Cake News

The members of Cake in their project studio, from left: John McCrea, Xan McCurdy , Gabe Nelson and Vince DiFiore Alternative pop-rock band Cake first gained widespread attention in the mid-'90s for ironic, iconoclastic music that flew in the face of mainstream trends.

Off-shore wind power. Vanishing kelp forests. Plastic water bottles going into landfills.

For Cake frontman John McCrea, there are two sides to music. On the one hand you have the cultural aspect of things: what's popular, what boosts your ego, what drives you to wear a certain band's T-shirt before anybody else does.

Cake has always been a politically and socially minded band, but the group decided to go the extra mile for its sixth studio album.

Rock act Cake is in the midst of recording its untitled sixth album, tentatively due in Spring 2010, but fans won't have to wait until then to get a taste of the new material.

Some folks on twitter have started posting their top albums from the 2000's. Now that's an idea I can get behind! So, here are my top albums from the 2000-2004. I'm going to try to do just three albums per year, but I love my music, so we'll see how it goes.

TV theme songs have gotten a little more hip in recent years -- from Cake lending "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" to Chuck to Lazlo Bane doing "I'm no Superman" for Scrubs , to any of the seasonal iterations of Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole" on The Wire .

Best-known for their ubiquitous hit "The Distance," Cake epitomized the postmodern, irony-drenched aesthetic of '90s geek-rock. Their sound freely mixed and matched pastiches of widely varying genres -- white-boy funk, hip-hop, country, new wave pop, jazz, college rock, and guitar rock -- with a particular delight in the clashes that resulted.

Over the past 18 years, alternative rock band Cake has stayed relevant with its quirky songs as singer John McCrea's cadence of speaking and singing helped propel the band to mainstream hits such as "The Distance" and "Never There." Multi-instrumentalist Vince DiFiore thinks the Sacramento-based band's staying power has a lot to do with the ...

Over the past 18 years, alternative rock band Cake has stayed relevant with its quirky songs as singer John McCrea's cadence of speaking and singing helped propel the band to mainstream hits such as "The Distance" and "Never There." Multi-instrumentalist Vince DiFiore thinks the Sacramento-based band's staying power has a lot to do with the ...

Over the past 18 years, alternative rock band Cake has stayed relevant with its quirky songs as singer John McCrea's cadence of speaking and singing helped propel the band to mainstream hits such as "The Distance" and "Never There." Multi-instrumentalist Vince DiFiore thinks the Sacramento-based band's staying power has a lot to do with the ...

Pressure Chief , Cake 's latest album, didn't immediately grab me. In fact, it took perhaps half a dozen listens before I started truly enjoying it.

Pressure Chief , Cake 's latest album, didn't immediately grab me. In fact, it took perhaps half a dozen listens before I started truly enjoying it.

One way to experiment with songwriting is to throw convention out the window, eschew verses and choruses, try to be completely unique.

A week ago I wrote a post called "Is it Ever Okay to Steal Entertainment?" , which produced great comments from our readers, many of whom were clearly incensed that I would ever try to rationalize stealing from content creators.

For blogs, video, news, photos and more from Dfest, follow Tulsa World staff reporter Jennifer Chancellora s BarrelhouseBeat Blog.

In case you didn't see today's print edition, it featured my centerpiece on alt-rock group Cake .

BUCYRUS - Though his self-proclaimed Corn Dog and Funnel Cake tour ends in February, Jason Michael Carroll said playing the fair and festival circuit never officially stops.

Pressure Chief , Cake 's latest album, didn't immediately grab me. In fact, it took perhaps half a dozen listens before I started truly enjoying it.

They'll write songs in a different setting or bring in a new producer to help find a fresh perspective.