When Jack DeJohnette invited Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny into the studio recently, it seemed like the drummer was assembling jazz’s Masters of the Universe. Name most any landmark jazz event of the past three decades, and there’s a good chance at least one of them has been there. In…
Who would’ve guessed that beneath the milquetoast exterior of David Byrne burned the heart of a hot-blooded, hip-swiveling, Jose Cuervo-swigging Latino? Certainly not the followers of Byrne’s tenure as a self-consciously unemotional and asexual Talking Head. As the New York band’s brainy, neurotic front man, Byrne has been the leading…
When Hillel Slovak died in 1988 after spending his last couple of years in a heroin haze, everyone knew the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ guitarist wouldn’t be easy to replace. But when the Peppers chose as his successor a seventeen-year-old punk from Chatsworth, California, named John Frusciante, the reaction was…
Celebrity Skin is sick of blue-jeans-and-tee-shirt guitar-pop bar-hero bands. The group wants to bring glitter and glamour back to rock ‘n’ roll. It wants to revive outrageous, wailing superstardom. “I don’t want to see just the guy next door playing guitar,” says Skin bassist Tim Ferris. “I want to see…
Yo! Sun City! Get ready to rock ‘n’ roll! That hip-swiveling sound is bound to move next door any day now, and there’s nothing you can do to keep it out. No, we’re not talking about the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheelchairs tour stopping at the Sundome. We’re referring to the…
At any given moment in Sun City tonight, it’s a good bet that some nightclub act will be playing “New York, New York.” Lou Ives, who has played Sun City with his wife Lou Ann, has worked up a theory on the “New York, New York” phenomenon. “If you go…
In the mid-Sixties, a country newcomer named Doug Stone warmed up for Loretta Lynn. But instead of immediately reaping the success surely coming to an unknown who’d opened for a legend, Stone quickly dropped out of sight. The fledgling singer vowed never to give up on his career, though, and…
Tracy Chapman is not black for the same reason New Kids on the Block are black. In the music industry, cigar-chompers, not chromosomes, decide the ebony-or-ivory question. They’ve determined that R&B–yes, even New Kids’ R&B–is black and that contemporary folk is “un-black.” Of course, if Chapman were to change her…
A mere two months after the release of her debut album, Tracy Chapman snapped a stadium full of people to attention at a Nelson Mandela tribute concert in England. But not long before Chapman sold the first of her fourteen million or so records, Phoenician Rick Cyge says, the folkie…
Where the Heck Is Mr. Fun? (Or Up and Down the Donut With Frank) (Local tape) Galen Herod has always come off like a lovable spaz on stage, regaling audiences with herky-jerky post-new-wave songs and bad jokes. Where the Heck Is Mr. Fun? is a take-home version of Herod, packing…
When Thin White Rope visited the Soviet Union in late 1988, the band brought back more than caviar and a photo of the Kremlin. It experienced firsthand the early rumblings of a revolution. Rock ‘n’ roll imitated life when young Lithuanian rebels went wild at the Rope’s shows, even stage-diving…
A couple of weeks back, a strange new noise infiltrated unsuspecting suburban homes all over the country. Every household with a television tuned to America’s favorite post-prime-time talk show heard it: A dorky duo banging out frighteningly original accordion-embellished pop songs. That’s right, They Might Be Giants had invaded The…
The tour itinerary could belong to any struggling bar band. Nine dates, banged out on a typewriter, covering the entire month of April–a small club gig in Tulsa, a county fair in San Bernardino, a college gig in Douglas, Arizona. The trip culminates, promisingly enough, with a one-night stand-in beautiful…
Besides trading lines with R&B singers and jazz trumpeters, hip-hop acts have been joining up with blues crooners, punk poets and yes, art-rock bands. It was Kane’s ability to hold his own against all those jazz greats that proved hip-hop could compete with any musical form. The primary hip-hop rite…
If today’s rock ‘n’ roll philosophy of sight over sound and style over substance has taught bands anything, it’s the art of shocking symbolism. Heavy-metal bands like Iron Maiden define their identities with slobbering, monstrous mascots, and rap groups like Public Enemy hire henchmen to parade about sporting combat fatigues…
Baby boomers and Paul McCartney go way back. The billionaire Beatle has convinced the Now Generation to buy Fab Four Beatles albums by the trillions, grow their bangs long, drop acid, smoke pot, buy Beatles CDs by the trillions to replace their Beatles albums, and apply for Visa cards. But…
Nobody stops Bob Hope when he makes one of his famous unannounced “walk-ons” in the middle of whatever talk show he happens to be taping a special next door to. Not even David Letterman bars Bob from playing through. Nosiree, when Hope deems it appropriate to drop in on the…
Celebrities, smoke and sweat clog the Hole in the Wall, a tiny bar just up the road from the legendary Antone’s in Austin, Texas. The Cowbillys, whose members hail from places like Tempe and South Phoenix, are playing the most important gig of their lives–an upwardly mobile showcase at a…
It was just a quick postshow breakfast for Eric Martin and some fellow Vegas entertainers. A chance to wolf down some grub and talk shop with about half the cast of the Imperial Palace’s Legends in Concert extravaganza before calling it a night. None of the performers were household names…
During the past thirty years, everyone from Elvis to the Rolling Stones has acknowledged rock ‘n’ roll’s debt to Willie Dixon, recording his classic tunes and bringing them to mass audiences. But it wasn’t until years later that many in the record industry who’d profited from his songs began to…
No matter what the American Express ads or the Nashville Network might tell you, there isn’t really a person named Randy Travis. Sure, there is something out there called Randy Travis. It’s taking the country by storm, playing rootsy country music and bringing home the kind of figures that make…
Listen to people like Chick Corea or Keith Jarrett long enough and you start thinking avant-garde jazz is either an assortment of outer-space explorations or introspective therapy sessions. Go to extremes like the wigged-out Corea or the self-indulgent Jarrett and you lose the music in a tidal wave of notes…
