Ryan Sollee is not the typical American rock star. Born and raised in the cold, moose-populated environs of Alaska, the former punk rocker, marine biologist, and four of his best friends have traveled the long way around on their journey to pop success. Playing in the streets for attention, rooming in each other’s apartments as they balance professional and musical interests in dreary Portland–their hometown)– they have conquered the folk scene, block by excruciating block. Several years later, the quintet called The Builder and the Butchers has …

Oh, autumn. Leaves changing colors, back-to-school, and cold weather. And a brand new batch of ridiculously dumb shows on television. Luckily for you all, I will give you my opinions on a few of the new upcoming shows. I can feel the enthusiasm.
ABC
• Cougar Town-starring Courteney Cox, Christa Miller, Busy Phillips, Dan Byrd, Brian Van Holt, Josh Hopkins, Ian Gomez. Wednesdays at 9:30pm. Courteney Cox and her scary looking face star in this show about the trials and tribulations of dating after divorce. So basically, ABC took the plot of …

My love for witty banter and adventure traces back to my early gaming years spent gleefully applying verbs to gun-toting lagomorphs, sass-talking pirates, grizzled bikers, and time traveling tentacles. There will always be a special place in my heart for the old Lucas Arts adventure games.
When Telltale came out with Sam & Max I was ecstatic. I had long been a fan of Steve Purcell’s work. Like a wolf-child I had been raised in the warm rays the Saturday morning cartoon show and swaddled in the pages of old Sam …

Mean Creek
The Sky (Or the Underground)
Old Flame Records
8/10
The quartet, known as Mean Creek aren’t exactly pussies. In a space of a year and a half, the band composed of Chris Keene, Aurore Oanjian, Matt Sisto, and Ken Marcou have put out debut feature length album Around the Bend,and toured with the likes of The Dead Trees and Daro, among others. Not ones to take a sabbatical so soon after entering the musical fray, they have struck again with a sophomore album, The Sky (Or the Underground). …

Dappled Cities
Zounds
Dangerbird Records/ Speak N’Spiel
9/10

Australia is known for two things: Vegemite and Men at Work. Soon to be three, actually, thanks to the Dappled Cities. Since 2004, the quintet has been entranced with their particular blend of avant-garde minimalism, complex tempos and neo-new wave sound. After a four year hiatus (and a colorful stay in New York’s East Village) the guys from Sydney are back on the scene with their third record Zounds. The result is an album that defies characterization, even as it draws from …

1. You’re just so hot.
2. It’s been a while.
3. It’s this medication I’m on.
4. Fuck it, I’m tired.
5. I look out for number one.
6. Oh, I thought you were done.
7. It was my first time.
8. My insert relative here just died.
9. It was an accident.
10. What do you want from me? You know how I feel about Twilight.
–Racket Staff

This is not for the gear sluts. So you don’t have the budget to record at Capitol Studios…Big whoop. Elliot Smith recorded “Roman Candle” in his ex’s basement. Part of Rush’s “Power Windows” was recorded in a BARN. Check out these ten recording studio must haves for your home. They’ll look nice next to your lava lamp aquarium. (Yes, they make those.)
1) Pre Sonus ADL-600
You can splurge a bit on your preamplifiers. This hand-built two-channel preamp has been getting good reviews everywhere. I dig the sexy analog VU meter. …

Epitaph Records band, I Am Ghost, is a paradigm for up and coming rock bands. Despite their North American and European tour logs, the Long Beach based group still finds the need to play smaller, all-ages venues such as The Vault in Temecula. The venue was half empty but was still filled with the energy of an arena act. This is odd for a band that drew Goth kids from all corners of the Interstate-15 freeway.
At first I scoffed at the band’s entrance, which included dimmed lights, devilish …

Alvin Band
Mantis Preying
Intelligent Noise Records
9/10

Put a white version of Bobby McFerrin with Aphex Twin’s eccentricity in your mind, and you’ve got Alvin Band. Phoenix vocalist and drummer of Miniature Tigers, Rick Alvin Shaeir is a one-man band set to impress the home producers and barbershop lovers of the world with his first official release. Shaeier creatively infuses his own densely multi-tracked vocal harmonies with effects processed beat boxing and body part sounds throughout the nine-song release. I guess he took a hint from Daniel Bedingfield and decided to record …

Frankel
Anonymity is the New Fame
Autumn Tone
8/10
By day, Michael Orendy is just another regular, working class musician, playing in bands, moonlighting in dingy bars, [insert cliché here]. But when he’s not “on the clock,” he dons his musical cape and cowl and assumes the identity of Frankel, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, fighting mediocrity with his assortment of strings, electronics, and whatever else he happens to have in his L.A. County bat cave. The result, Anonymity is the New Fame, is a calling card of sorts, encapsulating the best of the singer-songwriter …

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band
Between My Head and the Sky
Chimera Music
7/10
múm
Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know
Fatcat
8/10
I’m going to review both of these albums together because they have a similar vibe and I fucking feel like it. I really cannot tell you how badly I wanted to hate this Yoko Ono album. My editor-in-chief can tell you, and I’m positive that’s precisely why he sent it to me. As much as I would love to tell you this Beatles-killer has produced the most atrocious thing released …

Again, Racket has one of them fancy moving picture interviews! This one’s conducted by Ryan Greer and filmed/edited by Edd Flynn. Have at it.

Bobby Tamkin, the mastermind behind psych-rock band Xu Xu Fang, talks about their red-hot private concert, along with other sizzling insights about music.
Racket Gail: I was at your show [and] it was really interesting. I’ve never seen a private show like that before. The fact that you had people wearing masks…
Bobby Tamkin: [Laughs].
RG: It lead to be more theatrical then I expected.
Bobby: Well the masks, I didn’t expect either. [Pauses] Our following just seems to keep growing with like really dispersant groups of people. It’s not just …

.357 Lover
Diorama of the Golden Lion
Self-Released
10/10

.357 Lover’s debut LP, Diorama of the Golden Lion rises up from the saturated musical mire and into your hands on September 29th. Let’s just hope you’re smart enough to grab this instead of the new Hatebreed album.
Led by front man, Corn Mo, .357 Lover started its roots in Denton, Texas. His sound is often matched with Queen and Meatloaf, but the album is more than that. It is stylistically varied from the epic rock opera feel to country to Hebrew folk song …

Kittie
In The Black
E1 Records
9/10

Last time I heard from these scary Canadian chicks was either the ’99 or ’00 OzzFest. Attractive, roughly my age and playing OzzFest!? Yes, I was sold. Now I’m older, wiser and only slightly less guided by my hormones, so when I got Kittie’s new album, In The Black, I was interested, but skeptical. I was also blown away.
Having skipped their last three studio albums, I didn’t know what to expect, which was probably the best way to approach this. Starting off with the obligatory …

Danny Ross
One Way
Self-published
8/10
Think Danny Ross, and you think Brooklyn (or, at the very least, lower Manhattan). Since 2006, the native New Yorker-artist-Congressional staffer has made a reputation as a virtuoso artist, part sentimental pianist part rock n’roller, recording his impressions of his corner of the City of Eight Million Stories. But unlike some of his contemporaries, this guy isn’t a generic softie. He’s just as comfortable embracing his inner Beck as much as his inner Billy Joel and it shows on One Way, an album as diverse …