Wilco Being There (Reprise Records) The cynics who would dismiss rock ‘n’ roll–the formula kind, the guitar-vocals-bass-drum kind, the kind Chuck Berry created and the Beatles and Brian Wilson made perfect–look instead toward a rave new world; they write off rock as a dead form to be discarded like a…
His upper teeth are nearly gone now; they have been replaced by tiny slivers of off-white that peek through rotten gums. His lower teeth, thin and brown, appear ready to fall out if he so much as coughs too hard. His lips are pale and dry, coated with spit so…
Van Halen Best of, Volume 1 (Warner Bros.) Warner Bros. has already released volume one in the Van Halen best-of series: It was called Van Halen, and it hit stores in 1978. Volume two, the following year, was called, well, Van Halen II; volume three was 1984 in, well, 1984…
On its 30th anniversary, Star Trek exists only as fetish or fool’s pastime. The original series continues to air as a faded relic; the Next Generation cast was put to pasture as a film enterprise before its time; and Deep Space Nine and Voyager run and rerun so often you…
Karen Carpenter Karen Carpenter (A&M) Both A&M honchos (Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss) thought the solo album Karen Carpenter spent much of 1979 making was a bomb, and wanted it diffused without a public hearing. So did brother Richard Carpenter, but for more personal reasons. The chief architect of the…
Gary Allan Used Heart for Sale (Decca) Dolly Parton Treasures (Rising Tide/Blue Eye) The modern-day male country singer is a pop star now, a pretty boy in a store-fitted Stetson and pressed Wranglers. He’s more prefab than passion–his look copped from George Strait, his voice on loan from Garth Brooks,…
Chuck D Autobiography of Mistachuck (Mercury) He’s still the toughest-talking man in hip-hop, the self-proclaimed “Prophet of Rage” taking on the profits of rage that would dismiss him as the forgotten fossil–which, of course, he is when measured in hip-hop years. After all these years–after the rise and fall and…
During the opening day of the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas, where Kim Fowley is still revered and everyone gets a backstage pass for a weekend, Randy Newman sat uncomfortably on a stage in the Austin Convention Center’s ballroom. He was there ostensibly to promote…
Ray Bailey Blue Street (Visa Records) Ray Bailey calls his label Visa because that’s how he paid for it–by maxing out his credit card once he got pink-slipped from Zoo Records. Not that it was Zoo’s fault. The L.A. bluesman never belonged on the label in the first place; after…
Isaac Hayes answers the door of his Dallas hotel room, his bald head down and his eyes sagging. By way of introduction, he yawns and apologizes for being so damned tired, and ushers his guest into the room with a limp raising of his left arm. He wears black pants…
Michael Diamond runs the Beastie Boys’ empire, a very small empire: a label, distributed through Capitol Records, with Luscious Jackson and DJ Hurricane and, of course, the Beasties; X-Large, a clothing store in New York specializing in very ugly clothes that the b-boys pay phat dollars for; and a 30,000-circulation…
A First Listen Stevie Vaughan and Double Trouble Recorded April 1, 1980, at Steamboat nightclub, Austin, Texas. In 1979 a young Stevie Vaughan (the “Ray” would come three years later) was still synthesizing his influences, paring them down into his own voice. On one bootleg from this period, The First…
Austin, Texas–Until recently the legacy of Stevie Ray Vaughan had been that of a modern-day blues master. He was an honest-to-God guitar hero whose fiery brilliance on the Fender Stratocaster mesmerized a generation unfamiliar with such legends as T-Bone Walker, Elmore James and Muddy Waters. The Oak Cliff, Texas, native’s…
