John Lydon Psycho’s Path (Virgin) Both as a Sex Pistol and as a solo artist with PiL, John Lydon’s never been very big in America because of that squeaky Cockney voice, which always sounded like a whine even at its most strident. But Psycho’s Path reveals another reason he’ll never…
The battered ’84 Blazer parked in Keith Secola’s driveway looks out of place in his suburban Tempe neighborhood. Yet it’s fitting that the vehicle is there–it could be the model for Secola’s nearly famous song “Indian Cars.” That single song–a fusion of folk-rock, Indian chanting and the heartbeat pulse of…
Something snapped. The wind blew, the dust rose, and inside my trailer, an empty malt-liquor bottle came sailing for my head from the kitchen, which was a good 20 feet away. My excellent reflexes afforded me a timely duck that spared my skull but killed my prized possession–my 12-inch black-and-white…
Suicide Kings Suicide Kings (Rattle Records) Grievous Angels New City of Sin (Bloodshot Records) When Bruce Connole of the Suicide Kings opens his band’s debut CD with lines like “See the race I’ve run and now it’s over,” “I’m the setting sun that’s getting colder” and “Sold my soul for…
The new collection Songs of Janis Joplin: Blues Down Deep is merely the latest in a series of outrages foisted upon a gullible public by the House of Blues, a nightclub chain and music label that seems to think we were all born yesterday; but for sheer chutzpah, it may…
In the middle of answering a question, Mark Eitzel notices a jacket worn by one of the Warner Bros. Records publicists who are hanging around his hotel room. He forgets what he’s saying–something about why he doesn’t really hate people, he just likes when they ain’t around–when he sees the…
Dark industrial chicks aren’t sexy. Dark industrial chicks are erotic. Pierced tongues, ash mascara, dead-rose bouquets hanging like crucifixes above draped bed frames speckled with candle wax. Such women give me shivers. They’re so . . . nocturnal. Seething, spitting and genuflecting to the heavens onstage during a recent show…
Unless you’ve been isolated from civilization for the past six months, you know that the commercial music biz has been pushing “electronica” as the next big thing, signing geeks with samplers at the same rate it signed grunge bands back in ’92. What you might not have noticed yet is…
Guided by Voices Mag Earwhig! (Matador Records) “Earwhig” is British slang for that loudmouth guy at the end of the bar who thinks he’s the world’s greatest storyteller and just won’t shut up. There’s a metaphor here for Guided by Voices’ way-beyond-prolific leader, Robert Pollard. Sure, he may have labored…
If you think the Sport Model is a mod-revivalist band, you’re wrong–but it’s largely the band’s fault. The Sport Model’s early live-show handbills were festooned with pop-art images, Who guitarist Pete Townshend’s windmill poses, and stills from the Who-derived film Quadrophenia. Kerosene was poured liberally on that fire when the…
Hip-hop heads were first introduced to KRS-One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone) in 1986 with Boogie Down Productions’ national underground hit “South Bronx.” Ever since, KRS-One (a.k.a. Kris Parker) has helped transform hip-hop into a culture and advanced its music on such albums as By All Means Necessary, Ghetto…
Paul McCartney Flaming Pie (Capitol Records) A mere eight years ago, Paul McCartney seemed relevant, viable, still alive–not just an old man coasting on history but a singer and songwriter worth listening to, no matter the resume. Working once more with a partner his equal (and maybe then some), McCartney…
“I think we’re the only high school band that stayed together after graduation,” says 20-year-old guitarist Jeff Bufano, who along with guitarist Chris Corak (20), bassist Andy Eames (20) and drummer Jim Knapp (21) make up Reuben’s Accomplice, a north Phoenix “emo” band that has been playing in the Valley…
My favorite memory from Lollapalooza ’96 is watching the Ramones blast through “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” as a wicked dust storm suddenly rose on the horizon and swept toward Compton Terrace at warp 5. Roadies literally had to pull Joey Ramone away from the mike when the storm descended…
A funny thing happened the last time Spinning Jenny had a CD-release party: The group broke up! At the stroke of midnight! Keyboardist Brett Hinders, who had been in the band only for a few months at the time, recalls how it all came to a head during the show…
I cracked a 40 of King Kobra, opened the curtains a bit, and took a seat. My trailer park’s domestic-theater show had just begun, and my neighbor, Meth-Head Red, was in rare form. His lime-green La-Z-Boy, which usually sits in front of Red’s TV, now lay on its side in…
Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape (Roswell/Capitol) Slight expectations are easy to meet. Who knew that Dave Grohl wrote songs before the Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut? And what a pleasant surprise Foo Fighters was, proof that Nirvana’s pop-punk glory didn’t die with Kurt Cobain. “I’ll Stick Around” and “This…
The Byrds Notorious Byrd Brothers Sweetheart of the Rodeo Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde The Ballad of Easy Rider (Columbia) By the time these albums were released in 1968 and ’69, the Byrds had already decisively changed the face of popular music, revising a sound that would be rerevised by…
Sneaker Pimps co-founder and keyboardist Liam Howe is trippin’ on “trip-hop.” “That term was born too quickly without enough thought to what it meant,” he says. “Massive Attack’s Blue Lines was written six years ago and wasn’t called trip-hop until two years ago, when this term popped up and started…
Tina Turner, and Cyndi Lauper America West Arena May 7, 1997 You don’t get a double bill like this every night. Here we had two female performers who reached their zenith in the early MTV ’80s–one carefully coifed and choreographed, one klutzy and disheveled by design. That neither Tina Turner…
Once I escaped the teeming mass of Melrose Place fans in the low bleacher seats and climbed high enough to feel the breeze on my nipples, I got into U2’s POPMart phantasmagoria at Sun Devil Stadium, May 9, a lot more than I thought I would. Turning all the spotlights…
There are a lot of good and even excellent blues guitarists, but players of the subtlest instrument, soul-blues singers, are an increasingly rare treat. That’s why Chicago singer Syl Johnson’s pending gig at the Rhythm Room is the kind of show rabid Japanese fans would sell their limbs to see…
