Hip-hop has many enemies. It must constantly defend itself against misguided censors disguised as social crusaders, timid record companies and toothless radio programmers. After nearly two decades, it continues to fight old-guard music purists who refuse to consider hip-hop valid music and wish that it would just go away. In…
Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Superchunk is a band inextricably linked to “indie rock,” the ill-defined genre sitting somewhere close to “punk” but gainfully lacking punk’s aversion to maturation. The association is probably because Superchunk has been playing and putting out consistently brilliant albums since 1988, and vocalist/guitarist Mac MacCaughan and…
When is an icehouse really a sauna? When it’s mid-June in downtown Phoenix and a newly installed air-conditioning system breaks down on a Friday afternoon. That’s exactly what happened at the Icehouse Recording Studio last year right smack in the middle of a Trunk Federation session. Though the Trunksters were…
Cornershop When I Was Born for the 7th Time (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros. Records) During the latter stages of Michael Dukakis’ disastrous 1988 run for the Oval Office, an old friend snidely remarked, “I knew him before he was Greek.” The rude–if bull’s-eye–implication was that for the Duke, ethnicity was an…
Ray Charles tells people that there are three things he never wanted to own: a dog, a cane and a guitar. To the blind music legend, they symbolize helplessness, the down-in-the-mouth stereotypes that surround a backwoods blues singer. Charles may be a self-professed country boy, but he’s anything but helpless…
The trip from my trailer park to the strip bar usually lasts as long as a quart of beer. I had finished a 40 of King Cobra by the time I pulled the ’76 Ford LTD into the midst of late-model German and Japanese cars. I found a parking space,…
Pollen would seem to have it all. Contracted to Wind-Up Records, a highly visible indie label with major label (BMG) distribution, Pollen is poised to tour extensively in support of its latest album Peach Tree this fall. In addition, Wind-Up is committed to financing a video, and several tracks off…
“Steve Malkmus is a fucking snob.” So proclaimed the title of a summer release by an obscure Virginia duo called September 67. The song’s writer, Shannon Worrell, explained in a press release that her attack on Pavement’s sardonic leader was a form of “tough love,” adding that “I love their…
Kierkegaard was on to something when he decided that patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels. But something tells me that if the great Dane were a music critic in 1997, he’d quickly find a correlation: Controversy is the last refuge of the terminally bland. Any wet-behind-the-ears music-biz publicist can tell…
Fred Green Groover (Rorschach Records) It’s a common syndrome. Great live party bands, when put in the clinical confines of the recording studio, often just don’t cut it. It’s easy to see why. Live performance and recording require very different skills. Manic energy and fierce commitment can carry a live…
What’s more frightening? Playing drums in a three-piece band in front of 60,000 people? Or singing onstage for the first time at a small club filled with friends, strangers and the occasional 300-pound go-go dancer? It’s an easy question for Tim Alexander. “Singing,” he says with little hesitation. Alexander is…
A few weeks ago, the City of Tempe hosted a battle-of-the-bands competition at Tempe Diablo Stadium. It was a long, thinly attended event with the expressed purpose of “keeping the kids off the street.” One of the few people who did attend–at least for a few minutes–was a local TV…
As a hip-hop DJ, Z-Trip was born with two strikes against him. He’s white and from Arizona. The only things that saved him were his skills, which are mad like the Hatter. When Z-Trip’s at battle stations, the pyrotechnical sorcery, most famously his scratching, reaches Jedi mind-trick levels. Less celebrated…
Vitamin needs a new name. The Tempe trio is in L.A., finishing the mixing for its debut album, and the members are not yet sure what moniker will appear on that album’s spine. They gave themselves a deadline of last Wednesday (August 27) to decide, but blew it off for…
In America, professional wrestling is the province of washed-up boxers, unemployed bouncers and failed actors. In Mexico, wrestling has always been high art, Dada theater on a square canvas stage. Legendary Mexican wrestlers don colorful superhero masks, and carry their personas so far that they walk the streets in full…
Eric Matthews The Lateness of the Hour (Sub Pop Records) Eric Matthews should be a major artist. He has all the credentials for critical deification. He’s a smart, young, classically trained singer/songwriter with an uncommon flair for arranging string and horn sections. Word has it that his mental pitchfork is…
Like your friend whose romances are messier than yours, the Mr. T Experience is back to cry about it with its eighth album, Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You. The MTX is pop punk’s troubadour of love gone wrong, master of the “I loved you but you dumped me…
Although John Fogerty hit many detours in his career, he didn’t expect 11 years’ worth on the road to his current album, Blue Moon Swamp. Fogerty’s music always sounded like it came from the heart of the South. His backwoods shout, the understated acoustic rhythm guitars, percolating rhythms and his…
One day in college I was sitting with a woman friend talking about sex as the local hits radio station pelted us with slow jams. “I wanna lick you up and down now, baby,” sang Keith Sweat wanna-be B5-492 over Casio drum-machine/keyboard hell. For two indie-rock types like ourselves, the…
Thomas Ades Life Story (EMI Classics) Ever wonder who the next big thing will be in the shrinking world of classical music? Didn’t think so. But there’s an encouraging noise goosing the genre’s increasing irrelevance. It’s the sound that comes from the fingers of Thomas Ades, a 26-year-old British composer…
In 1982, Pete Townshend sat down for one of his many lengthy interviews with Rolling Stone magazine. The primary topic of conversation was Townshend’s prolonged battle with the bottle, which had recently sent him to a clinic for treatment. Along the way, however, the Who’s guitarist got on a rant…
Oasis Be Here Now (Epic Records) A couple of years ago, a British writer suggested to Oasis mastermind Noel Gallagher that his obsession with the Beatles might be getting a little out of hand. “It’s not an obsession,” Gallagher responded. “It’s a way of life.” Years from now, pop historians…
