Joshua Klein

Lately, Chicago has produced plenty of R&B singers, metal bands, jazz stars, rappers, arena rock acts and their alt-rock variants, but the city's been lacking when it comes to successful...

The Martinis Smitten When the Pixies broke up 12 years ago, Joey Santiago--whose squawking, squealing guitar was as key to the Pixies' sounds as anything--shifted to writing television themes. Finally,...

The Streets A Grand Don't Come for Free With 2002's "Original Pirate Material," Mike Skinner of The Streets introduced his refreshingly warts-and-all personality. "A Grand" is a concept album, with...

The Beta Band Heroes to Zeros Rarely does a group choose a name as apt as the Beta Band: Since its neo-psychedelic breakthrough "The 3 E.P.s," the Scottish group has...

Morrissey You Are the Quarry Given his relative absence from the music scene, Morrissey's rabid fan base must have been extra mopey during the seven-year wait between records. While "You...

Given their gradual turn toward bluesy, jam-band noodling, it's hard to believe Los Lobos once had just as much in common with L.A.'s punk scene. Yet 30 years down the...

Sam Phillips A Boot and a Shoe Sam Phillips' music has always fallen on the far side of quirky, but in the past few years she's stripped way a lot...

Division of Laura Lee Das Not Compute Given the company they keep, you might assume Sweden's Division of Laura Lee to be just like any of the countless anonymous punk...

Jolie Holland Escondida Jolie Holland's under-the-radar debut "Catalpa" was bleak and rough around the edges. Album number two cleans up the cobwebs, and if the result sounds slightly more in...

The Gift of Gab Fourth Dimensional Rocketships Going Up Blackalicious has consistently been such a strong outlet for the incredibly gifted MC Gift of Gab that you wouldn't think he'd...