Blur 13 (Virgin Records) In the end, “Song 2” meant nothing. It was Britpop masquerading as Seattle rock, a hit single that was all release and no tension. How very American of a band that, until 1997’s self-titled fifth record, kept everything obscured behind wily working-class-hero lyrics and rock-but-not-rawking music…
In 1975, George Clinton made the album that he still considers the breakthrough of his career: Chocolate City, with his band Parliament. Chocolate City’s classic title song was not only an obvious precursor to hip-hop (with Clinton smoothly talking over a repetitive rhythm track) but it was also an alternative…
A year ago, there was no special connection between Marilyn Manson and Courtney Love, unless you count the fact that both were famous for being infamous. They weren’t really friends (though Manson has claimed that Love did have a brief, raunchy fling with his guitarist Twiggy Ramirez), and their musical…
Jesus Chrysler Supercar has never played at South by Southwest before. But the Mesa rock quintet doesn’t approach this week’s trip to Austin, Texas, with anything close to virginal innocence. They’ve been at the band thing too long (more than five years) and experienced too many music-biz letdowns to believe…
Looper Up a Tree (Sub Pop) In recent years, sonic experimentalism has taken a foothold in pop music. This infiltration of the mainstream has come most notably through the work of Beck, who’s spawned a legion of imitators eager to copy his formula for combining hip-hop beats, folk stylings and…
Willa and Corrie Alexander aren’t related, but it’s natural to assume that they are. Granted, they don’t look much alike, and the statuesque Corrie literally towers over her diminutive friend. But they not only share the same surname, they both have the exotic-in-the-Valley accents of their native Holland. More important,…
Elvis Costello once told the story of giving an advance tape of his 1982 masterpiece, Imperial Bedroom, to the artist who was going to paint the album cover. Costello thought he’d created the sunniest pop album of all time. He thought he’d made a Left Banke record. When the artist…
DGeneration Through the Darkness (C2/Columbia Records) Produced by famed glam hag Tony Visconti (T. Rex, Bowie, etc.), Through the Darkness differs little from DGen’s last Ric Ocasek-knobbed No Lunch. There’s a torrent of jumbo, sperm-filled Clash chords, soaring Mick Jones harmonies and ersatz-Clash topical politicizing atop an invented street hustle…
Everybody has an agenda, you say? That may well be true, but it’s hard to imagine Creed, Fastball or whatever selections you can order from the BMG Music Club putting sentiments like these on their album covers: “We are a lonely people, pulled apart by the killer forces of capitalism…
Philadelphia’s greatest contributors to hip-hop, the Roots, like to begin their CDs with a snatch of dialogue. It’s their way of introducing a new set of themes, of offering a kind of preamble to the state of the union message that’s on the way. But the exchange that launches the…
What a difference a few weeks can make. In mid-December, Jimmy Eat World was one frustrated emo-punk band. The Mesa quartet had completed a masterful, ambitiously produced album for Capitol Records last summer, hoping all along to have it out by October ’98, so the band could squeeze in a…
It’s Saturday afternoon in downtown Tempe. The Coffee Plantation’s patio off Sixth Street and Mill is warmed by a late winter sun that slow roasts the usual blend of slackers, hackers and idle overachievers. A four-piece band is tucked off in a corner of the courtyard. The music, a bouncy,…
Kelly Willis What I Deserve (Rykodisc) It’s been a good decade since Austinites began predicting stardom for Kelly Willis. Even within the context of her late ’80s roots-rock band Radio Ranch, it seemed obvious that anyone with such angelic beauty and honey-soaked pipes was a can’t-miss proposition. Despite many false…
A gunshot blast is as predictable as nightfall now, and twice as evil as anything the night could otherwise offer. That metallic discharge that conquers all sound and grace in these slow, dark nights is the most obvious sign of hate–the ugliest sort of hate–the kind that comes paired with…
Paul Westerberg is almost 40. He’s married, a father and has a bad back. Those aren’t uncommon characteristics for someone his age, but in the case of Westerberg, who released his third solo album, Suicaine Gratifaction this week, growing old has been difficult. For those of us who came of…
When the original members of Kiss re-formed for a take-the-money-and-run tour in 1996, a persistent rumor followed their platform boots from city to city. According to this slice of gossip, guitarist Ace Frehley was occasionally in such fragile (read: drunk) condition that at some shows a look-alike had to fill…
Jason Falkner Can You Still Feel? (Elektra Records) “Take a chance with me.” Those are the first words out of singer-songwriter Jason Falkner’s mouth on his sophomore CD, a message delivered with a touch of vaudeville piano and a disembodied vocal that sounds like it could be coming from a…
Disco dead? Hardly. According to Headbangers Against Disco (or H.A.D.) it’s still alive and sucking. This self-proclaimed “idealistic organization that works to prevent the spread of disco and all it stands for” wants to sell you $24 tee shirts advising you to “burn down your local disco now!!” The headquarters…
As a kid, I went through a very brief infatuation with the clarinet after watching The Benny Goodman Story on TV with my dad. All these years later, it’s as clear to me as the horn-rims on Steve Allen’s ugly mug that this film was a ludicrously romanticized bio-pic typical…
In the liner notes to his new bluegrass album, Steve Earle concedes that his primary motive for engaging in the project in the first place was to achieve immortality. An “ambitious and selfish” desire to be sure, but as Earle puts it, “I wanted to write just one song that…
It’s impossible to talk about Valley music for long without the subject turning to the sad state of local radio. Even natives frequently shake their heads in disgust, unable to comprehend that a market of this size could be stuck with so few credible music options. The most glaring omission…
Irony visited Charles Brown in his final months. The great rhythm-and-blues pianist and vocalist, best known today for having penned “Merry Christmas, Baby,” made it through one last Christmas, but he couldn’t make it to what probably would have been the biggest celebration of his career–his Rock and Roll Hall…
