First Live Album Created Entirely in the Studio: Johnny Rivers Johnny Rivers at the Whisky A-Go-Go (1964) It doesn’t take a secret agent man to figure out that this and three other “Recorded Live, Very Live” Whisky A-Go-Go albums sound identical to Johnny’s first designated “studio” album, where friends were…

This may not be cause for concern for some of you whose lives revolve around something besides obscure and trivial music-related events, but deep in the heart of this here section, we’re biting our nails down into bone powder at this startling discovery–double live albums have just been added to…

Gladys Knight & the Pips Claudine Bobby Womack The Poet Leon Huff Here to Make Music (The Right Stuff) This trio of R&B rereleases from The Right Stuff label dates back to the heart of the disco era. Released at any other time, two of the albums would easily have…

If rock’s first half-century ends with Korn’s “Rock Is Dead” tour pulling down the largest 1999 concert receipts, what hope could there possibly be for people to get excited about the acts that once made rock live? Come New Year’s Eve, Little Richard will probably be woohooing it up in…

In 1972, an eclectic Dusty Springfield album called See All Her Faces was released to every market but the United States. Unfortunately, we colonists always lost a good half of her faces in the transatlantic transfer of her discography. Despite the American Philips label having issued five Dusty LPs plus…

What’s most disturbing isn’t the notion that the world will end by the year 2000, but that it will continue going on, business as usual, muddling through on its heartless, lazy trek. What if the world doesn’t end with a bang, but with a whimper, so blase most people won’t…

You may be right. I may be crazy for even getting upset about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, like the guy who bolts out of his easy chair to protest the implausibility of a MacGiver episode. It’s a dumb idea to begin with, turning rock ‘n’ roll into…

Everybody has an agenda, you say? That may well be true, but it’s hard to imagine Creed, Fastball or whatever selections you can order from the BMG Music Club putting sentiments like these on their album covers: “We are a lonely people, pulled apart by the killer forces of capitalism…

Disco dead? Hardly. According to Headbangers Against Disco (or H.A.D.) it’s still alive and sucking. This self-proclaimed “idealistic organization that works to prevent the spread of disco and all it stands for” wants to sell you $24 tee shirts advising you to “burn down your local disco now!!” The headquarters…

Built to Spill Keep It Like a Secret (Warner Bros.) Since the dawn of psychedelic music in 1966-1967, rock auteurs have searched for ways to stretch the pop song into longer and wider shapes. But it’s unlikely that anyone has ever expanded the form with more twisted grace than Doug…

Blondie No Exit (Beyond) It’s pro forma in the world of rock that whenever a band reforms after a long absence, the band members always claim that working together felt like they’d never been away, that they’ve picked up right where they left off. The good news surrounding No Exit,…

When you tell people you’re writing about Squeeze, you get one of three responses: a) “Are they still together?” b) “They used to be really good.” c) “They’re a little too clever for their own good.” Yes kids, Squeeze did split up back in 1982, but the band reassembled three…

It’s too bad we can’t take a Soundscan of all the lives the recent $10.4 billion merger of PolyGram and Universal Music will ruin. Sure, we can do a feasible head count of the hundreds of artists and managers whose necks will meet the chopping block, and those ratzafriggin’ bean…

At the record company meeting On their hands–at last–a dead star! Best of! Most of! Satiate the need Slip them into different sleeves Buy both, and be deceived. So sang Morrissey on The Smiths’ final album, which was immediately followed by the obligatory live album and then The Smiths’ Volumes…

Checking the vital signs for guitar-based rock has long been an ongoing preoccupation for critics. Still, you knew something was a bit different this year when new releases by Hole, Marilyn Manson and even the sample-heavy Garbage were judged not merely for their musical merits but for their potential to…

Beck Mutations (DGC Records) When did the release of a new record start to be treated like an election campaign? Consider that the press dubbed November 17 Super Tuesday simply because Garth, Mariah and Whitney were all moving product that day. Even more surreal, a few days later, Garth Brooks…

When the Rolling Stones staged the first genuine rock ‘n’ roll circus in 1968, they distributed gold-embossed metallic tickets to their fan-club members and lucky NME readers, fed them, gave them 20 hours of music, clowns and amusements and then arranged for buses to take everybody home. All free o’…

Candyskins Death of a Minor TV Celebrity (Velvel Records) Born of the same Oxford, England, pop scene that produced Radiohead and Supergrass, the Candyskins were formed in 1989 by the Cope brothers–frontman Nick and guitarist Mark. Along with lead guitarist Nick Burton, bassist Karl Shale and drummer John Halliday the…

Lately the words “resurgence” and “Burt Bacharach” are finding their way into a lot of the same sentences. There’s been an avalanche of press coverage on Bacharach and the stepped-up use of his songs in hit movies like Austin Powers, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Forrest Gump and The First Wives…

As yet another scalp-searing summer draws to a close, the local gentry at Casey Moore’s seem suitably pacified with drink and the promise of cooler temperatures just around the corner. That cheery notion isn’t enough to straighten out the furrowed brow of the Grievous Angels’ figurehead, Earl C. Whitehead. Tonight…

Sure, who wouldn’t like a sign from above that he or she is on the right track? For months, Sipping Soma’s Mark Matson had been woodshedding his living-room sound experiments with neighbor Diedre Radford, the possessor of an exotic, eerie voice and a cheap keyboard. Matson got just the validation…

In 1978, RSO Records was the most successful record label on planet Earth. From Christmas of 1977 to May 20 the following year, the Robert Stigwood-owned label maintained a 21-week stranglehold on the top position of Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. No other record label has ever managed to score…