Each performer on the “Up in Smoke” tour, which “rolls” into Phoenix this week, is of the belief that weed, like rap, is not a fad to be thrown out with yesterday’s resin. These acts are proud of their foggy legacies. Advertisements for the tour feature a huge, metallic-looking cannabis…
Moris Tepper isn’t home right now. He was up last night until dawn, and he has to drive way out from his seaside home before noon today, lugging tapes for a couple of albums he’s helping to produce. Two days ago he was up working in his studio until 5…
Indie rock kids have it good. Seeing them hang around the local record store or coffee joint, we look on with no small amount of jealousy. Clutching a copy of the latest vinyl score or rifling through obscure black-and-white ‘zines, they seem blissfully unaware of the horrors that rage around…
The venue’s tone rears its ugly head the moment I walk through the entrance. Dudes cut their eyes at me, chicks whisper. I feel surrounded by a five-foot neutral zone that no one dares enter. I start taking a few notes. A beastly mook with blinkless eyes seated nearby is…
In the mid-’90s, Midwesterner DJ Quik put Missouri on the map in a dubious fashion by suggesting St. Louis was “Jus Lyke Compton.” Back then, Quik was an up-and-coming star, with a squeaky voice like Eazy-E and beat-crafting skills that established him as one of hip-hop’s top producers. But like…
It’s easy to sneer at the bulk of Canada’s cultural offerings — Bryan Adams, Paul Shaffer and Loverboy come immediately to mind — but in the mid- to late ’90’s, the maple leafers offered what seemed to be a harbinger of brighter things to come in the form of Propagandhi…
Like country and bluegrass and a host of other roots-based forms, punk music often bears the distinct imprint of whichever geographical locale produced it. Though they played the same circuits, the music produced by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys didn’t sound anything like Hank Williams. Similarly, bands like Minor…
If the band thing doesn’t work out, Twin Cities-bred Dillinger Four could always, like Jello Biafra, offer its services to punks on the lookout for bizarre song titles. “Who Didn’t Kill Bambi?,” “Maximum Piss & Vinegar,” “Suckers Intl. Has Gone Public” (a title Chuck D. might covet), “Let Them Eat…
When the BellRays’ Let It Blast blares over the speakers in a local hole-in-the-wall record store, the eyes of bored hipsters in the aisles suddenly come aglow. A few whisper urgently to the nearest clerk, “What is that?” The music is unnerving, unreal after years of digitally enhanced sounds –…
Most observers regard the onslaught of teenage pop sensations like Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, ‘N SYNC and Christina Aguilera as proof positive of the cyclical nature of rock music. And like the big teen idol boom of the early ’60s, all this smiling and dancing must mean that a…
If you stop and think about it, 10 good rock ‘n’ roll records released in a single year is about all you can expect. And if you’re lucky, if it’s been an above-average year, a few of those records might even be great. Considering the hundreds of thousands of releases…
Down to the Promised Land is a kick in the pants for music fans, a thumb in the eye of naysayers and a great big moonin’ the board rooms of the music industry establishment, which has repeatedly rent itself asunder in the last half-decade, while the Bloodshot insurgents firmly planted…
For those who don’t believe the record industry is safely out of the hands of anyone who actually ever cared about music, I present Exhibit A — The A*Teens. Here’s a group that could not have existed unless the geniuses at the largest record company in the world (whatever Universal/MCA/Seagram’s…
You have to wonder what caused those early pioneers — bound for the West Coast, motivated by the promise of gold or, more simply, water — to plunk down and set up camp here in the Sonoran Desert. The Native populations — Navajo, Pima, Apache — who had inhabited the…
No one has ever accused Marc Norman of being a bad-ass. Maybe of being a dead ringer for Peter Brady or Donny Osmond, but never of acting like the kind of rock ‘n’ roll animal that would throw fear into the hearts of standards-wary TV producers. But the curly coifed…
The hip-hop community has been anticipating the coming of Slum Village’s commercial debut with the same fervor Christians await the availability of a newly discovered gospel. And like the arrival of a sacred text, there were countless unauthorized versions and unlabeled bootlegs floating among believers for months before its official…
“Beethoven is my hero,” says Jeremy Enigk, Sunny Day Real Estate front man. “I mean, writing a song on his deathbed — that’s beautiful to me.” He pauses, reflecting on what’s placed him on the other end of the phone. “And that’s kind of why I do it: for the…
In 1994, New Times instituted “Tapes in the Mail,” a regular column inviting local musicians to send in their demos for critical assessment. We were immediately inundated with cassette mailers from every corner of the Valley. This deluge was soon followed by angry letters from people who thought our duties…
Thinking that a video game soundtrack is nothing but random bloops and bleeps is so ’80s. Donkey Kong was then. Final Fantasy VIII, with its lush soundscape of symphonic melodies and choirs, is now. And the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has made it official: Gaming soundtracks are…
Late news this week that Phoenix’s preeminent roots venue, the Rhythm Room, will be closing its doors in the next few months. Promoter/co-owner Bob Corritore says he and fellow Rhythm Room boss Kenny Cahill just received the word from leaseholders that they would have to vacate their central Phoenix digs…
We’re standing around in the airy Tiffany’s Cabaret parking lot, doing very little. Just shooting the shit, really. Johnny Ace’s resident lackey, Eugene Haugen, a bony kid with Social Distortion hair and thick eyeliner, is videotaping the scene with a hand-held. He says he’s making a documentary of his favorite…
Depending on how you count, Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer is the second or third solo outing by Mark Kozelek, the songwriting arm of the Red House Painters. Although the RHP’s Ocean Beach (1995) and Songs for a Blue Guitar (1996) were dominated by him (the latter completely, in fact), this…
