HITCHCOCK TALKS

If they gave out Grammys for ingenuous songwriting, dazzling lyrical word play, supreme originality and courteous telephone manners, Robyn Hitchcock would need a moving van to haul home his trophies. The Grammys being what they are, though, Hitchcock needn’t be reserving shelf space. But that shouldn’t stop you from rushing…

TAPES IN THE MAIL

The Beat Angels at Long Wong’s? Unthinkable? Impossible? Perhaps, considering the bile that the Angels’ fey, puckish singer Brian Smith has spewed on the Mill Avenue “scene” in these very pages. But apparently, Smith and the boys’ insatiable need to simply “entertain” won out; last Saturday, “bile” turned to “smile”…

RECORDINGS

Morrissey World of Morrissey (Sire/Reprise) Back in the Sixties, patchwork albums like Magic Bus: The Who on Tour or the Rolling Stones’ December’s Children and Flowers were the norm. Part rip-off, these collections of B sides and unreleased-in-the-U.S. tracks were often padded with selections already available on other albums without…

SO MUCH FOR THAT REPLACEMENTS REUNION

It was Billy Joel who wrote the immortal line “Only the good die young,” but I’ll bet even B.J., as wise and talented as he is, would have a hard time fitting Bob Stinson into that equation. Bob, late of the Replacements, late of planet Earth (he died of an…

WITCH WAY OUT?

I hate musicals. And I will continue to feel contempt for the genre until the audience stops clapping after every damned song. It’s an infuriating habit. It means that most of us consider a musical a mere collection of tunes–at best, a happy diversion, a pleasant spectacle. We don’t expect…

RECORDINGS

Throwing Muses University (Sire) Throwing Muses used to be an easy band to loathe. Chief Muse Kristin Hersh wrote wildly inconsistent songs and sang them with the vocal equivalent of buckshot on broken glass. Rock critics from the indie underground drooled ecstatically over the Muses in part because the noise…

LIVE SHOTS

Dag, and Mother May I Neeb Hall, Arizona State University campus, Tempe February 22, 1995 If you ever thought that being signed to a major label was the ticket to Easy Street, you should have made it to this show, a double helping of rising acts recently inked to majors…

RAFFI COME HOME

Now the stage is bare and there’s emptiness all around. Facing his audience after almost seven years in the wilderness, it’s only natural that this beloved performer should be wracked with fear. Will the old magic work again? Will this crowd get fidgety and have to go to the bathroom…

OASIS–BRITAIN’S SAVING FACE OR THE NEXT BIG NOTHING?

For years, the crumbling of the British Empire has been mirrored by the shrinking chart fortunes of British bands in the colonies. Sure, at one time Britain gave us the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Sex Pistols, the Police and the Smiths–but…

CREDIT CARDS WHERE CREDIT CARDS AREN’T DUE

God knows what I was thinking. I’m no rap fan, I hate Candlebox, and I hate sports. I know even less about sports than I know about music. Yet for some reason, I allowed myself to be talked into going to that live MTV/All-Star broadcast thing at America West Arena…

ANGELS AND INBREDS

Russell Sepulveda wears a cowboy hat and sings with a twang. His songs leave room for pedal-steel-guitar breaks, and his bands–both of ’em–cover C&W tunes by the likes of Buck Owens and Gram Parsons. Sound like a country boy? Not quite. “Country music today is so far from its roots,”…

AWESOME DAWSON

Many times over the last four decades it seemed like Ronnie Dawson was on his way to being somebody. At the ripe age of 17, he was picking and yelping his go-to-hell rockabilly on American Bandstand. He was part of seminal rock impresario Alan Freed’s stage shows. He played on…

G. LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE

A frog? “Yeah,” confirms Emo, tour manager for G. Love and Special Sauce, “last night they played so long, somebody threw a frog up onstage.” A live frog? “No” he says, voice turning thoughtful over the phone. “They must have brought it from a high school or something. It was…

TAPES IN THE MAIL

The box is full; time once again to throw the tapes in the machine and let the opinions spew out. But first, this: Apologies to Spinning Jenny; the title of the band’s new CD is not Piata Full of Beans (as I wrote last week), but Piata Full of Bees…

TEXAS SCHMEXAS

Of the 43 bands from the Valley that applied for the South by Southwest music conference this year, guess how many were accepted? I’ll give you a hint: No, I won’t. I’ll just tell you. Other than the Refreshments (who are attending under a business arrangement between New Times and…