All right. Before we dive into the always controversial and titillating world of local reviews, let me tell you this: I went to see rockabilly shouter Robert Gordon at the fine establishment that is the Rockin’ Horse the other night. Some of you were there, too, a handful of Gordon…
Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge (Virgin) It’s the Stones. It’s great. Buy it. Little Jimmy Scott Dream (Sire) America is a wonderful place. A country that, no matter how much misfortune comes your way, no matter how much you just plain fuck up, if you hang around long enough, things just…
Why did it take so many tries to figure out the magic recipe for serving up Meat Loaf again? The all-telling cover art provides us with the necessary clues! Note: Every ignored follow-up is missing the three essential ingredients, in tandem: a muscle-bound boy, his bike and that darned bat!…
Dazzling Pantene spokesmodel Kelly LeBrock once said, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Maybe LeBrock’s plea was less breathtakingly presumptuous than it seems. Perhaps it was a simple assessment of a basic human attitude toward the naturally gifted, a little naive noblesse oblige from someone born to the runway. Let’s…
The only negative thing I can say about Joe Myers’ new release is that you might get splinters from it. The guitarist has gone all out with the packaging of Sonoran Snake Lady, creating a roughly hewn wooden box for his second CD to live in. And before you begin…
By now, almost everyone has seen those nauseating beer commercials. They feature twentysomething slackers with thirtysomething memory banks rattling off their favorite TV shows, cultural artifacts and popular music from the Sixties and Seventies, with nary a receding hairline or beer gut in sight. The worst one to date offers…
Until the beginning of this summer, Jack Logan was one of the best-kept secrets in the history of rock n’ roll. He and his musical cohorts (he calls them his “enablers”) had been churning out songs in rural Georgia for years, to little notice and no acclaim. Now, though, an…
Felix Cavaliere remembers it vividly. One day in early 1966, he was walking down Madison Avenue in Manhattan and first heard the Young Rascals on radio. “Somebody had a transistor radio and told us that Cousin Brucie, who at that time was the disc jockey in New York, was going…
In 1963, in Cardiff, Wales, there was a music store named Barrett’s of Manchester, located just down the road from the Capitol Theatre. One day in late May, the biggest band in Britain stopped there to play, and the afternoon before the show, the manager of Barrett’s–no fool he–sent one…
Week after week, I spout off about what I like and don’t like here in this column, and, while it may be hard for the legions of Screed loyalists out there to comprehend, there are some who do not always agree with my opinions. Believe me, for every teeming mail…
Willy DeVille Backstreets of Desire (Forward) Since DeVille’s last effort, Tower Records stopped stocking vinyl, Doc Pomus passed away and John Cougar went Mellencamp. What hasn’t changed is DeVille’s voice (except it’s got a lot more phlegm in it now) and his overriding passion for Brill Building songwriting (he dedicated…
Wanna know what’s wrong with the CD single? Get a copy of Belly’s new CD maxi-single, Moon. If this were a vinyl 45 release, the A-side would be the group’s recent cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced.” The snazzy take of Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” would be the…
Pablo Picasso once said, “The chief enemy of creativity is good taste.” Of course, Pablo never heard Cannibal Corpse. He never heard songs like “Fucked With a Knife,” “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” or “Force Fed Broken Glass,” and he’s no longer around to tell us whether good taste should perhaps…
Okay, folks, it’s that time once more. Get out your six-packs and handkerchiefs and prepare to get steeped in local color, but first this: You may want to check out the Smoking Popes, coming to us all the way from Chicago. If the band’s Get Fired CD is any indication,…
His nose has been broken seven times during frank confrontations with Everlast boxing gloves, and he’s rolled around in the waves on a deserted beach in the arms of a beautiful model and been well-paid for it. All for your viewing pleasure, of course, in a video for a song…
The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black Mason Jar June 19, 1994 Maybe it was when the topless woman with the purple body paint, blacked-out teeth and twisted fright wig stood on her head with her back to the audience and her legs spread, and a smaller, chubby girl painted orange…
Try as they might, the evil powers that control the recording industry haven’t yet been able to completely stamp out vinyl; there are still seven-inches aplenty filling the bins at your hipper Valley record stores (Stinkweeds, Eastside, Zia are a few). The short-playing discs are inexpensive to put out and…
It’s a Friday night in June on Tucson’s Fourth Avenue. The influx of University of Arizona summer-school students hasn’t yet begun, so the numerous watering holes that dot the street are playing host mostly to locals. This is the case at one shoebox of a bar called Trolley’s, where only…
It all started with a series of phone calls that never seemed to arrive when I was actually in the office. I’d return from a brief constitutional on the New Times Executive Tanning Deck, step into the chilled comfort of my chambers–kept at a regulation 56 degrees Fahrenheit, in tandem…
Have you ever wondered if there was a real Peggy Sue? A real Lovely Rita, Meter Maid? An actual Girl From Ipanema? Well, there isn’t. And now, joining this illustrious bevy of nonexistent beauties is Kim the Waitress, the heroine and namesake of Material Issue’s current hit. But that would…
In 1962, he mastered the fine, primitive art of banging out rhythms on coffee cans with a pair of Lincoln Logs. Soon after, he graduated to a toy Indian tom-tom, and by January 1968, he had himself a real–albeit secondhand–drum kit. Twenty-six years later, Dennis Diken is all grown up…
Had you walked into a local Tower Records store recently, made your way to the “Rock” section of the CD-listening stations, clamped on a pair of headphones and pressed the proper buttons, you could have heard the Latin Playboys’ self-titled debut. But what would you have heard? A weaving, lo-fi…
