Email Author Peter S. Scholtes

2011 Stories by Peter S. Scholtes

• Dum Dum Girls

  published October 12, 2011

  The enlightening point of comparison for Los Angeles's Dum Dum Girls isn't the Shop Assistants or Bratmobile—the girl-garage pantheon from... More >>

• Girls

  published September 28, 2011

  The expansion of San Francisco's Girls from wall-of-lo-fi studio duo to actual rock band on their second album can be taken as a loss, at first:... More >>

• The 4onthefloor, Those Darlins

  published September 28, 2011

  The Tennessee openers (pictured) for this free, all-ages show at the Weisman Art Museum are one of the great new sounds of the year: wobbly... More >>

• John Oliver

  published September 21, 2011

  Like fellow Footlights alum Eric Idle, John Oliver has a benign mania in his wide eyes that goes beyond deadpan, with a voice that contains all... More >>

• CHAT's 10th Annual Hmong Arts and Music Festival

  published August 17, 2011

  You can tell from previous years' festival titles ("A Hmong Us," "Dreaming in Hmong," "No Word for Art"—a reference to the fact that there's... More >>

• Janet Jackson

  published August 17, 2011

  Janet Jackson's first Twin Cities show in 10 years is a homecoming of sorts for one of the bestselling pop artists of all time: Though born in... More >>

• Kid Cudi

  published July 6, 2011

  Ohio-Brooklyn sing-rapper Kid Cudi might be the artiest hip-hop figure yet to headline the Target Center, having gone from the... More >>

• Katy Perry

  published July 6, 2011

  Of all Madonna's children, Katy Perry is the fastest addiction: The first artist to not leave the Top 10 for a full year, she's all stadium-bright... More >>

• Stephen Marley

  published June 29, 2011

  The raspy-voiced second son of Bob Marley sang with the Melody Makers from childhood onward, but made his deepest mark as a producer bringing hip... More >>

• Bill Callahan

  published June 29, 2011

  Gil Scott-Heron covered Smog's "I'm New Here" for what turned out to be his final album, giving that release the same title, and you can tell what... More >>

• The Monkees

  published June 29, 2011

  A band conceived entirely for an NBC television series debuting in 1966, the Monkees lived down and broke away from their cynical "prefab four"... More >>

• Ringo Deathstarr

  published June 22, 2011

  Don't be put off by the grabby yet familiar surface details of this amazing Texas band's dance-noise-pop amalgam--so Anglophilic, they titled... More >>

• Musiq Soulchild

  published June 15, 2011

  Neo-soul in a world gone pop, Philadelphia's Musiq Soulchild steps up the tempo and hooks a bit on his new, sixth album, MusiqInTheMagiq,... More >>

• Rihanna

  published June 15, 2011

  With a voice like a buzzing neon light, Rihanna shows that a hard woman is good to find on pop radio, where dance-floor instruments become morning... More >>

• Bootsy Collins

  published June 8, 2011

  After James Brown, the funkiest outfit on this planet (or any other) has to be George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic collective, one of whose... More >>

• Naughty by Nature

  published June 8, 2011

  The surprisingly charming and female-empathetic infidelity ode "O.P.P." was only the first in a string of great '90s rap singles from New Jersey's... More >>

• The Go-Go's

  published June 8, 2011

  Nothing about the Go-Go's' "Our Lips Are Sealed" seems to have aged in 30 years, its oddly complacent beauty and conspiratorial sisterly aura as... More >>

• Taylor Swift

  published June 8, 2011

  She's the bestselling digital artist of all time not only because middle-schoolers buy that way but because her hold on that group is total: Has... More >>

• The Soviettes

  published May 25, 2011

  Part of the charm of the Soviettes' no-frills, good-time punk democracy in the mid-'00s was that they expressed rather than mythologized or sold... More >>

• Bruno Mars, Janelle Monae

  published May 25, 2011

  In pop music, there's no missing Bruno Mars, the cleanly soulful crooner who co-wrote K'naan's "Wavin' Flag" and Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You!," had... More >>

• The Twilight Singers

  published May 18, 2011

  Even amid the Afghan Whigs' Nirvana-sized funk-and-drone of the mid-'90s, singer Greg Dulli was like a beautiful smear across his... More >>

• Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band

  published May 11, 2011

  His hits range from the sublime-but-overplayed to the just overplayed, but Bob Seger's last release, 2009's Early Seger Vol. 1, hinted at... More >>

• Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs

  published May 11, 2011

  Hard to imagine a more epochal New Depression song than the title track of Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs' new album, No Help Coming:... More >>

• Devin the Dude

  published May 4, 2011

  With a vice so central to his catalog that giving it up would nearly empty his set list, Houston's Devin the Dude fools hards into thinking he's... More >>

• Jonathan Richman

  published May 4, 2011

  With his Spanish-y guitar, childlike flow, and gawky but gentle rock 'n' roll vibrato, Jonathan Richman is the kind of willful romantic optimist... More >>