About a year ago, Julia Roberts was a guest on Bravo’s Inside the Actors Studio. Near the end of the show, craggy host James Lipton put her through his standard 20 Questions routine, profound stuff like, “What’s your favorite curse word?” When Lipton asked Roberts what she eventually hoped to…
Bionic Jive Six Million Dollar Band (Rorschach Records) Larry Elyea, guitarist and mastermind behind Bionic Jive, had a flexible but definite concept in mind last year when he put this sextet together. He wanted to do something original, and he didn’t care if it sucked. On first impression, Bionic Jive…
A few months ago, Pollen had a dilemma on its hands. The local pop-punk quintet was being actively courted by some heavyweight labels, most prominently Interscope Records. The question was whether to continue with an indie that was beginning to learn the ropes, the New York-based Wind-Up Records, or play…
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…
Let’s say that you’re a regular at Nita’s Hideaway. You leave town for a couple of months, and, upon your return, you decide to step into the club for a Thursday-night drink. As you pass through the doorway, you expect to hear roots-rock or classic soul pumping from the sound…
Ronnie Dawson is talking about his dad. The 58-year-old Texas rockabilly legend is explaining the thrill he felt as a youngster whenever he saw his father, Pinky, a Western-swing bandleader in the ’30s and ’40s, kick into a tune. But whenever Dawson describes his dad, he could just as easily…
What’s the price of getting a major-league baseball franchise? To the fan, it’s usually been a generation of ineptitude. The system has been so rigged against expansion teams that most diehards could merely pray that a pennant would come in the lifetime of their grandchildren. After their ’60s debuts, it…
The High Llamas Cold and Bouncy (V2 Records) In a 1995 documentary about Brian Wilson, Tom Petty put his finger on what set Wilson apart as an artist. Petty said that what always astonished him about Wilson’s Beach Boys productions was not the sound of any one instrument, but the…
“It started out as a joke, then it got real, then it got resolved, then it got real again.” That’s the way Chris Pomerenke, drummer for the Les Payne Product, defined the mercurial “feud” that developed over the past couple of weeks between his band and Trunk Federation. From the…
Sonic Youth wasn’t hitting the stage for another hour, but by 6 p.m. the line outside La Zona Rosa stretched all the way around the block, and halfway up to Tarrant County. Meanwhile, two guys in huge paper hats strolled by, selling ear plugs with the panache of a hot…
Natalie Imbruglia Left of the Middle (RCA Records) Natalie Imbruglia radiates star power. A common first reaction to the video for “Torn”–a much-recorded song that Imbruglia has now made her property–has been, “I don’t know who she is, but she’s gonna be huge.” Imbruglia is an Australian model/singer whose chiseled…
There’s a strange paradox at work in the local club scene. It’s not necessarily new, but it has come into sharper focus in recent months. Basically, there are what seem to be a million clubs scattered throughout the Valley, yet people regularly complain that there are no places for bands…
It’s almost too easy to slam South by Southwest. The cynical among us–and how can you observe the music industry at close range and not be cynical?–like to hold up the annual Austin confab as a case study of how greed and bloated ambition can submerge good intentions. You know…
There’s no denying that we live in a superficial culture, but it’s still a bit much to swallow when every couple of years the media collectively gush that Madonna has “reinvented” herself. What this profound reinvention usually amounts to is a new hairdo and a different Gautier ensemble. Beneath the…
When guitarist Steve Larson celebrated his departure from Dead Hot Workshop last June by setting fire to his guitar at a Gibson’s farewell gig, many assumed that the veteran Tempe band’s future had likewise been reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. After nine years of ups and downs, a…
When Franklin Roosevelt did it, they called it “packing the court.” When Richard Daley did it, it was known as “stuffing the ballot box.” In either case, it meant a way of massaging the numbers to guarantee the desired results. At the H.O.R.D.E. Band to Band Combat show on February…
Lookout for Hope has its very own heckler. He shows up from time to time at various places where the Tempe jazz trio is gigging, and stands right in front of the band. The jazz dissident, described by tenor sax player Bryon Ruth as a “crazy-looking motherfucker,” generally stands in…
Interviewing T.S. Monk is akin to setting a car on cruise control at the outset of an 800-mile trip. You know that you really don’t have to do much except glance up every few minutes to make sure you’re still on the road. The 48-year-old drummer, and son of legendary…
James Iha Let It Come Down (Virgin Records) There are a couple of different reasons longtime band members make solo albums. One is fairly legitimate: to explore musical avenues that just don’t fit on your band’s itinerary. The other reason is more ego-based. When people like Mick Jagger, George Michael…
Cappuccino and Cash sit outside Tempe’s Coffee Plantation on an uncomfortably cold Thursday night. If it’s a little ironic that many customers inside are plunking down cash for hot cappuccinos, no one bothers with such ironies. Certainly not Cappuccino, Cash, nor their producer P-body Scott, who sits to the right…
At the beginning of this century, the American labor movement galvanized behind a very simple premise: There’s strength in numbers. It didn’t take much insight to see that if you were working for the man every night and day, and you didn’t have a smidgen of power, the only way…
A few months ago, indie folkstress Ani DiFranco complained to Rolling Stone that the media are so fixated on her image that they rarely consider what she’s doing musically. While her argument is valid, it overlooks one key facet of her career: She had a pretty big hand in sculpting…
