We’re gonna make this one a letter-and-response column. Here’s the letter: “Was there really a good reason for David Holthouse to trash Brian Smith of the Beat Angels (Coda, February 15)? “Holthouse doesn’t have to like the Beat Angels’ music and he doesn’t have to listen to it, but does…

Her name was Holly Golightly–not the Audrey Hepburn character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but the Hollywood hooker who lived at the same hotel as the Beat Angels last October, when the Phoenix fivesome was in L.A. to finish recording its debut album, Unhappy Hour. “The Sunset Palms is a cheesy,…

Gunshot. Not the deep boom of a high-caliber revolver, but the sharp, evil pop of a nine millimeter. Everyone else in the room and the hall just outside it–there were eight of us, in all–hit the floor in a hurry and started making for the corners, the back walls, anywhere…

Name: Jason Finn Current occupation: A President of the United States of America (“I play drums”). Previous employment: Percussionist for grunge combo of note Love Battery; booking agent; bartender in Seattle, Washington. (“I’d still tend bar if I had the time. I can’t think of another job–except maybe the one…

Peculiar, plastic things from strangers have recently become a motif in my life. The first was a Jesus-head Pez dispenser (yeah, I didn’t know they made ’em, either), mailed with no return address, phone number or accompanying explanation other than a crayoned note that read, “Sinners Re-Pez.” Next up, Big…

Rock ‘n’ roll?? SXSW never heard of it! On February 1, I received a manila envelope in the mail. Inside were a few posters promoting the release of the Beat Angels’ coming debut album, Unhappy Hour (due out on Epiphany February 27); a demo from said release; and a note…

Tori Amos Boys for Pele (Atlantic) Kate Bush is the artist to whom Tori Amos is most often compared–usually in cynical accusations of aesthetic plagiarism and emotional fakery–but Jerry Lee Lewis makes a good, if not a better, parallel. Like Lewis, Amos is the rebellious, piano-playing child of a conservative…

I’d heard the stories about Mason Jar owner Franco Gagliano and his temperamental impersonation of Godzilla on coke (a shorter, squatter Godzilla, that is). But I didn’t believe them because I hadn’t experienced any firsthand. Now I do, because now I have. Here’s my story: It is Saturday night, February…

Some nights I wonder why I even bother, and this is one of them. When the end is so obviously and rapidly approaching, what point is there in this? And by “this” I mean whatever you are doing right now, as I am writing this column. I don’t know how…

“The worst thing about this whole Ice Cube thing,” says Cypress Hill rapper Louis “B-Real” Freese, “is that if this was back in the day, I would have taken care of him already.” A few definitions to clarify: “This whole Ice Cube thing” refers to Real’s recent accusation that fellow…

Nestled within this year’s list of nominees for the Chicago-based Blues Foundation’s annual W.C. Handy Awards–which most blues artists and their industry kin rightly lend at least as much weight as the Grammys–is an item with a sharp local kick. You’ll find it in your program under category 19, “Traditional…

The Bad News: Despite KUKQ’s business-asusual broadcasting, the indie-rock AMenclave will cease to exist sometime Monday–the third and, evidently, final time the financially strapped station has folded since it signed on in 1989. The Good News: There really isn’t any. The Cause of Death: What else? Money. Sandusky Newspapers, a…

… And Who Could Forget About These Great Hits? (The Ten Best Albums of 1995) 1. P.J. Harvey To Bring You My Love (Island) Britain’s Gen-X version of Patti Smith gets gruff and bluesy on her latest set of psyche-aerobics. It’s not exactly easy listening–first-person songs about drowning one’s children…

Name: Yuta Kiyono Age: 23 Birthday: December 15 (happy birthday, Yuta!) Hometown: Yokohama, Japan Arrived in the Valley: September 15, 1995 Future Plans: Learn English and study at ASU Current command of English: Shaky, but a hell of a lot better than my Japanese. Current command of eight ball: Nippon’s…

Normally, I love the hate. There’s nothing to jazz up a Muzak day like a spitting-mad New Times reader jabbering in my ear about the sacrilege of superimposing Barney the Dinosaur’s head on Jerry Garcia’s body. And any day I get to hear someone call Garth Brooks a musical genius…

So I’m cruising down Apache Boulevard on November 29, taking the virgin listen to my bootleg of the Jim Rose Circus’ sold-out performance at Electric Ballroom two nights prior. I’m thinking to myself, “Maybe tape-recording a freak show isn’t the brightest brain flash I’ve ever had. What am I gonna…

Quick–name one rock band with a black woman for a lead singer. I dare you. Hell, I double-dare you. What’s that? Tina Turner? Get outta here. Sure, she can strut as hard as Mick Jagger, but have you heard that song she has in the new Bond flick? I don’tknow…

Not Miranda, you fool, Mirainga. After a week spent skipping down more blind alleys than an Alphabet City speed freak, I’ve called off the hounds. At this point, I’m willing to confirm status upon Mr. Mirainga as “the band from nowhere.” Make that everywhere. The publicity flacks at MCA still…

The question of the hour is a two-parter: Who the hell is Mr. Mirainga, and what was he doing besting Alanis Morissette and Smashing Pumpkins in last week’s list of most-added alternative-rock radio singles in the country? MCA Records media reps in New York will tell you that Mr. Mirainga…