San Francisco's Faith No More began dispensing their funk-laden thrash metal in the early 1980s with vocalist Chuck Moseley. When tensions led to the firing of Moseley, the band found a fitting replacement in Mr. Bungle frontman Mike Patton. Their cl…

Though they're cited as one of the key influences on the rap-metal crowd due their combination of biting guitar and funky bass lines, Primus are a much quirkier, more avant garde band than their list of disciples might suggest. Making their debut at …

In the mid-1980s, Pennsylvania natives and childhood friends Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo began recording goofy, genre-hopping songs under the aliases of Gene Ween and Dean Ween respectively. Extolling the virtues of illegal substances and the…

One of several projects launched in the new millennium to boast the involvement of the indefatigable Mike Patton (b. USA), Tomahawk is arguably the closest in sound to the work of his former band, Faith No More. Tomahawk was actually the brainchild o…

The Flaming Lips started out in the 1980s creating an anarchic, punky din, but eventually the psychedelic influences that had always been a major element of the band's sound became more prevalent. In 1994, after significant lineup changes, the Oklaho…

Tom Waits started out in the early 1970s as a piano-based barroom balladeer with a penchant for beat poetry and West Coast jazz. By the late '80s he had mutated into a brilliantly adventurous artist whose style suggested an amalgam of Howlin' Wolf, K…

Perhaps the best way to describe the sound and approach of Dillinger Escape Plan is as an all-out assault on the senses. Formed in New Jersey, USA, during 1997, the band was formed from the remnants of hardcore band Arcane. Dimitri Minakakis (vocals)…

Before Nine Inch Nails, electronic-based rock was often considered devoid of feeling and danger. Leader Trent Reznor merged synths with tortured vocals/lyrics, distorted guitar, and repetitive, slamming rhythms into an unpredictable amalgam, helping …

Beck Hansen, the quintessential California slacker, came up among the lo-fi ranks, pushing a blend of country blues, Dylan-inspired wordplay, punk, and hip-hop. His straight-out-of-the-gate 1994 smash, "Loser," made him a star seemingly overnight. Su…

Led by Black Francis (AKA Charles Thompson), this Boston band reveled in the raw, loud energy of punk, but harnessed it in service of catchy melodies laced with bizarre lyrics. Their 1989 album, DOOLITTLE, is widely considered to be one of the best a…

The mercurial David Bowie is the original pop chameleon. He's been everything from inoffensive pop singer to glam icon to white soul man to art-rocker and more in the course of his long, prolific career. Although Bowie's first hit was 1969's "Space O…

Founded in the late 1990s by Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and guitar tech Billy Howerdel, A Perfect Circle takes the former group's brooding sonic template and lightens the heavy, prog-rock load with more melodic arrangements and varied instrum…

Alice in Chains represented the darkest side of 1990s grunge rock. Taking a page or two from such previous doom-rock purveyors as Black Sabbath and the Melvins, the band lyrically depicted the hell of drug addiction (and other hardcore topics) perhap…

During the late 1980s, guitarist/vocalist Page Hamilton formed the NYC-based Helmet after stints with Glenn Branca's "guitar orchestra" and the Branca-affiliated Band of Susans. Combining remarkably heavy riffs with tight rhythms, spare song structur…

A fearless sonic adventurer, Icelandic songstress Bjork first appeared prominently on the musical map in 1988 with LIFE'S TOO GOOD, the debut album of her band, the Sugarcubes. Four years later, the group split, and Bjork wasted no time in working on…

John Flansburgh and John Linnell, the two singer/songwriters behind Brooklyn avant-pop cult band They Might Be Giants, were childhood friends who have been working under the TMBG banner since the '80s. The words "nerdy," "geek-rock," and "quirky" hav…

Unbeknownst to most Nirvana fans, its drummer David Grohl was also a singer/guitarist/songwriter who wrote numerous songs during his tenure with the band. After Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, Grohl decided to head out on his own and formed the Foo Figh…

Most aggro-metal bands of the late-1990s (Korn, Limp Bizkit, etc.) made it on the strength of their rage-filled music, but none added as much melody to the agitated proceedings as the Deftones did. While their music takes many an explosive twist and …

The late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana described the US rock band the Melvins as his favourite group. Unsurprising, perhaps, as they are the only other band of note to originate from his hometown of Aberdeen in the USA (though they have since relocated to S…

Although Nirvana and Pearl Jam may have been the most commercially successful bands of the 1990s Seattle movement, Soundgarden was every bit as important and influential. Part Black Sabbath/part Ramones, Soundgarden helped unite both punks and metalh…