If you were to judge the online music revolution based solely on the MP3.com charts, you’d have to conclude that most folks sitting at their computers were either DJs looking to download beats for their sets, or obsessive and potentially dangerous “Weird Al” Yankovic fans. What else could possibly account…
Rancid has been one of the only bands to show noticeable improvement from album to album, starting with the raw but monotonous Rancid in 1993, evolving to the more melodic Let’s Go and the stellar blend of street punk and Chuck Berry-style rock . . . And Out Come the…
The relevant debate over turntablism is no longer whether the wicky-wicky is indeed legitimate music and the Technics 1200 a real instrument. Humans are possessed by a need to drag sound out of any remotely suitable object, no matter how much work that object may require first — after all,…
The Mile Ends The Mile Ends EP (Sundazed) In case you haven’t noticed, local music historian Johnny Dixon is writing the book on ’60s Phoenix rock for Sundazed Records one chapter at a time. This Superfine Dandelion reissue is one of the more compelling installments, if only for Dixon’s liner…
The first time I’d ever heard the term “elder statesman” used by a rock ‘n’ roll star was by Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter, in a 1979 issue of Trouser Press. “That’s me expounding like an elder statesman,” he remarked somewhat self-deprecatingly, after giving his seal of approval to bands…
If Hollywood could design the perfect hedonistic pop star, equal parts pretty boy and hell-raiser, Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins would be the man. With an affinity for fast cars and fast women, he’s exactly the kind of guy that people like Kurt Cobain used to rail against. Brash, playful…
From the ’60s through the early ’70s, jazz fans clamored for something as “far out” as what was happening in rock music. They were offered what many found to be a choice between two flavors of awful: the dissimilar, avant-garde rantings of saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Seven recent…
For years, Russell Simmons has been the King Midas of the hip-hop world: Everything he touches turns to gold . . . or platinum. While this phenomenon is obviously most lucrative for Simmons himself, his extraordinary talents as a businessman (and, frankly, an architect of culture) have helped elevate an…
Divine Styler is a name from way back, and in the short-memoried rap culture, he is all but forgotten. Styler was an early cohort of Ice-T and dropped the original Wordpower in 1989, an eon ago in hip-hop years. In the time that’s passed between that album and this, Divine…
Wild, raunchy and brimming with chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, rockabilly — real rockabilly — was a musical sucker punch delivered to the button-down Eisenhower years. As unrefined as moonshine but packing twice the kick, here was homespun, hard-driving nose-thumbing aimed right at Mitch Miller, Kate Smith, Perry Como and everything else bland…
When the Grammys — notoriously the most staid of all the entertainment awards (remember Jethro Tull beating out Metallica as outstanding heavy metal band back in ’89?) — puts its stamp of approval on a growing genre, chances are it’s already reached the point of critical mass. Such is the…
The life of musician and composer Charles Mingus is the stuff of legends. Bursting with energy and ideas, Mingus’ peak creative output during the late 1950s and early 1960s dwarfed that of many of his colleagues in the jazz world. His best work wove together musical ideas drawn from gospel,…
If you must be a musical completist, it’s refreshingly simple and economical to be a Tom Lehrer fan. As Dr. Demento observes in the copious hardbound notes that accompany this three-CD set, the entire recorded “Lehrer canon” comes to around 50 songs. Except for a ditty he composed for Rod…
From the opening samples of “Follow” from Masterz of Ascencion, local rap collective Ascended Masterz immediately proves that theirs is no amateur effort. Led by front man Yosidicus Gigus and with MCs Haas Nanotechnician, Smoke the Unwanted Stepchild (who is also releasing a solo disc, Leprosy), Octatongue and Many Pieces,…
764-HERO, while still at peace in the relative obscurity of the underground, is no longer the sort of new phenomenon that can be judged one release at a time. After two full-length albums (Salt Sinks, Sugar Floats and Get Here and Stay), an EP (We’re Solids) and a brilliantly conceived…
I know your mama told you all about getting value for your money, but don’t grouse about the fact that Marah’s Kids in Philly is shorter than the enhanced portion of most bands’ CDs. Sure, subtract the two-minute hidden track of sound ambiance and doo-wop and you’re left with only…
With the likes of Korn and Rage Against the Machine demonstrating that those predictions of rock’s commercial demise you heard a year or two back were premature (again!), brainiacs at Madonna’s Maverick imprint decided to promote the Deftones into the next big heavy-music thang — and so far, their strategy…
As you know, the Moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, which means you’ll find, in the reviews below, synchronistic synergies and cosmic cross-wiring that reveal which music released during the astrological sign The Love Supreme you should love supremely. Meditate upon the cosmic connections, my…
Steely Dan no longer exists. Forget about the name, despite what you read in this paper’s music listings; since when did “in print” mean “the truth,” anyway? Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are sick to death of the name — ah, if only they had gone with one of their…
Morcheeba’s first two albums — 1996’s Who Can You Trust? and 1998’s Big Calm — were trip-hop by the numbers, as the slinky beats, sulky vocals and scratchy surface noise represented some of the clichés of the hip-hop-meets-electronica genre. But there was also a stinging professionalism to Morcheeba’s music that…
Jennifer Love Hewitt, someone with “actress” stamped on her passport, is on TV telling Rosie O’Donnell she’s never seen The Wizard Of Oz. Shouldn’t that be mandatory viewing for someone of her chosen profession? Shouldn’t you be able to name at least three characters from that Hollywood classic before you’re…
For years, rumors swirled that Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon was intended to serve as a sort of alternate soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz. A number of songs fit certain scenes a little too perfectly for some viewers. Though the idea had made the…
