The Wipers are playing a show in town this week. That’s big news, even though head Wiper Greg Sage, a longtime icon of American indie rock, has lived in the Valley for almost seven years now. Sage takes the Wipers on frequent tours of Europe and the rest of the…
Hamell on Trial Big As Life (Mercury) David Lowery, chief smart ass for Cracker, once intoned in song that, “What the world needs now is another folk singer/Like I need a hole in my head.” David Lowery needs to meet Ed Hamell. Or, at least, check out Hamell’s striking debut…
About a Mover Among other things, the history of soul music is the story of a handful of regional labels that flourished 20 to 30 years ago, releasing strings of sublime 45s before the long night of disco fell. Their passing success owed a lot to house bands such as…
According to the kids who were inside the Inclusion Art Space the night it got raided, it’s hard to say what gave away the scout team of undercover cops first–the fake nose rings, the advanced age, the silly clothes or the ill-informed attempts to score drugs at a straight-edge punk…
George Jones I Lived to Tell It All (MCA) Issued to tie in with George Jones’ tell-all autobiography of the same name, this album picks up Jones’ story at one of its most infamous low points. Married to his first wife, Shirley, the King of Country Music is reduced to…
It’s the final night for the Equinox, an underground punk club crammed into a central Phoenix office space, and Xs mark the spot. About 120 punkers have gathered to pay their last respects to the venue, listening as the local Christian hard-core band Overcome grinds away in a back corner…
Here’s my variation on Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck if . . .” routine. Call it “You might live in the Valley if . . .” The kickoff item: “You might live in the Valley if . . . you go to a yard sale where people are…
Ever go to a KISS convention and see people clamoring for a Bruce Kulick doll, or a lunchbox with Eric Singer’s mug plastered on the side? Of course not! It took Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley 13 pageant-free years to figure out what the rest of us knew all along–KISS…
One of the first things you notice about Simone Grey is the violet eyes. They’re contacts, of course, but set against her black hair and beautifully sculpted, unmistakably Middle Eastern face, the effect is still striking. And, like a lot of things about Simone, carefully calculated. There are the black…
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…
Ween 12 Golden Country Greats (Elektra) There’s something very wrong with Ween’s new CD. For starters, 12 Golden Country Greats has only ten songs. And though they may indeed be “golden,” it’s doubtful that even the most encyclopedic of country connoisseurs would recognize such titles as “Piss Up a Rope”…
Screaming Trees Dust (Epic) The Screaming Trees are proof that people at major labels do occasionally sign and foster acts just because they like them. On first glance, there is no less commercially appetizing prospect than the Screaming Trees: two gigantically fat guitarists and a recalcitrant front man, the three…
Zach Lind thinks back on the good old days and sighs. Lind, the drummer for Mesa upstarts Jimmy Eat World, recalls when he and his fellow Jimmys would pile into a van and head for Colorado or California, playing all-ages shows set up a day in advance by friends in…
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1970 hit “Lodi” immortalized the New Jersey town as a hard-luck haven for touring musicians, as far removed from fame and fortune as Earth is from Uranus. But imagine John Fogerty turning punk, wearing a Toys “R” Us skeleton costume and employing sidemen bedecked with “devil locks”…
For Cash and Cappuccino, it was not brotherhood at first sight. 1991, sophomore year, Cortez High. “We was both the pretty little niggers in school,” says Cappuccino, now 20. “The girls be likin’ us. But we was competitors, see? Girls he be dating wanted to talk to me, and girls…
Sebadoh leader Lou Barlow has been the reluctant godfather of experimental lo-fi since his groundbreaking acoustic four-track work on the Boston anti-folk trio’s first two albums (Freed Man, 1989, and Weed Forestin, 1990). Those two records were followed by Barlow’s Sentridoh solo series, most of which he recorded in his…
Elvis Costello and the Attractions All This Useless Beauty (Warner Bros.) In his sleeve notes for this year’s Goodbye Cruel World reissue, Elvis Costello congratulated us for purchasing his worst album ever. He was good to his word–until recently, that messy aberration was the substandard bearer for Costello’s extensive body…
(symbol) Chaos and Disorder (Warner Bros.) The appropriately titled Chaos and Disorder, the latest in a flush of new releases by the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, sounds a lot like what’s currently known as slop. It’s a sketchy piece of work, overblown in spots, half-baked in others, a generally…
Had relations been warmer between him and Warner Bros., we might still be on a first-name basis with the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. He’s made no secret of his disdain for the terms of his recording contract, to the point of shaving his facial hair so it spelled out…
Neil Young & Crazy Horse Broken Arrow (Reprise) Among the phrases you least want to hear from a musician, “Hey, let’s jam” ranks down there with “So, she’s your sister, huh?” and “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” But at least ol’ Neil isn’t shooting blanks in the gee-tar department for…
One summer day A.D. 525, a Buddhist monk from India named Ta Mo arrived at the base of Mount Shaoshi in what would later become the Henan province of central China. He took in the scenery, thought or said something to the effect of “This is the place,” and promptly…
It is a Midsummer Night’s Eve in a wooded glen somewhere in the wilds of Finland. The chill blue sky is full of cumulus clouds, the air is ringing with the music of Bad Religion, and I am surrounded by thousands of comatose Finnish kids in an alcoholic stupor. Today–18…
