At the near-forty-year mark in their career, the bro-team of Ron and Russell Mael are finally receiving the kind of success that occasionally visits extremely unique musicians who hang in there for the long haul. Even if their music is so out-there as to only appeal to 1% of the listening audience, there’s a new potential audience every year as another crop of rock and roll kids sets out on their path to discovery, and the ones inclined to bizarre postmodern pop will eventually cross their path. Over time, those small numbers add up. So it was that Sparks sold out Royce Hall on Saturday by combining new and vintage material for a show that brought out the faithful in droves. more ›

Since their emergence at the beginning of the 1970s, Sparks has been an outsider act. But while commercial success has only struck a handful of times in the course of their twenty-one albums, everyone who grew up during that time seems to know who they are. There’s something about the sight of Ron Mael, the sinister, Chaplinesque accountant stoically rocking out behind the keyboard, that once seen is not easily forgotten. Of all the musicians in the world Paul McCartney could have picked to impersonate in his all-star band for the 1980 Coming Up video, Mael not only made the cut, his Fab doppelganger is easily the funniest and most memorable in the clip. When guys who used to be in the Beatles are making fun of you, you've made it. more ›