or so before there was any electronic media. So the timing is perfect. Our endeavor has come a long, long way from the days of typing, Xeroxing, reducing, stapling, folding, mailing, shipping, and selling at gigs, and we are celebrating this long three decades of service and commentary in three distinct ways this year.
We only come out twice a year, every Spring and Fall, so you don’t want to miss one of our jam-packed 192-page issues! Read on for a quick description of the new issue’s contents.
The primary difference is that the band pays even closer attention to melody than before – no unfocused jamming here.
In today’s musical climate of regression and huge-fonted neon infantilism, where even the more esoteric labels are trying to put forth vapid beats to please and increasingly ADD audience you have to despair if you’re a music fan with any degree of patience and focus. Luckily the independent composer will never die, and Dora Bleu’s latest CD-R, Earthly Bombs , stands in direct opposition to the fast-food market of ipod commercial ready bands.
Sure, the album is going to be, in general, strong, but how will it stack up against his own best work?
Even if the prospect of yet another covers record gives you the hives, you’ll likely find your pants charmed right off by Two-Way Family Favorites.
Week of August 22
Big Star – Radio City (Ardent)
Posies – Blood/Candy (Ryko) out Sept. 23!
Idlewild – Post Electric Blues (Nice Music Group)
Newtown Neurotics – Beggars Can Be Choosers (Vivid Japan)
The Misfits – Static Age (Caroline)
Young Rival – Young Rival (Sonic Unyon)
Wild Nothing – Gemini (Captured Tracks)
Pernice Brothers – Goodbye Killer (Ashmont)
Teenage Fanclub – Shadows (Merge)
The Joy Formidable – A Balloon Called Moaning (Pure Groove U.K.)
Jack Rabid spins the best new and classic indie music for you every Monday at 12 noon Eastern.
Exclusive performances and interviews, live from The Kennel Studio in Brooklyn, the second Wednesday of each month at 12 noon Eastern.

Joey Burns of Calexico, Wilbur Theatre, Boston, November 10, 2009. Photo by Tim Bugbee.
Yankovic wisely made a point of keeping things current with a fresh batch of funny material. “Skipper Dan” described a failed thespian, doomed to a soul-destroying life of corny jokes as a riverboat guide on Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise attraction. Recent parody “You’re Pitiful” gave a more memorable upgrade to James Blunt’s maudlin “You’re Beautiful.”
Read more...With no opener and wasting not a second, they opened with “Raw Power”, which led right into “Search and Destroy”.
It goes without saying that This Will Destroy You know exactly how to command attention.
The conclusion of my interview with Steve Diggle, touching on his new record, his relationship with Pete Shelley, and tattoos.
Read more...The Buzzcocks’ co-founder and singer/guitarist discusses their impending American tour, during which the band will be playing their first two records in their entirety.
The Graves Brothers Deluxe were one of the first three rock bands I got into when I moved to the Bay Area, and the only one for which I jumped around in an ape suit.
Got this excellent interview with TSOL founder/frontman Jack Grisham from our contributor Jeff Alexander and wanted to share it with you!
In Nara Denning’s Neurotique, words get in the way of the games couples play.