Radiohead OK Computer (Capitol Records) Maybe punk didn’t rescue us completely from prog-rock, but what makes Radiohead think prog-rock is going to save us from anything? Based on OK Computer, this Oxford quintet is convinced that the future lies in the astral hippie past, where six-minute “suites” are twice as…
It was one of those moments that tested the limits of nostalgia. See, last year MTV was hosting its second in a series of “Where are they now?” ’80s retrospectives, this one dedicated to heavy metal. Catching up with war-horses like Kevin Dubrow and Kip Winger was a queasy enough…
Immaculately clothed in thrift-store suits and sporting scuffed wing tips, the members of East Bay foursome the Hi-Fives shimmer with a panache that extends beyond their wardrobe and separates them from their Lookout Records peers. While Lookout mainstays like the Mr. T Experience, the Queers, Squirtgun, etc., define the pop-punk,…
Once upon a time, in a valley hot as hell, two refugees from the Slims wandered a lonely desert path where the coyote’s mocking laughter was the only music for miles. Suddenly, from behind an elderly saguaro, the lanky former bassist of Flying 99 appeared, and the rest is history…
It was due in stores by July, but a lifetime of memories does not come easy to a man whose first hit came 41 years ago, when he was a member of a Sun Records roster that included Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and a boy named Elvis. So the…
You can rest assured that no one in Motley Crue will ever die in a hotel room choking on his own vomit. Sad though it may be, this party animal has matured well beyond the point of recognition. It’s been just five measly years since the Crue gave singer Vince…
David Byrne Feelings (Luaka Bop) A tourist is someone who thinks New York is Lady Liberty and Miss Saigon. Travelers are more sophisticated; they roll into Katmandu and do their best to blend in. Tourists are easy to laugh at, but travelers who pass themselves off as natives are even…
Club-promoting is guerrilla capitalism at its sick best. Just peep the ongoing alley fight between promoters of two new hip-hop nights in Scottsdale–one at the Cage, the other at Club Tribeca. Here’s the thrust-and-parry thus far: Until recently, Phoenix-based superhero DJ Z-Trip and his sidekick Fashen presided over a successful…
Emile Ananian is a gifted DJ, and he’ll be the first to tell you so. Last February at an underground party called Icee, I walked into a trailer to buy water and found Emile, obviously out of his head, ranting to no one and everyone in a line of 25…
John Lydon Psycho’s Path (Virgin) Both as a Sex Pistol and as a solo artist with PiL, John Lydon’s never been very big in America because of that squeaky Cockney voice, which always sounded like a whine even at its most strident. But Psycho’s Path reveals another reason he’ll never…
The battered ’84 Blazer parked in Keith Secola’s driveway looks out of place in his suburban Tempe neighborhood. Yet it’s fitting that the vehicle is there–it could be the model for Secola’s nearly famous song “Indian Cars.” That single song–a fusion of folk-rock, Indian chanting and the heartbeat pulse of…
Something snapped. The wind blew, the dust rose, and inside my trailer, an empty malt-liquor bottle came sailing for my head from the kitchen, which was a good 20 feet away. My excellent reflexes afforded me a timely duck that spared my skull but killed my prized possession–my 12-inch black-and-white…
Suicide Kings Suicide Kings (Rattle Records) Grievous Angels New City of Sin (Bloodshot Records) When Bruce Connole of the Suicide Kings opens his band’s debut CD with lines like “See the race I’ve run and now it’s over,” “I’m the setting sun that’s getting colder” and “Sold my soul for…
The new collection Songs of Janis Joplin: Blues Down Deep is merely the latest in a series of outrages foisted upon a gullible public by the House of Blues, a nightclub chain and music label that seems to think we were all born yesterday; but for sheer chutzpah, it may…
In the middle of answering a question, Mark Eitzel notices a jacket worn by one of the Warner Bros. Records publicists who are hanging around his hotel room. He forgets what he’s saying–something about why he doesn’t really hate people, he just likes when they ain’t around–when he sees the…
Dark industrial chicks aren’t sexy. Dark industrial chicks are erotic. Pierced tongues, ash mascara, dead-rose bouquets hanging like crucifixes above draped bed frames speckled with candle wax. Such women give me shivers. They’re so . . . nocturnal. Seething, spitting and genuflecting to the heavens onstage during a recent show…
Unless you’ve been isolated from civilization for the past six months, you know that the commercial music biz has been pushing “electronica” as the next big thing, signing geeks with samplers at the same rate it signed grunge bands back in ’92. What you might not have noticed yet is…
Guided by Voices Mag Earwhig! (Matador Records) “Earwhig” is British slang for that loudmouth guy at the end of the bar who thinks he’s the world’s greatest storyteller and just won’t shut up. There’s a metaphor here for Guided by Voices’ way-beyond-prolific leader, Robert Pollard. Sure, he may have labored…
If you think the Sport Model is a mod-revivalist band, you’re wrong–but it’s largely the band’s fault. The Sport Model’s early live-show handbills were festooned with pop-art images, Who guitarist Pete Townshend’s windmill poses, and stills from the Who-derived film Quadrophenia. Kerosene was poured liberally on that fire when the…
Hip-hop heads were first introduced to KRS-One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone) in 1986 with Boogie Down Productions’ national underground hit “South Bronx.” Ever since, KRS-One (a.k.a. Kris Parker) has helped transform hip-hop into a culture and advanced its music on such albums as By All Means Necessary, Ghetto…
Paul McCartney Flaming Pie (Capitol Records) A mere eight years ago, Paul McCartney seemed relevant, viable, still alive–not just an old man coasting on history but a singer and songwriter worth listening to, no matter the resume. Working once more with a partner his equal (and maybe then some), McCartney…
“I think we’re the only high school band that stayed together after graduation,” says 20-year-old guitarist Jeff Bufano, who along with guitarist Chris Corak (20), bassist Andy Eames (20) and drummer Jim Knapp (21) make up Reuben’s Accomplice, a north Phoenix “emo” band that has been playing in the Valley…
