Lately, it seems like everywhere an indie kid goes, they can find a freak-folk record. The music which was once associated with jugs, long beards, and county fair performances to which a misguided parent dragged you, has suddenly become strangely hip. Yet this growing interest in the freakier side of folk music rarely extends to the straight Americana and world-based folk from whence it came. Hopefully, the latest release from Tompkins Square, Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 2, will help shake off some more …

I feel as if everybody (or at least every indie kid and compulsive Pitchfork reader) has already heard The Boy Least Likely To. Didn’t everyone and their dogs already give this record two thumbs up last fall, around the time of its release in the UK? It’s easy to assume that only cheapskates and those afraid of the Man have waited for the United States release to get their admission to The Best Party Ever; yet an album as sweet and playful as this …

Okay, Indie Kids, let’s play Imaad Wasif trivia. We’ll start with the easiest question: what extremely popular (well, in indieland) band is Wasif touring with? Yes, you with the horn rims and asymmetrical haircut. No, the one to your left… Correct! It would be the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Now, name two of the three bands he’s been associated with before this solo release. Okay, you, the girl in the Sesame Street shirt who needs to eat a sandwich…Oh man, you totally nailed all three. He …

So far, 2006 has been a year mostly in love with the past. Major buzz bands such as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are still in the process of attempting to update the wiry post-punk and early college rock of the 1970s and ’80s, and indie kids all over the world have eaten this trend up with a silver spoon. Yet, oddly, one of the best albums of this year, The Gossip’s Standing in the Way of Control, has been ignored amidst all …

They started as just another satellite in Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions orbit; eight years and one messy divorce later, the Eagles of Death Metal are a full-fledged “movement and phenomenon onto itself,” as mustachioed singer/guitarist Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes puts it. We talked to Hughes for fifteen minutes at the cusp of the Eagles’ spring tour with the Strokes, touching on everything from groupies to girl-phobic indie kids and Rick Springfield. The resulting interview may not be as lengthy as some of the …

“Songs We’re Thankful For”:
The Modern Pea Pod’s 2006 Mixtape
Do you mind if we get a little personal? This time of year, as you’re surely aware, is about giving thanks for the things in life you appreciate. So why should the Modern Pea Pod’s music page be any different? We don’t write about music for our health, or because we like the sound of our own voices (although, to be fair, the latter is true as well). We write about music because we’re passionate about it; because somewhere along the line, …