Music

Pop music abhors a vacuum. After K. copped for the Big Sleep in 1994, the scene went supernova and collapsed, opening up a black hole that snuffed the uber-hip underground.

Have you ever stopped nodding along to a drum beat only to realize that you have no memory of consciously deciding to start?

If you found yourself in Los Angeles asking a real hip-hop head how the L.A. conscious hip-hop scene began there, said hip hopper would mention Project Blowed and its veteran founding affialiate Aceyalone.

The first time I went to a Ninth Moon Black concert it was 2009 and some crusty trainhopper-type tried to fight me for my sneakers.

Although Moonalice is a fairly new band, having had its first concert in 2007, the group is composed of old pros who have been making music for a long time

A week ago I met a girl on the side of the road. She was a radical-anarchist type with black skinny jeans, a half-shaved head and a few well-manicured hairs growing off her chin.

Pretend for a moment that you’re trapped in a bad trip and the only thing you can hear is the cyclical recycling of washed-out psychedelia diluted through decades of designer drugs and synthesizers.

The beauty of the blues is in its  “ba-bah-bah-bump my baby she left me” simplicity.

Lots of musicians claim the “indie” label, but Zoe Keating, who performs May 5 at The Shedd, has blazed trails for contemporary composer/performers who seek to chart their own paths toward sustainable creative satisfaction.

When the cut-line for an event is “no taboo left unturned,” there’s not a lot to be said for attempting to judge the organizers or performers because they seriously do not give a fuck what you think.

You know that feeling you got when your grandma yelled at you? That mix of shock and reverence-fueled obedience?

So you get one more dude in flash sneakers and a sideways ball cap waving his arms around a switchboard and swerving with the lights and the beats.