Musically, the ’90s boil down to this: In January 1992, Nirvana knocked Michael Jackson out of the No. 1 position on Billboard’s album chart. And for the next eight years, alternative was the word, and the airwaves were unusually diverse. Taken one tune at a time, the just-released Whatever: The…
It took Dave Insley only about four decades to realize his real life story would make a great country album. “You know, it’s the craziest thing,” Insley says, taking a cigarette break outside Tempe’s Yucca Tap Room after wrapping up the last set of the night with his topnotch honky-tonk…
This week The Thrifty Ear celebrates the individual, probably because he can’t find a comrade who’ll sit and listen to this music without killing him. Kylie Minogue Ultimate Kylie Source: eBay Price: $4.99 + $3.50 S&H Ultimate Guilty Pleasure is more like it, purchased in its Japanese digipack form to…
Here in the ‘Nix, we’re not known as a hotbed for mainstream hip-hop — we’re an indie hip-hop town, with a packed schedule of weekly club events and frequent visits from crews like the Shapeshifters. That’s going to change in the near future, thanks to the imminent migration of Proof,…
In 2002, while holding court in his office overlooking NYC’s Madison Square Park, David Barker — a friendly young Englishman editing a series of chapbooks on contemporary American fiction — decided it might be nice to produce a set of books fixated not on individual novels, but on individual albums…
Oasis Don’t Believe the Truth Source: eBay Price: $3.75 + $1.50 S&H Thriftin’ ain’t just about sticking it to the man; it’s about giving second chances to artists you’d given up on because there’s a considerable discount involved. Most Yanks wrote these unibrows off after the overstuffed Be Here Now…
All hail the mighty compact disc! That piece of technology that let you listen to OK Computer without having to sit through “Fitter Happier.” While we know that no audio format lives forever — someday the CD will ascend to take its place next to hallowed eight-track cassettes — that…
Want to get more out of Ozzfest than watching Ozzy stumble around on stage? If so, the place to be is the second stage, where you’ll find the bands that still play small clubs and sleep in their vans. Most of these bands have the dedication to become huge, but…
In the seminal 1997 film The Apostle, Robert Duvall plays E.F., a charismatic Pentecostal preacher who travels across the South, hitting the radio waves and filling tents with his fiery brand of syncopated hallelujah preaching and stomping, wild-eyed histrionics, inspiring hand-clapping, ass-shaking and great wailing incantations. Pocketbooks open and the…
The two girls are all over each other on the big purple couch, writhing, eyes locked in a passionate lip-synch to No Doubt’s “Underneath It All.” A crowd’s in the doorway, giggling as the girls lose their shirts and bottoms, and end up rolling around together in nothing but their…
These days, anyone with a Live365 account and a stack of CDs can run his own radio station on the Internet. The hard part is getting people to know about your quirky little station. That’s where we come in. Every few weeks, Streaming Consciousness will search what’s being streamed, uploaded…
Music is subjective. Well, sort of. While the way a song or an artist affects you is deeply personal, it’s pretty likely that most of your choices fit a prearranged pattern. Learn the patterns of others, the way a politician studies demographics, and you can learn a lot about people…
Most people collect music like they plaster walls — always looking to fill gaping holes. This week, I’ve decided to limit my $10 purchase to artists whose contributions to pop have yet to disturb The Thrifty Ear record collection. Britney Spears Greatest Hits: My Prerogative Source: Zia Record Exchange Price:…
Sure, Starbucks’ in-store music — which has begat its own record label, Hear Music, and, since last August, “Media Bars” listening stations in selected coffee houses — gets all the buzz. But what about all the other “third places” we go to between home and work, where we’re treated to…
When I was fresh out of high school, I took off on a pilgrimage to Berkeley, California, the punk rock mecca of the early ’90s. While that was a hell of an adventure, my post-grad exploits ain’t shit compared to what the five Gilbert High School grads in the band…
Famed producer Rick Rubin, the man responsible for signing the now über-successful System of a Down, recently told the L.A. Times that SOAD guitarist/songwriter/vocalist/mastermind Daron Malakian is “a true artist.” Malakian, said Rubin, “doesn’t really live in the world. He lives in a bubble and the bubble is filled with…
Someday, somebody is going to trace the origin of these debilitating computer viruses to some well-paid nerds working for Sony, EMI and BMG trying to put the kibosh on your Kazaa and tangle up your Limewire. I can go out and purchase a second home in the time it takes…
All hail Lester Bangs! Bow down to the chosen critical few who light our way through the caverns of music. For there is an upstart we have let slide for far too long, but who we will indulge no longer. Source, here is your critical fatwa! Source, you have been…
If the Pernice Brothers’ newest full-length, Discover a Lovelier You, sounds just a little more optimistic than earlier releases, it’s an unintended nuance. Singer-songwriter Joe Pernice really doesn’t see it as a radical departure from 2003’s Yours, Mine and Ours, although the press has called it everything from his poppiest…
“You want road stories?” says Alfie Lucero, lead singer and bass player in the six-year-old Phoenix rock band Redfield, sharing some after-work drinks with the rest of the quartet at the George & Dragon pub on South 48th Street. “Oh, man! Where do we begin?” Mike Sandoval, the big, hulking…
You don’t ordinarily expect to find a young white woman from San Francisco digging deep into the heart of Crunk Country. But Tamara Palmer did just that in the course of researching her new book, Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop, which includes interviews with such playas, impresarios,…
When I visit Cory Spotts in the control room of his north Phoenix studio, he’s got his finger on the Valley’s musical future — quite literally. With a click of the mouse, a sizable chunk of the best stuff being produced in town reverberates through the room, and Spotts is…
