Music

For years, Russell Simmons has been the King Midas of the hip-hop world: Everything he touches turns to gold . . . or platinum. While this phenomenon is obviously most lucrative for Simmons himself, his extraordinary talents as a businessman (and, frankly, an architect of culture) have helped elevate an…

Divine Styler is a name from way back, and in the short-memoried rap culture, he is all but forgotten. Styler was an early cohort of Ice-T and dropped the original Wordpower in 1989, an eon ago in hip-hop years. In the time that’s passed between that album and this, Divine…

Wild, raunchy and brimming with chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, rockabilly — real rockabilly — was a musical sucker punch delivered to the button-down Eisenhower years. As unrefined as moonshine but packing twice the kick, here was homespun, hard-driving nose-thumbing aimed right at Mitch Miller, Kate Smith, Perry Como and everything else bland…

The life of musician and composer Charles Mingus is the stuff of legends. Bursting with energy and ideas, Mingus’ peak creative output during the late 1950s and early 1960s dwarfed that of many of his colleagues in the jazz world. His best work wove together musical ideas drawn from gospel,…

If you must be a musical completist, it’s refreshingly simple and economical to be a Tom Lehrer fan. As Dr. Demento observes in the copious hardbound notes that accompany this three-CD set, the entire recorded “Lehrer canon” comes to around 50 songs. Except for a ditty he composed for Rod…

From the opening samples of “Follow” from Masterz of Ascencion, local rap collective Ascended Masterz immediately proves that theirs is no amateur effort. Led by front man Yosidicus Gigus and with MCs Haas Nanotechnician, Smoke the Unwanted Stepchild (who is also releasing a solo disc, Leprosy), Octatongue and Many Pieces,…

764-HERO, while still at peace in the relative obscurity of the underground, is no longer the sort of new phenomenon that can be judged one release at a time. After two full-length albums (Salt Sinks, Sugar Floats and Get Here and Stay), an EP (We’re Solids) and a brilliantly conceived…

I know your mama told you all about getting value for your money, but don’t grouse about the fact that Marah’s Kids in Philly is shorter than the enhanced portion of most bands’ CDs. Sure, subtract the two-minute hidden track of sound ambiance and doo-wop and you’re left with only…

With the likes of Korn and Rage Against the Machine demonstrating that those predictions of rock’s commercial demise you heard a year or two back were premature (again!), brainiacs at Madonna’s Maverick imprint decided to promote the Deftones into the next big heavy-music thang — and so far, their strategy…

As you know, the Moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, which means you’ll find, in the reviews below, synchronistic synergies and cosmic cross-wiring that reveal which music released during the astrological sign The Love Supreme you should love supremely. Meditate upon the cosmic connections, my…

Steely Dan no longer exists. Forget about the name, despite what you read in this paper’s music listings; since when did “in print” mean “the truth,” anyway? Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are sick to death of the name — ah, if only they had gone with one of their…

Morcheeba’s first two albums — 1996’s Who Can You Trust? and 1998’s Big Calm — were trip-hop by the numbers, as the slinky beats, sulky vocals and scratchy surface noise represented some of the clichés of the hip-hop-meets-electronica genre. But there was also a stinging professionalism to Morcheeba’s music that…

Jennifer Love Hewitt, someone with “actress” stamped on her passport, is on TV telling Rosie O’Donnell she’s never seen The Wizard Of Oz. Shouldn’t that be mandatory viewing for someone of her chosen profession? Shouldn’t you be able to name at least three characters from that Hollywood classic before you’re…

For years, rumors swirled that Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon was intended to serve as a sort of alternate soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz. A number of songs fit certain scenes a little too perfectly for some viewers. Though the idea had made the…

Each performer on the “Up in Smoke” tour, which “rolls” into Phoenix this week, is of the belief that weed, like rap, is not a fad to be thrown out with yesterday’s resin. These acts are proud of their foggy legacies. Advertisements for the tour feature a huge, metallic-looking cannabis…

Moris Tepper isn’t home right now. He was up last night until dawn, and he has to drive way out from his seaside home before noon today, lugging tapes for a couple of albums he’s helping to produce. Two days ago he was up working in his studio until 5…

The venue’s tone rears its ugly head the moment I walk through the entrance. Dudes cut their eyes at me, chicks whisper. I feel surrounded by a five-foot neutral zone that no one dares enter. I start taking a few notes. A beastly mook with blinkless eyes seated nearby is…

In the mid-’90s, Midwesterner DJ Quik put Missouri on the map in a dubious fashion by suggesting St. Louis was “Jus Lyke Compton.” Back then, Quik was an up-and-coming star, with a squeaky voice like Eazy-E and beat-crafting skills that established him as one of hip-hop’s top producers. But like…

It’s easy to sneer at the bulk of Canada’s cultural offerings — Bryan Adams, Paul Shaffer and Loverboy come immediately to mind — but in the mid- to late ’90’s, the maple leafers offered what seemed to be a harbinger of brighter things to come in the form of Propagandhi…

Like country and bluegrass and a host of other roots-based forms, punk music often bears the distinct imprint of whichever geographical locale produced it. Though they played the same circuits, the music produced by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys didn’t sound anything like Hank Williams. Similarly, bands like Minor…