OFF THEIR ROCKER

Same smoochy lips. Same stylized eye. Did the Arizona Lottery lift the ad campaign for its new “Lady Luck” game off the cover of the 18-year-old rock album Ladies Invited? In some ways it’s a perfect fit: the graphics of a long-out-of-print disc by a Boston boogie band, whose best…

MISSING NO MOREJOHN PRINE MAKES UP FOR TWO DECADES OF LOST TIME

Midway through his set, John Prine began to hear the noises, too. Opening for musical soul mate Bonnie Raitt, Prine was playing solo. Dressed in a blue silk shirt and jeans, he sported what has become his post-Seventies look: well-worn cowboy boots; mid-length dark and graying hair; and a soul…

EVERYTHING’S SWINE WITH THEM

Mario Moreno of Forbidden Pigs remembers one “discussion” he had with his wife about settling down and getting a real job. It sticks in his mind because it was the last time he saw his bajo sexto, his Mexican bass guitar, in one piece. Arriving home late and a little…

SUED BY THE STONESTHE CANDY SKINS GET NO SYMPATHY FROM THE DEVIL

Nick Cope of the Candy Skins knows his band sounds like the Sixties. He understands when critics say the Candy Skins’ debut LP Space I’m In borrows heavily from the Byrds and the Beatles. Cope doesn’t even let comparisons to the Monkees bother him. The Candy Skins love those old…

THE HEAT IS ON, AVANT FAKERY

THE HEAT IS ON This was the summer of the lethal outdoor concert, the summer when the old adage, “Once you live here, you don’t notice the heat,” was put to the test. The adage lost. Standing in the broiling sun listening to music has its own kind of charm…

PLIGHT OF THE

It seems like the Yellowjackets have gathered their fair share of the nectar. The jazz-fusion band has held together for 13 years in spite of numerous personnel changes. Its albums have been nominated for Grammys five times and won twice. This year, to mark its tenth year of recording, the…

KEYS TO THE HIGHWAYA GOOD OLD BOY SINGS THE GREAT OLD TUNES

Until recently, Wild Bill Baldwin could be found in the cramped, countrified confines of downtown Scottsdale’s Rusty Spur Saloon, doing his one-man-band thing. Baldwin was a fearsome vision, what with his dark, woolly beard and long hair, both flecked with gray; his menacing shades and extra-wide-brimmed hat speared with a…

EUROPE LOVES ALL THAT JAZZ

Not all is running perfectly at the world’s largest jazz festival. It’s 2:30 a.m. in the Dutch concert hall in which the North Sea Jazz Festival is being held. Trumpeter Lester Bowie sits backstage, waiting to go on with his band Brass Fantasy. The situation threatens disaster for the jazzman…

A TOUCHINGSUCCESS STORY THE DIVINYLS TURN SEX INTO SALES

The shot on the cover of Divinyls has almost eclipsed the single “I Touch Myself” as the biggest reason to buy the record. It has launched a thousand concert tickets, not to mention the band’s career. The shot shows a profile of lead singer Chrissie Amphlett, swathed only in wide-wale…

THREE HITS, THREE MISSES, ONE DRAW

No one would have believed that the summer’s biggest tour would feature seven cult bands that don’t get a stitch of airplay. But a recession that’s turning tours into a rarity and the coming of age of punk have combined to make the twenty-city Lollapalooza spectacular the summer’s main event…