Individually, the members of The Sea And Cake have been solo artists (singer/guitarist Sam Prekop and lead guitarist Archer Prewitt have each released a handful of well-received albums), visual artists (Prekop, Prewitt and bassist Eric Claridge have productive painting, illustrating, and photography careers, respectively), and scene stalwarts (drummer John McEntire also plays with seminal instrumental-rock band Tortoise and runs Chicago’s Soma Studios).

These men are dinosaurs now. It’s hard to reconcile their continued existence with their legend, but they’re still around, refusing to become museum pieces.

New Orleans’ Voodoo Music Experience Festival is back this year with a line-up that will make you cry. Get yourself a box of tissues and take a look at why ALARM’s already got tickets.

Remember last summer when your spazzy friend told you to listen to an album of old world music a nineteen year-old kid from Albuquerque made in his bedroom? And you were totally skeptical but the album title, The Gulag Orkestar, made you listen anyway?

For a musician and turntablist often hailed as a genre-bending, cutting-edge artist, RJD2 (neé Ramble John Krohn) has some distinctly old-school cuts in his personal record collection.

Most bands are lucky if they can get three to five members to function as a cohesive unit; they’re a genuine anomaly if they can add or subtract members while still maintaining the essential integrity of their sound (not to mention their sanity). Of course, if your name means “bullet-proof” in Spanish, you’re already proclaiming yourself an anomaly.

Long a purveyor of genre splicing and cultural convergence, Trey Spruance of Secret Chiefs 3 has carved a niche in the American music scene that few co-inhabit.

Don’t ever try telling Dee Kesler that he is a perfectionist. Chances are either he’ll say it first or the artistic cogs in his head will be spinning so fast that he won’t be listening anyway.

“Most of the shows we’ve played have been even better than I would’ve imagined,” says Justin Broadrick, speaking from Denver, where his band Jesu has sojourned from England to trounce audiences in support of its second full-length, Conqueror.

“The response is not what I expected and it’s not something I’m gonna get used to,” the singer/guitarist confides.

Honus Honus gave simple instructions: “I have a moustache. You’ll find me.”

After recording under the name Smog for nearly two decades, lo-fi singer/songwriter Bill Callahan surprised, if not shocked, fans by announcing that he was dropping the familiar moniker in favor of his own name. On his twelfth album, Woke on a Whaleheart (Drag City), Callahan infuses folk, country, and gospel sensibilities into one of his best efforts to date.