Music

Pay attention now. This is complicated. This was in Chicago, long about early 1994. Sam Prekop and Eric Claridge had been in a band called Shrimp Boat, recently defunct. Archer Prewitt was a member of the Cocktails, which had similarly disbanded. All three were friends of a guy named John…

Genuine musical objectivity is tough to come by, since most listeners, try as they might, can’t help but bring biases to what they hear. Sometimes these predispositions are personal; for instance, my beloved can no longer listen to the Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda” without displeasure, because it was playing…

Phone ringing. Jesus, I’ve come to hate phone ringing. After three rings, I pick up, and the raspy, almost timid-sounding voice of Balls shouter Tricie Soulos comes from the other end. “If I gave you a copy of our record, would you listen to it?” What a joy it is…

Bitterness, in rock ‘n’ roll, does carry some currency, particularly when you’re young and hung over (and frequently stupid) with a bunch of angst axes to grind. (Just ask Elvis Costello or Courtney Love — or Korn’s Jonathan Davis, for that matter.) As time moves on, however, one learns to…

You’ve already bought this record, and undoubtedly think it’s brilliant. At least, that’s what you tell anyone who asks, and you probably sort of believe it. But admit it, if this didn’t say “Radiohead” on the cover, you’d be desperately searching for your receipt. This is not a case of…

Pianist Bill Evans spent the first week of September 1980 in San Francisco performing a series of live shows at a local night spot. Following the gig, he headed to New York, checked into a hospital and was dead within days. Officially, the death was attributed to a bleeding ulcer,…

The best way to listen to a Southern Culture on the Skids album is while under the influence of alcohol, preferably the cheapest brand available, because SCOTS records generally concern: drinking, being drunk, people who have had too much to drink, the pursuit of something to drink or fried chicken…

A key line on Ultimate Fakebook’s major-label debut, This Will Be Laughing Week, goes like this: “I remember when the backbeat wasn’t programmed in and heroes were still human.” Sure, it’s an obvious swipe at whatever mainstream music you despise the most, but in the case of Ultimate Fakebook, a…

Every major recording artist has his “moment.” It’s that fleeting instant when the planets align in such a way that even an eccentric cult figure can bask in the pop-culture sunshine; when the fickle masses temporarily decide that you’re the essence of hipness.Elvis Costello had it with Armed Forces, and…

A sort-of interview with J. Mascis, part one: It’s not that J. Mascis is sullen or inarticulate, or any of the accusatory words he’s generally described with. He’s extremely — you might say legendarily — reserved when talking to the press; but if you’re willing to give just a little…

Right now, someone at Epic Records’ New York offices is laughing, thinking about the two fools at New Times who shot off their mouths and shot themselves in the foot. I’ll admit, it sounds stupid now: Listening to 25 live albums . . . by the same band . …

In 1994, Boston-based trio Morphine mounted an extensive tour throughout America and Europe in support of its second album, 1993’s Cure for Pain. That album eventually sold 300,000 copies in the first year of its release, an unprecedented feat for an indie record. It was used as the de facto…

A funny thing happened to Robert Forster and Grant McLennan en route to a gig: They rediscovered their old band the Go-Betweens. And while most reunions tend to tilt more toward exhumation than reclamation, in this instance it would appear neither songwriter had been carrying around that dreaded “unfinished business”…

The best music takes you places, both inside and outside yourself. As its name suggests, James Intveld’s third release, Somewhere Down the Road, does just that, and you may never want to leave. You’ll be afraid to turn off your stereo, lest you forever close the door to the album’s…

Don Henley’s massive 1989 hit “The End of the Innocence” was a complex piece of songcraft that reminds me of the kind of portraiture that Paul Simon writes on a good day. Paced at a crawl, with co-writer Bruce Hornsby’s immediately recognizable keyboards underpinning the melancholy sentiment of the lyric,…

‘N Sync and its lacquered ilk might induce more screams from the ardent nymphets packing our great nation’s stadiums, but no one has inspired more teenage girls to grab guitars than Kathleen Hanna. Bikini Kill, the Olympia, Washington-based punk group she fronted from 1991 to ’98, epitomized the Riot Grrl…

Much has been made of the renaissance composer Burt Bacharach has been enjoying as of late. The Maestro’s sudden resurgence is the result of a number of high-profile collaborations and media appearances, and a new retro craze that has put the work of classic ’60s tunesmiths on a pedestal. But…

Feel like you’ll throttle Dionne Warwick’s scrawny little neck if you hear her version of “I Say a Little Prayer” one more time? Don’t throw Burt out with the bath water. Here are loads of Bacharach covers: some idyllic, some idiosyncratic, some idiotic, but none boring. The postpubescent bands on…

In a way it’s not surprising, though categorically unfair, that Taj Mahal often gets snubbed by blues purists. As far back as his self-titled first album, Mahal’s records were an amalgam of musical styles only partially rooted in the blues — modal and roots music were his clearest influence –…

Rob Withem sits cross-legged on his living room floor in the Phoenix apartment he shares with his wife. On the couch are two of Withem’s bandmates from Fine China, bassist Greg Markov and drummer Thom Walsh. Missing from the quartet is keyboardist Joshua Block. “Morrisey and Marr were, like, it…