GRINDING IT OUTNAPALM DEATH COMES ALIVE WITH A NEW ATTACK

Napalm Death has been called the end of music. The English band has gone to the lead in taking music to its furthest illogical extreme. The group was among the first to add voltage and thundering rhythms to speed in order to create monstrous sixty-second bursts of sound. With all…

QUIRK ROCKTHE FEELIES KNOW IT’S ONLY ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

The Feelies really care about their public. Lead vocalist-guitarist Glenn Mercer swears it’s true. So what if they only record when they are good and ready, or that they only gig in the flesh every three years or so? The Feelies care deeply about having an audience. According to Mercer,…

RIBS REVISITEDCOUNTRY MUSIC SIMMERS AT HERNDONS’ HANDLEBAR-J

Nestled deep in the Mercedes jungle of north Scottsdale sits a little-bitty ol’ piss-ant country place that has not only survived the region’s creeping hoity-toityism, but has thrived. And so has one of its favorite sons. The Handlebar-J and its previous incarnations have held country court at the same location…

MADE IN COREAJAZZ’S KEYBOARD CHAMELEON SHOWS OFF HIS LATEST SKIN

Chick Corea is a certifiable musical multiple personality. The 49-year-old pianist is a jazz Sybil bouncing from one distinct character to another with nearly every album. There’s Chick the Fusion Whiz, Chick the Latin Romantic, Chick the Avant-Gardist and most recently, Chick the Conservative Standard Bearer. Jazzbos of every bias…

THE X FACTORINXS’ NEW-MODEL ROCK

Four months have passed since Billboard dropped the bomb in its 1990 year-end issue announcing that rock, for seventeen years the dominant genre on the top album charts, had lost its title to rap and danceable pop. So far, the music biz is still waiting for the other dancing shoe…

HAPPY ENTRAILS TO YOUFLESH FROM SEATTLE, TAD’S BUTCHER-BLOCK ROCK!

They are a loud, crude, Jack Daniel’s-guzzling band, with a lead singer that looks like Meat Loaf on steroids. In their home base of Seattle, Washington, they host a public-access porn show, reviewing slasher films a la Siskel and Ebert. They are serial-killer trivia buffs who adopted notorious necrophile-cannibal Edward…

GOOD DAYFOR BLACK ROCK LIVING COLOUR CROWNS A NEW KING

When Living Colour steps out onto the stage these days and launches into “Elvis Is Dead,” the lyrics and the attitude answer a lot of stupid questions. The band members aren’t freaks. Rock ‘n’ roll is black. Chuck Berry invented it. And Elvis Presley was never the king. “That `King…

STAYING KOOLSONIC YOUTH SURVIVES A MAJOR LABEL

A couple of years back, Sonic Youth singer-bassist Kim Gordon interviewed L.L. Cool J for Spin magazine in an attempt to get a feminist/hard-core perspective on rap’s estimable MC. Early in the interview, it became obvious that the two shared little common ground. Their clashes were sometimes comic, as when…

SAX OFFENDER DAVID SANBORN KICKS THE POP HABIT

Anyone with a record collection more than a foot wide probably owns a piece of David Sanborn’s unmistakable sound but doesn’t know it. The Stones’ Undercover, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, and David Bowie’s Young Americans all benefit from Sanborn’s wailing alto sax. He’s backed up James Brown, Stevie Wonder,…

TURN THE BEAT AROUNDANTHRAX PUTS THE MOVES BACK INTO METAL

Coming soon to your favorite cable-TV dance show: Anthrax? Don’t be too surprised if you see New York’s greasiest headbangers on Club MTV in the next few months. Anthrax is about to release a dance remix of its rap/speed-metal hit, “I’m the Man,” which the band is hoping will shoot…

BURNIN’ DOWNTHE HOUSE THE CHARLATANS UK REOPENTHE DOORS

A few years ago, Manchester, England, was notorious for its underground acid-house clubs where young Brits gobbled X-tacy and other designer hallucinogens and trance-danced ’til dawn. The Charlatans UK singer Tim Burgess was a fixture at these stimulant-fueled shindigs. But Burgess was less interested in the available drugs than the…

THE BAND IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUITTHESE MONSTERS HAVE A HEAD FOR BUSINESS

Once upon a time, a Colorado alternative band emerged from the semimoribund Denver music scene and began to create a buzz. Loyal homies packed large and small venues. Locally produced cassettes sold out entire runs in record time. The local alternative weekly began championing their cause. Shows in jaded metropolises…

BACK IN BLACKJOHNNY CASH TAKES HEART FOR THE NINETIES

Don’t blame Johnny Cash for his unusual silence in the Eighties. For ten years, the outspoken Cash searched for a place between the growing neo-country Nashville and the wholesale, creased-denim twang crowd of Music Row. His attempts at balance were met with lukewarm reviews. Finally, in 1988, heart surgery looked…

LAWYERS, GRUNGEAND MONEY ARIZONA’S ALTERNATIVE STARS WIND ON

When you step from the Tucson sun into the Sidewinders’ darkened practice room, you’re temporarily blinded. Once your eyes adjust, you think you’ve stumbled into some way-hip postmodern rock ‘n’ roll video shoot. Located just off Tucson’s downtown railroad tracks, this sprawling warehouse looks like something Demi Moore and Patrick…

ARTSY ALLOYMETAL MEETS MELODY WITH KING’S X

King’s X singer-bassist Doug Pinnick is sitting in a greasy hotel coffee shop on East Van Buren, easily maintaining a low-profile despite his freshly starched mohawk and ten-or-so-person entourage. Then a waitress suddenly comes up and makes a request that’s not often made of Pinnick: an autograph. Not that this…

TURTLES AT WAR

With America at war and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on a rock concert tour, perhaps one of the touchiest questions that parents toting their tykes to the TMNT extravaganza are having to deal with is, “Why aren’t the Turtles going over to help our soldiers?” It’s a valid question,…