“Our question posed to the media, labels, and fans is, ‘What does emo mean?’ Was Christie Front Drive emo or just dark and sad pop-rock? Is Jimmy Eat World emo or is it just good pop-rock with a punk edge? Is the Promise Ring emo or happy-go-lucky pop? Was Quicksand…
Smoking fine cigars was long the province of the overprivileged. Now, although you won’t find many food stamp recipients puffing on Cubanas, it’s no longer reserved for the high and mighty or those who aspire to such. In the late ’90s, cigars have become as vital a fashion accessory as…
The Pastry Heros Horn Rim Fury E.P. (Submersible Recordings) Pure, unabashed pop bands are a rare commodity locally; the few bands that place themselves in the pop category are generally either pretentious or too talentless to appreciate the measured aesthetics of truly beautiful pop music. When Alison’s Halo broke up,…
Technology has advanced exponentially since my birth nearly a quarter-century ago. These days, computers ensure that the first letter of each sentence one types is capitalized, the Internet provides information and pornography to anyone capable of clicking a button, one space station is nearly used up and another one is…
Modest Mouse just does not give a fuck. For two weeks, the tape recorder jacked into my telephone has been sitting still, waiting for singer/guitarist Isaac Brock’s voice to come through the line and answer a few simple questions. The Issaquah, Washington, threesome is somewhere on the East Coast, playing…
Sonic Youth A Thousand Leaves (DGC Records) Like Karl Stockhausen or John Cage, Sonic Youth has always exerted more power as an influence, name-dropped by other musicians, than as an act actively listened to and enjoyed by real people. Perhaps for this reason, the veteran avant-rock foursome has long had…
College towns tend to spawn millions of bands, most of them worth slightly less than shit. Take Tempe, for instance, where I live. A hundred cover bands vying for frat-boy dollars at strip-mall bars, and another hundred grabbing at the coattails of a sound that was curiously successful half a…
Fugazi End Hits (Dischord Records) Being punk rock’s king of rhetoric and idealism, it’s often forgotten that Fugazi is also an incredibly talented band. Not many people notice anymore. The band’s name either conjures memories of shows stopped so that front man Ian MacKaye could bitch out overzealous moshers or…
Propellerheads Decksanddrumsandrockandroll (DreamWorks Records) At first glance, the title of the debut album by Propellerheads seems like a self-conscious attempt to coin an unwieldy phrase. Upon repeated listenings, however, this album actually starts to sound like what its name suggests: a multihued, state-of-the-art crash course on every imaginable flavor of…
The South by Southwest conference held in Austin, Texas, each year is the music industry’s most massive gathering. Now in its 12th year, the conference purports to be the mecca of the biz, a place where unknown bands will find their A&R guy in shining armor and ride off with…
In a world where Hanson outsells Fugazi and “girl power” conjures images of the Spice Girls rather than Bikini Kill, there’s a smug sense of satisfaction when entertainment institutions unwittingly recognize anyone from the indie-ground. Nearly a year ago, Elliott Smith was on the front porch of Revolver HQ, playing…
Bev Tittle-Baker is not a born activist. A single mother most of her life, she owned a construction business in Phoenix, but gave it all up in the early ’90s after growing weary of cutthroat contracting competition. She found a “fixer-upper” home in an old Mesa neighborhood, saw its potential…
Fire is motion. Work is repetition. This is my document. We are all all we’ve done. –Cap’n Jazz, “Oh Messy Life” For years now, the recordings of Cap’n Jazz have been sought after futilely by the small percentage of the indie nation lucky enough to have heard and been touched…
Late last year, the American music press declared 1997 to be the Year of the Woman. Rolling Stone founder/editor Jann Wenner stated in RS’ “Women in Rock” issue, “It became obvious to us that the major music story of 1997 was the rise of women artists,” while Spin’s “Girl Issue”…
Some people can maintain their composure in a burning skyscraper. But the average record-company exec, faced with a few months of flagging album sales, is liable to run naked through the nearest strip mall, brandishing an AK47 and screaming threats in some twisted form of pig Latin. So, in 1997,…
Aaah, the new year, when music critics’ hearts turn to thoughts of Top 10 lists and year-end recaps–a vacation unto itself. The last year gave indie rock a face-lift, ringing in new heroes and ditching some of the bad guys. From California to the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest and…
Prince Paul psychoanalysis (what is it?) (Tommy Boy Records) “As long as I can remember, people have hated me.” With that repetitive sample, Prince Paul sets the tone for his first solo album, psychoanalysis (what is it?). Beginning with that first track, “why must you hate me,” the listener is…
You Am I Hourly, Daily (Sire Records) You Am I is a Sydney, Australia, trio that’s achieved an oddly impressive distinction during its six-year history: It’s somehow managed to build a zealous American fan base without actually releasing anything in America. Hourly, Daily, its third Australian album–following hard-to-find imports on…
“Independent.” As with the word “corporate,” “independent” (or “indie” if you’re under 30) is just a word describing a socioeconomic fact, not an idealization or a canonization of the band or record label it’s applied to. As much as self-described “indie rockers” would like it to, the term doesn’t guarantee…
It’s an unusual story. A reputable hard-core label signs a pop band recommended by another band. The pop band tours, releases a shittily produced LP and becomes the darling of the American indie scene. So the band goes to a better studio with a better producer. The label releases the…
Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Superchunk is a band inextricably linked to “indie rock,” the ill-defined genre sitting somewhere close to “punk” but gainfully lacking punk’s aversion to maturation. The association is probably because Superchunk has been playing and putting out consistently brilliant albums since 1988, and vocalist/guitarist Mac MacCaughan and…
Like your friend whose romances are messier than yours, the Mr. T Experience is back to cry about it with its eighth album, Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You. The MTX is pop punk’s troubadour of love gone wrong, master of the “I loved you but you dumped me…
