For music that only gets hauled out once a year, Christmas albums sure have a way of branding themselves into our collective psyche. For many of us, it’s just not Christmas without a certain familiar, seasonal album crackling in the background like a yule log on the fire. So what…
Recordings Tom Petty Wildflowers (Warner Bros.) You’ve grown up with Tom Petty. You first saw him all scraggly and snotty in the Seventies, and you couldn’t miss his smug pug and godzillion-selling records through the Eighties. Now, with the release of Wildflowers, the 43-year-old singer/songwriter plays the part of the…
State in an All-Age Rage When is a concert not a concert? What’s the difference between a “bar” and a “concert facility”? If you’re younger than 21, will the only way you’ll soon be able to see rock is to drive to a quarry? These and other questions are up…
Live Shows Diamanda Gals, and John Paul Jones Gammage Auditorium December 2, 1994 Three hundred years ago, Diamanda Gals would probably have been burned at the stake. Even in these progressive times, she’s managed to upset more than a few folks–mainly religious officials–with her own particular brand of “entertainment.” And…
Okay. No drunken adventures this week. No reckless driving or meandering road trips. No wanton sexual adventures or exploding tubes of Blistex. Oh, yeah, I guess I haven’t really delved into, uh, never mind. Fact is, it’s been a hell of a work week, nose to the grindstone, all that…
Various Artists The World of the Zombies (PopLlama) To your average human being, the Zombies were a footnote to the British Invasion, a band whose career oldies stations have defined forever by three songs: “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No” and “Time of the Season.” But listen up, average human…
Don’t let anyone tell you that Tempe’s own Fluidrive doesn’t take itself seriously. Just check out an excerpt from the band’s florid bio: “Raw music with undeniable groove, power and presence. That is what we stand for. There is so much energy when we play, so much passion and so…
Bob Mould’s been reading his press again. He’s seen Tower Records’ Pulse! magazine chronicle his history of hassles with record companies. He’s read Musician detail the nasty breakup of his old band, Hsker D. And Rolling Stone did a nice job of exploring Mould’s nontraditional sexual identity (he’s gay) and…
Do you know who Ward Dotson is? Well, I can tell you his girlfriend writes the letters column in Hustler, which probably doesn’t help much. But before we get into Ward–and you should get into Ward–be aware that this is a special Thanksgiving column, dedicated to what yours truly did…
Galen Herod runs into his living room. He’s got a microcassette tape deck with him. Herod smiles, starts waving his arms, dancing to the beat of the scratchy noise. He skips into the front room of the house and taps out the song’s melody on an old, banged-up piano. He…
In the world of entertainment, people are fond of slapping labels on things they don’t understand. Some members of the press have been quick to label Diamanda Gals a “performance artist.” Big, big mistake. “I have no relationship at all to this schooltime, academic, low-temperature, Anglo-Saxon performance-art shit,” qualifies Gals,…
Here are some reasons to justify why you’re reading a Jerky Boys interview in the Music section: 1. You’ve gotta go to a music store to buy the Boys’ CDs. 2. Sometimes, even music writers get sick of hearing music, or, more to the point, they get sick of hearing…
It is a little before 9 on Saturday night west of Casa Grande. Saturday night at the Francisco Grande Resort, in the Franny Granny Lounge, to be exact. There are five people in the place, swilling drinks and dragging on cigarettes after a day of golf, which makes perfect sense,…
If you think Compton is nothing more than a wasteland of juiced-up hustlers and pimps, a breeding ground for the latest batch of gun-boasting, ho-smackin’ gangsta rappers, you’re dead wrong. Coolio is proof. With his chart-topping debut album, It Takes a Thief, Coolio takes listeners on a streetwise trip that’s…
Dead Hot Workshop River Otis (Seed/Atlantic) You know about Dead Hot Workshop. You’ve heard ’em, you’ve seen ’em. It’s the band most likely to succeed the Gin Blossoms as Tempe’s top pop export. Indeed, many would argue that Dead Hot was the best band on Mill Avenue back before the…
Tiny, Tony and Company Tiny Tim Mason Jar November 8, 1994 Tiny Tim stepped gingerly onstage (he’s nearly 70, mind you), his short, chubby body filling out a suit fashioned entirely from cloth printed with sheet music. He flashed his expansive, tooth-filled grin that is either depraved or endearing, his…
It’s called Cactus Rose Theater now, but old-timers surely will remember it as the Kiva, a pornographic video store and movie theatre that embarrassed the bejesus out of the surrounding tourista emporiums in Old Town Scottsdale. Now, however, the room is bright, cheery. There’s a sparkling little snack bar and…
Various Artists Baywatch (Scotti Bros.) How many of you out there think of music when you think of Baywatch? Liars! ‘Fess up–it’s boobs and buns and bronze skin, defying gravity in the California sun, that you’ve got on yer mind! Superfox Pamela Anderson may chirp “watch my water!” at one…
Vince Neil is a man who’s had some good times. He was the front man for one of the biggest bands of the Eighties, pop-metal superstuds Motley Crue. The Crue sold tons of albums, Vince married a statuesque ex-stripper named Sharisse, made tons of money, and partied like there was…
BeauSoleil L’Echo (Forward/Rhino) Cajun music is a curious beast. At times it can make for a glorious jolt to the soul. Other times it can be annoying as hell. BeauSoleil is a bit of both on L’Echo, a collection of old-timey Cajun cover songs. The good stuff is the same…
What’s funny? High-density theories on the nature of humor have clogged the arteries of many a fathead. Henri Bergson thought humor resulted when human behavior began to resemble the predictable repetition of machines, while Sigmund Freud saw humor as sublimated aggression. Of course, Henri and Siggie were infamous for their…
Tom Jones The Lead and How to Swing It (Interscope) For millions of females over the last several decades, Tom Jones has been a seething, pulsating mass of unbridled sexuality, the consummate stud with a throat of leather. For millions of others, he has been the ultimate camp joke with…
