Music

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut may have been as vulgar and potty-mouthed as any movie ever made, but what was really remarkable about it was what an exuberant, toe-tapping musical it was. There were classic-style show tunes about avuncular incest and nationalist hatred and the private yearnings of Satan…

December 24th — The Cole Residence: It was a storybook Christmas Eve. Natalie, shimmering in snow white chiffon, was busily piling up presents under the garland-festooned tree. Jack Frost was looking for a new nose to nip at while chestnuts were indeed roasting on the open fire — just below…

When the Wu-Tang Clan released its first single, 1993’s “Protect Ya Neck,” hard-core rap was associated almost exclusively with the West Coast. Dre, Snoop, and Cube were hip-hop’s most notorious rappers, and Death Row Records head honcho Suge Knight (currently serving time) was still at large, overseeing the whole g-funk…

Dreams unfulfilled/Graduate unskilled/It beats picking cotton/Waiting to be forgotten — Replacements, “Bastards of Young” Crushed chords are long, sustained and heavy. The sounds of concrete skies desolate landscapes. The vocals swing low, deep, almost ironic-sounding. The singer is skinny, like a stray, waifish, too, and the band just broods. The…

Unless you’re a diehard fan, working with a former rock star isn’t all that memorable an experience. Most likely your co-worker resembles one of the great unwashed instead of a big-time idol. And depending on the hourly wage he’s pulling down, our rocker’s probably a bitter and sullen old fellow…

Quick, name five Japanese bands. Chances are, some of the more intense music nuts out there might name-check the Boredoms, Pizzicato Five, and Shonen Knife, and some might even recognize Melt-Banana or Guitar Wolf. But the reality of Japanese pop music — or J-pop, as it is referred to by…

There is a sense of finality when these kinds of hits, B-sides, rarities and remixes are released. This one seems to come at a weird time; phase one of the Beastie Boys’ career officially ended more than five years ago when Adam Yauch first got involved in trying to help…

Dr. Dre is still the best hip-hop producer this side of The RZA or Prince Paul and Dan the Automator; he’s among the handful who could almost be called a composer because of his preference for live instrumentation over tried-and-tired Parliament-Funkadelic swipes. And Chronic 2001 should only bolster that reputation,…

Two years ago, the career of rapper Eve Jihan Jeffers appeared to be on the cusp of something great. Jeffers, who started performing when she was still a teenager, had done her time competing in high school talent shows and playing local clubs in her hometown of Philadelphia. She even…

The Independent Film Channel is, in my opinion, one of the most important new channels on television. In a world where more channels does not necessarily mean better product, we should seize this opportunity and celebrate it; give it attention, nurture it and make sure it survives…. I hope this…

At three in the morning, I saw her drunk, writhing around on this fat guy. I looked through the window and there they were, starting to go at it on the chair in her living room. My head suddenly became small and roared as its capillaries swelled like red balloons…

Listening to the radio, you’d think that there’s only enough progressive jazz, blues, R&B, folk and world music being released to merit an occasional two-hour show. Not so, bubba. There’s loads of great stuff coming out in all of these genres — always has been, always will be. What follows…

SAN ANTONIO — The crowd was so large that about one-third of the estimated 1,000 mourners had to huddle around an underequipped Peavy speaker outside. But even more impressive than the large turnout at the November 23 funeral of Doug Sahm, who succumbed to heart disease five days earlier while…

The Remains The Remains (180 gram vinyl) (Sundazed) The original Nuggets collection did a lot more than just rescue 27 bands with severely combed bangs from bargain-bin obscurity. It rescued rock ‘n’ roll itself by simultaneously kick-starting the punk movement while whetting people’s appetites for more unsung American garage bands…

In a genre that often traffics in sonic and visual conformity, blond-and-pink-haired singer Kelis is like the Dennis Rodman of R&B — brash, independent and alien, but too talented to ignore. Thankfully, she exhibits none of the self-destructive traits of Rodman, but she looks and sounds different from any of…

There is a strong possibility that all the quotes below are the fabrications of an impostor. The man who answered the phone claimed his name was Moby, but after speaking with him, it’s difficult to believe he was telling the truth. For one thing, he didn’t seem to know much…

In Roger Sabin’s Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk (Routledge) — a scholarly reassessment of the punk movement, which includes extensive end-of-chapter notes sometimes as revealing as the text itself — a varied group of writers and lecturers explores the wider phenomenon of punk. They go beyond…

Sophomore slump. Sophomore jinx. One-hit wonder. The idea that a band can release one record and with its next attempt either fade into oblivion or fail miserably is so common as to be a cliché. The story goes something like this: Band writes and rehearses songs for years. Record company…

Robyn Hitchcock is an acquired taste like the decadent cheeses he exalts in “The Cheese Alarm,” a song from his most recent release, Jewels for Sophia. This is as it should be. Mass ingestion of Hitchcock’s surrealist salad, Syd Barrett-as-fifth-Beatle music could make for an uncomfortable ear-meal for most. Although…

Gay Dad Leisure Noise (London) Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Looking Forward (Reprise) If any CD can test your tolerance levels, it’s Leisure Noise. On three separate occasions, it stared up indignantly from high atop my trade-in pile as if to say, “It’s because I’m Gay Dad, isn’t it?” Gay…