Samuel Gursky

During my high school years in the early 2000s, I wanted to be in a ska-punk band. This fantasy could have been sparked by an Operation Ivy record, Save Ferris's prom-night concert in 10 Things I Hate About You, the genre's sartorial trappings, or the sound of trumpets. But one thing's for sure: Anything I would have hypothetically done would have probably ended up sounding like the Arrogant Sons of Bitches.

ASOB, as they're called by de facto leader Jeff Rosenstock, trace their origins to October 1995—the same month No Doubt released Tragic Kingdom, and one year after the Mighty Mighty Bosstones issued Question the Answers. They made a bunch of records that are still exhilarating in their energy and self-aware smart-ass-itude. They toured a bunch without much success, playing wherever they can. Anxiety, rising debt, and shifting ambitions created tension, though, and they broke up in 2004, with Rosenstock moving onto the equally seditious and fun Bomb the Music Industry! (Rosenstock has penned a lengthier account of the band's existence.) This weekend, they're playing a pair of reunion shows in New York City.

Sound of the City recently chatted on the phone with the good-natured Rosenstock, who was listening to Electric Light Orchestra before he picked up.

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That Dog. are proof that the '90s were a very different time, one when an alt-pop band with three women, one guy, extraordinarily catchy songs ("Never Say Never" and "Long Island" were every bit the equal of "Buddy Holly" and "Say It Ain't So"), and a cool gimmick (full-time violinist Petra Haden) could have full major-label backing and still fall between the cracks. They released three albums before parting ways in 1997, including the great Totally Crushed Out! and the absolute classic Retreat from the Sun. After various projects and solo ventures in the 2000s, they've finally reunited for a handful of shows (and, one hopes, a second shot at improving rock radio playlists). Frontwoman Anna Waronker spoke to Sound of the City about the future of the band, the influence of her biz-legend dad Lenny Waronker, and why she prefers After School Specials to Sweet Valley High.

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"There are two pigeons right there, so if I threw some bread and scared them off, I could turn that flutter sound into a Mannie Fresh snare roll." With that, Hot Sugar claps his hands and, as if on command, the two pigeons stop their strut through Tompkins Square Park to flap and flutter off. For a moment, the rapid sound their wings make seems like something you could happily hear Lil Wayne or Juvenile rap around.

Hot Sugar is the alias of Nick Koenig, an artist whose associative music technique is hooked around sampling the sounds of the environment and objects around him and, through some sort of technical processing wizardry, turning them into original samples and melodies. It's a technique he's been perfecting since the age of 13, and has recently found some wider recognition: The Roots' opening number on Undun is produced by Koenig, and Das Racist affiliate rapper Big Baby Gandhi included four of his productions on his recent No1 2 Look Up 2 mixtape.

He released an EP, Moon Money, on the Ninja Tune label last week, and is celebrating it with a release party at Littlefield tonight. SOTC sat on a park bench with Koenig and got him to reveal all about his disdain for rap's lazy approach towards sampling, a rumored supergroup with Michel Gondry and MC Paul Barman, and how he came to work with the most famous rat on the Internet.

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Camilo Fuentealba

"Before today was yesterday and tomorrow is the future," but this is what happened in between. In a very short period of time, Boston party starters Soul Clap splashed down onto the international scene in their quantized spaceship of funk. Eli Goldstein and Charles Levine were pulled up and into the superstar DJ world by the animal hands of Wolf + Lamb (the duo, the label, the idea) and funked their way to the top. They started with an unprecedented string of absolutely stellar R&B edits and quickly moved to the upper echelon of a new breed of pitched-down househeads, taking their game on the road with their pals to all corners of the world. With their debut album EFUNK (Wolf + Lamb), they've come into their own as producers as well. We sat down with the affable brotherly-like duo at The Marcy Hotel, Wolf + Lamb's East Coast headquarters/office/party bunker.

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Sex! Drugs! Video games! Nope, that isn't the hedonist's new trifecta—it's the title of Mississippi rapper David Banner's new free album, which you can cop now. The project in question might not go all-out on the salacious tip; Banner says, "The title is used to draw people in to think that it's about sex, drugs and video games, but it's about why people shouldn't regurgitate those things and if life was a video game who would control it?" Which is a virtuous stance, but one that didn't stop us from pestering Banner to take a quick trip through his own hip-hop-related sex, drug and video game annals.

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Garbage.

If you don't think Butch Vig's almost singlehandedly invented two decades of alternative rock as we know it, just look at his resumé: Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Jimmy Eat World, Foo Fighters, AFI. That's without mentioning his membership in the still-cool Garbage or the fact he produced a little generational totem called Nevermind. From grunge to "electronica" to emo, he's probably building someone's entire adolescence from scratch as we speak. He free-associated for Village Voice about some of his biggest hits, underrated discoveries and Garbage's own new album Not Your Kind of People, which drops this week.

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Portland, Oregon, trio Gossip—singer Beth Ditto, guitarist Nathan Howdeshell, and drummer Hannah Blilie—are celebrating the release of their fifth album, the remarkably bangin' A Joyful Noise, tonight at Terminal 5. We wrangled some time with the magnificent Ms. Ditto to talk about the odious glamorization of poverty, ABBA's perfection, and the importance of proper undergarments in the presence of your mother.

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Stephen B.

Humility is a rare trait—especially among rappers, who tend to preen and bop about like fighters convincing boxing promoters that they are in their prime. Stalley, however, subscribes to a different G code.

Perhaps it's his humble beginnings in a small town outside of Cleveland, where a blue-collar work ethic was instilled in him from an early age. Perhaps it's because he's a former star athlete who knows firsthand that talent without hard work will only get you but so far.

Whatever his reasoning for keeping a level head, it's working. Last year Rick Ross reached out to Stalley to tell him what a fan he was of his music and moves within the music industry. Shortly after that, Ross signed Stalley to his Maybach Music Group imprint.

Despite being on a flashy label, Stalley has kept it Blue Collar Gang all the way, releasing a mixtape last month entitled Savage Journey To The American Dream. SOTC talked to him about the response to his latest offering, his roots, his label, and why he'll never share the same fate as Pill. Come along for the savage journey...

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Every Grasshopper jam starts with a great big nothing sound, on or near the cusp of silence, so soft and unassuming that it almost isn't there. Then, ever-so-glacially, the frame fills with sound: Josh Millrod's penetrative trumpeting fed through the maw of Jesse DeRosa's distortion-hemorrhaging Electric Valve Instrument, the two elements weaving and warping to an extent that it can be next to impossible to say where one ends and the other begins. And just like that, it's as if the divining song they've summoned into being—be it low-level, keening drone or a no-holds-barred FX freakout—has always been there, waiting for you to finally find it. The NYC-based duo strikes odd balances between playfulness and dolor, noise and New Age; they take a stimulating yet calming approach to "out jazz," one that feels both idiosyncratic and vital.

In advance of Grasshopper's appearance at this weekend's Ende Tymes Fest, SOTC exchanged emails with Millrod and DeRosa about the nature of their sound, Stephen King, and the value of high-school music education.

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Mid-'90s emo institution The Promise Ring announced last year that they'd reunite to play a few scattered shows throughout 2012. The band, in its early days, combined the noisy and particulate ideas of guitarist/singer Davey von Bohlen's previous band Cap'n Jazz with more traditional punk constructions. There's a kind of insistent, environmental appeal to the style, demonstrated in songs like "Everywhere in Denver" and "Why Did We Ever Meet?", which feel like an onrush of water.

Before their breakup in 2002, the band released Wood/Water, an album on which they became suddenly expansive and observant, to the perceivable confusion of fans. The band will perform at the Bamboozle on Saturday and at Irving Plaza on Sunday, and The Village Voice spoke with drummer Dan Didier about the nature of the reunion as well as how Wood/Water has evolved in the estimation of Promise Ring fans.

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