Singer Cleo Laine speaks as she sings–her voice is deep, melodious, husky and honeyed. It’s one that’s retained its resonance and power through forty-plus years of performing. A fog-like quality creeps through her tone and adds a theatrical touch to her songs. “I make [each song] into a little play,…
Just about anyone under thirty has heard of the Cure. Many have seen front man Robert Smith and his giant haircut. Some can name songs, and be counted as fans. Unite all those people, something the Cure has managed to do, and you have a band that’s been able to…
Seeing as how heavy-metal in the Eighties has featured one Zeppelin-Aerosmith Xerox after another, it seems only a matter of time before hard rock chokes on its own redundant power chord philosophy. But right when you really think it’s over, there comes a voice from a suburban garage far away:…
Ask Jon Bon Jovi what kind of car he drives, and the 27-year-old rock superstar will tell you straight up, with no hesitation: “A Jeep.” It’s the kind of vehicle he feels comfortable with, probably because it fits in so well with the unassuming, regular guy image he’s always managed…
Back in 1972, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band wrote country music’s New Testament with the album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Featuring a veritable Who’s Who of country music’s most venerable and esteemed instrumentalists, singers and songwriters (several of whom have since passed away), Circle was a real bridge between…
Where, in the name of dudehood, is the next Bob Dylan? Why, he’s cowering in the closet, right next to his out-of-tune acoustic guitar, that’s where. He’s been there for more than a decade now, suffering flashbacks of that awful scene from Animal House. You know the one: Pencil-mustached Stephen…
If it’s true that Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberal policies have made a burgeoning Soviet rock scene possible, why is it that we’ve heard so little of this rocknost in America? How come, for example, most of us wouldn’t be able to tell the premier Soviet rock star, Boris Grebenshikov, from Bullwinkle’s…
How do you classify the music of New York rock band Pussy Galore? Punk? Post-punk? Post-modern? Progressive? No, nope, uh-uh, and not even close. The band’s fans and foes alike have called it “loud,” “obscene,” and “obnoxious,” but anyone who’s ever sat through any of Pussy Galore’s first five releases…
The year 1979 was a watershed for gloom bands, what with the release of Joy Division’s memorably dark and unsettling debut and the Cure’s less auspicious but equally bleak first album. Still, taking top honors as the dreariest, dirgiest and most all-around depressing disc of that year was Bauhaus’ debut…
Industry wags have dubbed them “this season’s Living Colour” and “The Next Big Black Thing,” but 24-7 Spyz would rather you think of them as just another raunchy rock band from the South Bronx. You see, unlike the members of Living Colour, who consider themselves as much black ideologues as…
Just how far has Al Jarreau descended from his creative peak in the early Eighties? On his latest album, Heart’s Horizon, the singer teams up with the one-man-band vocalist Bobby “He’s Everywhere!” McFerrin to sing a little a cappella number about those ol’ denim blues. Jarreau may have composed “Yo’…
here’s a scene in the new movie Scandal no self-respecting ska fan should miss. Christine Keeler is taken to London’s West End section by her friend Dr. Stephen Ward to score some ganja. She ends up in a smoky dance hall where she meets a sharp-dressed rude boy played by…
Around the L.A. offices of Polygram Records these days, executives are already referring to Saraya as the label’s next Bon Jovi. And why not? Like Polygram’s most successful act, its newest property is also a young five-piece band from New Jersey that produces catchy, hook-laden hard rock songs capable of…
It is an old saw among the creators of advertising that the best ads often don’t run. An agency will bust tail to come up with something truly clever, unforgettable and outrageous–a campaign that is sure to sell billions of sprockets. At the last minute, Mr. Spacely himself cans the…
The members of the Athens, Georgia, band Love Tractor wish people would show more interest in their music than in the hometown company they keep. Okay, so let’s indulge them for a minute. Let’s pretend they’re not from the famous underground musical town of Athens and that they aren’t good…
It’s August 1972, and Tiger Beat has nailed Donny Osmond in Hawaii. This time, the teen magazine’s caught him with his pants down, or at least his shirt off. His bangs hanging in decidedly ungroomed, wet mop strings over his forehead, Donny stands on the cover fresh from a dip…
Little did Romeo realize how prophetic his words were to become. Reggae music (the “house of worship” he refers to) in the late Eighties has indeed become rife with corporate thieves bent on using it as a coin-generating machine while damning its spirituality. The post-Bob Marley era of reggae has…
Gordon Gano, decked out in baggy plaid Bermudas and a white baseball cap, sits sipping a soda on a picnic bench outside Mesa Amphitheatre, looking every inch the Baptist preacher’s son that he is. The apple- cheeked Violent Femmes lead singer-songwriter-guitarist downs a Pepsi (you were expecting Jack Daniel’s, maybe?)…
Though the group is generally associated with contemporary jazz, Hiroshima has eluded classification. Confounded critics just can’t decide which category it belongs in. The Grammy Award-winning Asian-American group, based in Los Angeles, combines the music of its heritage with a potpourri of reggae, rock, R&B, pop, jazz, African, Brazilian and…
n Public Enemy’s revolutionary 1988 LP, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, head M.C. Chuck D roared through one black-power anthem after another, fashioning an aural altar to Louis Farrakhan here and a sonic testimonial to Malcolm X there. Then came the last song and its…
Comedians are the poor, deprived children of the entertainment world. At least when compared to their siblings in rock ‘n’ roll they are. For every household Jay Leno, a dozen Def Leppards–five anonymous names and faces (to the general public, anyway)–manage to sell fourteen million or so records. Whereas records…
first, it feels like an earthquake with a sense of rhythm or Dom DeLuise and David Crosby walking up the driveway in ski boots. BOOM! BOOM! The refrigerator begins wiggling around the kitchen like Jerry Lewis conducting a rhumba band. BOOM! BOOM! The coffee table hovers across the living-room parquet…
