Paul Rogers

Photos by Ewen Spencer Pills, pubs and cell phones; tabloids, text messaging and teeming raves; KFC and Macca-D’s; kebab shops, snakebite, boredom & brawling, PlayStation, pot, soccer, superstrength lager, Chinese takeout, cars, curry, nights out with the boys, ogling the girls, chips, trips to (and in) Amsterdam, nights in with......

Photo by Wild Don Lewis DAVID BOWIE, THE POLYPHONIC SPREE at the Greek Theater, April 22 The cultlike Texan troupe the Polyphonic Spree’s cascades of Beach Boys–vs.–Wicker Man rapture are well-suited to this balmy setting, and the two dozen robed ones gleefully gather converts tonight. It’ll take an inspired producer......

Photo by Holly Arete The music industry’s tunnel-vision talent scouting is hurting it as much as Napster ever did. Terrified of making an error in a field with breathtaking staff turnover, major-label A&R personnel tend to sign mediocre practitioners of currently dominant genres. In such a climate, a band of......

Walk into a British booze hall looking like you dressed yourself at David Lee Roth’s yard sale — open-chested cat suit, silk scarves, tinted visor — and you’re asking for a smack in the chops. Yet that’s exactly what four 20-ish blokes did three and a half years ago. Repeatedly......

Photo by Wild Don Lewis THE YEAH YEAH YEAHS at the Henry Fonda Theater, March 13 Though tarred with garage rock’s fuzzy brush, New York’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs flaunt a freedom of expression and an instinctive artsy irreverence alien to their template-tethered peers. And here art meets entertainment, as Chrissie-Hynde-vs.-Barbarella......

Photo by Lisa Johnson AVENGED SEVENFOLD, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE at the Henry Fonda Theater, March 6 If you’re of drinking age, you’ve probably never heard of Avenged Sevenfold, yet you’ve been hearing them for years. See, while A7X are an all-ages phenomenon — selling out the 1,600-capacity Fonda a month......

THE DEATHRAY DAVIES at Spaceland, February 13 Even among indie aficionados, the Deathray Davies’ clever-dick but catchy name is better known than their music. But after four albums (though the first couple were effectively solo concoctions by alpha ’ray John Dufilho) and a steadily heavier tour schedule, the murmurs are......

Photo by Wild Don Lewis ABLOOM at the Whisky, December 23 Dumb, dumb fucks. Blinkered, ’70s-dwelling, laminate-waving, trend-tracking sycophants. When will the major record labels wake from their after-party, plus-one paralysis, escape their herding instinct, shed their clone-crammed rosters and smell the likes of Abloom, an L.A. quintet who may......

THE POLYPHONIC SPREE, GRANDADDY, CORN MO at the Wiltern, December 31 As if their own two dozen members weren’t enough, the white-robed Polyphonic Spree began their 2004 by joining Grandaddy (think a less self-conscious, bearded Radiohead) onstage for blustering midnight renditions of “Joy to the World” and “All You Need......