Suckers is not a “the” band.The Brooklyn group chooses to omit the serious-sounding article in favor of just Suckers, which befits the jovial quartet comprised of friends and family members. But before taking on the name Suckers, the band went by the admittedly corny name Feelings, inspired by a friend of the band who “doesn’t have any,” says lead singer Quinn Walker. “I think we took it seriously for a week,”Walker says.The group soon changed to Suckers, as it was the first name that satisfied all members—though not everyone is a fan. “My mom doesn’t like it,” says multi-instrumentalist Austin Fisher. Read more

Few performers in hip-hop boast a pedigree like Queen YoNasDa. Every time she steps to the mic, YoNasDa is in the shadows of her luminary grandfather Minister Louis Farrakhan. For the halfblack/half-Native American (of the Oglala Lakota tribe) musician—and Staten Island ex-pat—the rap game is a shot at providence. Read more

The Latin Alternative Music Conference—the annual showcase for Latin artists who don't play salsa—is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with concerts at venues like Central Park S Read more

Why on the 4th are the streets of Williamsburg empty? It's because all of the neighborhood's sweet young things have gone to the second day of this awesome backyard festival featuring The Oh Sees, the best band that San Francisco rocker John Dwyer has been in since the Coachwhips, Pink and Brown and The Hospitals. Read more Read it in print

FORMED JUST ABOUT a year ago from four very disparate corners of the Hip-Hop United States, Slaughterhouse brings the beastly lyrical pedigrees of its four component MCs (Jersey’s Joe Budden, Long Beach, Calif.’s Crooked I, Brooklynite Joell Ortiz and Detroit-bred Royce Da 5’9 ) to bear in aggressively straightforward rap music. Furthermore, it seeks to do nothing less than hotwire and run away with the rapidly flagging and disintegrating hiphop music industry, to poise itself as the harbinger of a new and prosperous golden age. Elevated goals to be sure, but in Slaughterhouse’s case, the “show and prove” seems to be a constant and breathless pursuit—all of the group’s initial output is swollen with lyrical blood and the members describe recording their forthcoming self-titled debut (out this week) in a tireless few days. Read more Read it in print

TWO TRACKS OF distorted crud hiss and grind against one another with a lo-fi hum. A high-pitched blast tears through static to produce foggy, wounded textures. Droning notes are strummed, tweaked and scratched into scorching frenzies, producing feedback that coils upon itself to create a ringing, impenetrable wail. Disfigured fragments lurch forward and ride out a full track-length by feeding off of the resonance of a couple of plucks.There are hints that typical musical implements create some of the art; the rest sounds like the work of possessed power tools. Read more Read it in print

WHEN ENERGIZED WITH a little ingenuity, idle hands can beget exciting digressions. Take the recent chronicles of Kelly Pratt, a songwriter most notable for manning horns in indie-rock outfits Arcade Fire and Beirut.While spending most of 2007 touring with one of those bands, Pratt racked up empty hours with little to pass the time. Read more

Was I really going to return to Studio B? If you had told me before last weekend's Northside Festival that I'd ever visit that particular Greenpoint club seven times in four days, the final requiring both a hurried scurry up Wythe Avenue in the early a.m. and a semi-confident faith that Brooklyn's own reverb maestros Crystal Stilts wouldn't start on time. Read more

Artist Dan Graham and The Feelies, the seminal rock band from New Jersey, have a couple things in common, but one of the main things is that theyve been around forever.The. Read more Read it in print

It’s been six years since Brody Dalle put out an album, but tonight the former Distillers frontwoman will hit the Bowery Ballroom with her new band Spinnerette. New York Press’ Rebecca Wallace spoke to Dalle about the new band, motherhood and Twitter. Read more