The question of the hour is a two-parter: Who the hell is Mr. Mirainga, and what was he doing besting Alanis Morissette and Smashing Pumpkins in last week’s list of most-added alternative-rock radio singles in the country? MCA Records media reps in New York will tell you that Mr. Mirainga…
Eric Bachmann has had a whiff of success, and he says the smell is not so sweet, after all. “All of a sudden you can’t get a free moment at a show ’cause you have to talk to the publishing people, the tee-shirt people, the record-label people, whatever,” says the…
1. He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. 2. He started playing guitar when he was 12. 3. He wrote in his 1959 Hibbing High School yearbook that he planned “to join Little Richard.” 4. He moved to New York City in January 1961…
Candlebox Lucy (Maverick) Candlebox is back, but we never knew it was gone. How could we? The band’s eponymous debut has sold almost four million copies and stayed in heavy rotation on MTV and commercial radio like an old sweat sock that someone keeps forgetting to take out of the…
If you believe in forever, you may also believe that somewhere beyond the stars is a rock ‘n’ roll heaven with one hell of a band. Rest assured, you’re not alone. Though it’s still too soon for Blind Melon fans to put a silver-lining spin on the latest rock ‘n’…
Flaming Lips Clouds Taste Metallic (Warner Bros.) Let’s play free association. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think “Oklahoma City”? Right-wing kooks with fertilizer bombs? The site of the world’s tallest radio tower (KOMA)? The famed test market for both McRibs and MTV? Not if you’re…
The members of KMFDM think they’re funny guys–despite the leather and the Hamburg accents so guttural they make Schwarzenegger sound like a girlie man. In fact, group founder and keyboardist Sascha Konietzko says KMFDM’s sense of humor is spread all over Nihil, the German quintet’s latest blend of techno, industrial…
It’s October 26, and the four women of Luscious Jackson have hopped into a limo in Greenwich Village bound for La Guardia Airport and a flight to Las Vegas, where they will open for R.E.M. the next night at the 12,000-seat Thomas & Mack Center. Cruising down Fifth Avenue, guitarist…
To be honest, it was the whole image thing that roped in Luca Hassard at the age of 12. Beautiful and famous, yet warm, down-to-earth and close to her family–that was the image of Selena Quintanilla Perez, the Mexican pop superstar who earned widespread admiration among fans in the U.S.-Mexico…
David Bowie/Nine Inch Nails Desert Sky Pavilion October 18, 1995 David Bowie’s career has always been a masquerade. Most U.S. fans first encountered the D-man when he strutted about saying he was Ziggy Stardust, rock ‘n’ roll messiah from Mars. Adopting that persona was hardly a boost to Bowie’s credibility,…
Meat Puppets No Joke! (London) Immediately after hearing this set’s chipper “Taste of the Sun” on the radio for the first time, I button-punched over to an oldies station and caught a blast of the Cyrkle’s 1966 hit “Red Rubber Ball.” Coincidence? I think not! Both songs share a peripheral…
Believe it or not, some audiophiles weren’t immendiately captivated by the sleek look and pristine sound of the compact disc. Some of them actually held off on buying a CD player well into the Ninties! Close your eyes, if you will,, and imagine such a creature – waving his arms…
“Memphis” Charlie Musselwhite says the secret to happiness is to treat life like a harmonica solo. “You’ve just gotta find the right key and play all the notes in the chord,” says the veteran rock/blues harp player. “If you’ve got the right vibrations, then get in a groove, let it…
Red Hot Chili Peppers One Hot Minute(Warner Bros.) The serrano boys have peeled the tube socks off their dicks and pulled on their thinking caps for this fire dance of an album–easily the band’s best since it put funk/punk on the map in 1985 with Freaky Styley. Four years back,…
When John Coltrane regularly gigged at the New York City jazz mecca Birdland in the early ’60s, a young comedian who hung out at the club learned to mimic the sax player–his stage mannerisms, his facial tics, even the sound of his horn. One night, the comic and Coltrane’s band…
Eddie Spaghetti is homesick. At the mere mention of Arizona, his voice goes limp as his mind hearkens to happy childhood memories. Like the other members of the Seattle-based hillbilly hard-core band Supersuckers, Spaghetti was born and raised in Arizona. Along with original guitarists Dan Bolton and Ron Heathman and…
Phish Heads, Phish Heads, stoned and tripping Phish Heads. Phish Heads, Phish Heads, having their fun. My brain’s still shrouded in a pleasant purple haze from the Phish show at Compton Terrace on October 11, but I’m happy to report that the Deadhead demographic has apparently made a smooth transition…
I didn’t know whom to believe. Last week, I heard two such disparate stories about a booking gone awry at Nile Theater that I felt like Judge Wapner presiding over a surreal episode of The People’s Court. The plaintiff–Geoff Sanoff of the Washington, D.C., punk outfit Edsel–claims that Nile Theater…
Jesse Dayton figures it’s about time to get another tattoo. “I’m walkin’ lopsided with only one,” he says. The Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter scored his skin art 12 years ago, when he was a 17-year-old, greasy-haired rockabilly guitarist who opened a show for Brian Setzer. Setzer (a Jersey boy) advised Dayton…
When Shaggy’s first recordings hit the streets in 1991, the struggling dance-hall artist was preoccupied with dodging Scuds and piloting a Humvee as a Marine in Operation Desert Storm. It wasn’t the first time the armed service had interfered with his music career. When Shaggy was stationed at North Carolina’s…
Morrissey Southpaw Grammar (Reprise) You crazy kids raised on teeny-weeny cassette inserts and itsy-bitsy CD booklets continue to miss the big picture when it comes to album art. It’s something to behold, worship, spit at and draw insane conclusions from. No wonder Generation X has yet to devise a “Paul…
The mantra for the ad blitz that preceded the Molson Ice Beach Party–a corporate-sponsored rock festival held in the tiny Eskimo village of Tuktoyuktuk–was “Get Up There.” Easier said than done. Tucked away on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Canada’s Northwest Territories, Tuktoyuktuk is quite literally at the…
