A few months ago, indie folkstress Ani DiFranco complained to Rolling Stone that the media are so fixated on her image that they rarely consider what she’s doing musically. While her argument is valid, it overlooks one key facet of her career: She had a pretty big hand in sculpting…
Champaign County in central Illinois is home to some 175,000 people and 1,500 farms. Glaciers, like massive bulldozers, moved through this land during the last Ice Age, producing a topography so monotonous, so level, it approaches the Platonic ideal of flat. Corn is a big deal here. Detassling that corn…
Fire is motion. Work is repetition. This is my document. We are all all we’ve done. –Cap’n Jazz, “Oh Messy Life” For years now, the recordings of Cap’n Jazz have been sought after futilely by the small percentage of the indie nation lucky enough to have heard and been touched…
Bruce Connole and Richard Taylor sit outside Tempest Studio taking a smoke break. They’re relaxed and upbeat, but something feels faintly awry. Maybe it’s just because I’m so used to seeing these honky-tonk devils tear up Nita’s Hideaway on Wednesday nights, but they seem a bit out of place in…
Ben Folds Five has a brand-new album in the stores, but Darren Jessee doesn’t sound too thrilled about it. The drummer for the quirky North Carolina pop trio is hanging out at his Chapel Hill home, taking a brief respite from the band’s arduous, yearlong series of road excursions. Buoyed…
Bldg 5 Foundation (self-released) It’s no accident that this Phoenix trio decided to lead off its debut CD with a song called “Freedom Sleeps in the Arms of Diversity.” On one level, the song can be seen as just a likable reggae skank with a few bars of metal aggression…
The kids are not alright. That’s the message fostered by an endless stream of books and magazine articles during the course of this decade. They tell us that this generation of youth is jaded, nihilistic, apathetic, selfish and easily bored. It’s a caricature further propagated by films like Kids, All…
Ryan Adams has a bad case of the flu. The singer/songwriter/guitarist for North Carolina sextet Whiskeytown has spent the better part of this afternoon zonked out in the back of a tour bus in College Station, Texas. His tour manager has twice postponed today’s interview, apologetically explaining that Adams is…
What separates truly gifted entertainers from (insert yawn) merely competent ones? It’s the ability to wrench liabilities into assets, turn catastrophes into calling cards. It’s the difference between merely recognizing chance and running chance down a dark street, then slapping it upside the head until chance screams for mercy. Chance…
Jim Andreas pauses for a moment. The Trunk Federation singer/guitarist knows that his band only has a couple of minutes left before curfew considerations force it to wrap up its set. He reminds the packed crowd that tonight’s show is being taped for a live CD, and half-jokingly suggests that…
Ben Folds Five Naked Baby Photos (Caroline Records) In these days of instant nostalgia, we often want our memories before we’ve even compiled the necessary experiences. Of course, this also extends to music. These days, bands will put together career-spanning retrospectives even before they’ve bothered to muster a career. At…
Moonlight. Mark Olson is staring at the moon, now hovering low in the early evening sky above the desert floor of Joshua Tree, California. He’s staring, unshaven and in rumpled khakis, not to howl or scratch or bay or even to contemplate, but to find Mars and Saturn, brightly flanking…
I never thought I’d cut a record by myself. But I’ve got something to say, I wanna say it for Cher and I hope I say it for a lot of you. –“Laugh at Me” by Sonny Bono, 1965 Because Sonny Bono played such a convincing stooge, folks always credit…
Late last year, the American music press declared 1997 to be the Year of the Woman. Rolling Stone founder/editor Jann Wenner stated in RS’ “Women in Rock” issue, “It became obvious to us that the major music story of 1997 was the rise of women artists,” while Spin’s “Girl Issue”…
Rakim The 18th Letter/The Book of Life (Universal Records) In 1967, when American boxing commissions stripped Muhammad Ali of his license to fight, he was an unpopular champion widely denounced for his religious beliefs, unwillingness to serve in the military and tendency to toy with inferior contenders. By 1970, when…
On the day before holy International Western Commerce Day (Xmas), I awoke with undigested La Tolteca burrito bits glued to my face and hair whilst my head was aswim in Canadian whiskey murk courtesy of Marty, my jolly/drunken new neighbor from Canada. The previous day (December 23) was to have…
When Wyclef Jean starts talking about his music, a funny thing happens. Every time the multitalented hip-hop icon waxes enthusiastic about his various upcoming recording projects, he keeps using the word “we.” As he weaves from one topic to another, it becomes a bit difficult to determine just who he’s…
Steve Naughton was getting a bit worried. The president and self-described “show doctor” for Medical Presents had spent four years building an Arizona following for the band Hepcat, bringing the band to the Valley when few people knew who it was. Last month, as Naughton worked on booking another local…
Maybe you heard. Most likely you didn’t. Jon Norwood, the original drummer for local glam-poppers the Beat Angels, died last month. It was cancer. He was 43. In life, Norwood, whose quick smile and easy manner gave him an enigmatic, pixielike quality, was, pound for pound, the best rock ‘n’…
Many people would object to being called a journeyman. The very word often carries the whiff of mediocrity, of solid but unspectacular achievement, of competence without inspiration. But to a blues connoisseur, journeyman means something very different. It implies a respect for tradition, a willingness to learn from the masters,…
Aaah, the new year, when music critics’ hearts turn to thoughts of Top 10 lists and year-end recaps–a vacation unto itself. The last year gave indie rock a face-lift, ringing in new heroes and ditching some of the bad guys. From California to the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest and…
Some people can maintain their composure in a burning skyscraper. But the average record-company exec, faced with a few months of flagging album sales, is liable to run naked through the nearest strip mall, brandishing an AK47 and screaming threats in some twisted form of pig Latin. So, in 1997,…
