Listening Room Blog

Nick Viagas
Listening Room columnist

Classic rock fans love talking about how all modern bands sound the same, and are generally bad. Although there is a lot of truth to that, there are some good bands still getting their start. Some are more mainstream like Gaslight Anthem ( known to jam with Bruce Springsteen.) There are good bands out there,  you just have to look. I have a list of three lesser known bands that are definitely worth checking out.

Streetlight Manifesto: This ska band with Czech roots recently released an album of covers entitled “99 songs of revolution” with the drummer of NOFX. The also have three other albums, the best of which being “Everything Goes Numb” released in 2009.

The Punch Brothers:  When the Chris Thile (singer of country rock band “Nickel Creek”) had a meeting with other miscellaneous Bluegrass musicians they assumed it would just have a drink. Little did they now it would turn into one of the best Bluegrass bands of the decade, The Punch Brothers. One reason I appreciate the band so much is Thile wrote a 40 minute 4 part bluegrass symphony for his band to play. It is entitled “Blind Leaving.” Check out their album “How to Grow a Woman from the Ground.”

Vampire Weekend: (They are actually pretty well known, the Band have had two Saturday Night Live  and one Colbert Report Appearances.) Although they are an independent  band, they are almost nothing like  other so called “indie bands”. Friends of mine told me that indie is the new good music, and I was determined to find some good music in the awful cloud of sound that is indie. After listening to such garbage as Coconut Records or MGMT, I found Vampire Weekend. They name Tom Petty and Paul Simon as some of their major influences. They write songs about punctuation and parodies of Biggie Smalls with African percussion and electric guitar. It shouldn’t work­, it does though. The Group’s sophomore album was released in January, entitled “Contra”

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