Three years have slipped by since the last Michael Franks release–a risky lapse for an artist who continues to rely on radio airplay for exposure. But Franks is accustomed to tempting the specter of career failure. For starters, he offers a hybrid of jazz, R&B and pop that defies marketing…
When the Miller Brewing Company first approached Take 6 about recording a jingle for one of its beers, the company was probably thinking about the exemplary work the Grammy award-winning sextet had already done for other advertisers. After all, the a cappella vocal group’s cool, finger-poppin’ sound–a kind of jazzy…
Each spring for the past half-dozen years, Tex-Mex surf-rockers Joe “King” Carrasco and the Crowns have spent a week on Texas’ South Padre Island. Located a hurled jalapeno from Matamoros, Mexico, this Gulf Coast isle is Texas’ answer to Fort Lauderdale during spring break: Yearly, more than 60,000 cerveza-soaked collegians…
The Neville Brothers take a back seat to no one when it comes to reflecting New Orleans’ diversity of influences and wealth of talent. Their sound is a stew of rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, gospel, funk, soul, pop and Mardi gras Indian rhythms. Individually, the Nevilles have recorded…
Life could be worse for Kenny G. The saxophonist’s latest release, a double live disc, hasn’t left the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart for the past forty weeks. He’s also been been fortunate enough to further his career by recording with Whitney Houston, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and, most…
Pick up a copy of Scatterbrain’s debut album, Here Comes Trouble, and you’ll probably find a label slapped on the disc instructing record stores to file it in the “rock” section. Of course, with all the slap bass on the album, it would make just as much sense to file…
When Bud Gould invited Charlie Parker and a few other musicians into a Kansas studio fifty years ago, he had no idea that history was in the making. Gould, a former NAU music professor now living in Sedona, had just graduated from Wichita University. While waiting to be drafted for…
So you’ve already forked over $26 to give little Brittany the night of her life at the New Kids on the Block concert. Mistake No. 1, blithely ignorant parent. If you’re smart, and you pay attention to the following handy-dandy (and utterly phantasmagorical) guide to the telltale signs of impending…
“Sometimes,” says Jeff Dayton, a Valley musician made good, “I sort of forget who I’m up there on the stage with. You know, after three years of doing it, you can start to take things for granted. And then we’ll be playing somewhere, and I’ll be standing behind him, and…
When Mad Gardens closed its doors in early 1984, the Valley’s punk community was up in arms. Many slam-dancing teens had spent some of their happiest hours in the wrestling arena-cum-punk club in the previous three years. Promoter Tony Victor, who ran the grimy Van Buren venue on Saturday nights,…
Ever wonder what happened to some of the Valley’s former punk V.I.P.’s? While a few still are fixtures on the scene, others packed up their whips, chains and dog collars and fled Phoenix years ago. For example, it’s been nearly a decade since most locals lost track of Frank “Rat…
If there’s anything televangelists, cops, PMRC censors and members of Phil Donahue’s studio audience don’t like, it’s Suicidal Tendencies. The group often is accused of condoning violence for its chollo-style bandannas and street-fighting lyrics. Police in Los Angeles harrass fans who wear Suicidal tee shirts like they’re gang members, vocalist…
Perhaps no other act besides the living Madonna and the dead Elvis has managed to create such a constant flow of headline-hogging controversy as Public Enemy. At its best, the Long Island hip-hop group sends chills up your spine, through your heart and into your brain with its passionate calls…
Concrete Blonde’s first single, “Still in Hollywood,” used to serve as something of a theme song for the band. The 1987 alternative-radio hit was a celebration of L.A.’s seamy underbelly, a place lead singer-bassist Johnette Napolitano proudly called home. When she sang “I’m just a spot on the sidewalk in…
You have to wonder why Bruce Dickinson would temporarily leave the cozy musical confines of Iron Maiden for an untested solo thing. After all, Maiden was arguably the Eighties’ ultimate heavy-metal band, the one that belched out a thick, black cloud of bombast, squalor, testosterone and pus-dripping teenage fantasy like…
Back in the glue-sniffing, brat-beating early days of his band, Marky Ramone would’ve never believed it was possible. But here it is, the sixteenth anniversary of those lovable cartoon punks from Forest Hills, New York, and the Ramones drummer is fairly bursting with pride. Of course, his group now has…
Doug Boyle has the kind of job most aspiring rock guitarists would give their whammy bar for. Playing behind Robert Plant on the former Led Zeppelin vocalist’s current worldwide tour, Boyle gets the chance, on the four or five Zeppelin tunes Plant works nightly into his concerts, to rip authoritatively…
The 2 Live Crew has snatched many headlines thanks to the banning of the group’s sexplicit album As Nasty as They Wanna Be. And no doubt the rappers will create even more controversy by performing the unedited versions of their songs at the Celebrity Theatre on Saturday. But there’s someone…
On the surface, Harry Connick Jr. would have to rank as one of the entertainment industry’s foremost opportunists. With his soundtrack album to the film When Harry Met Sally . . . , the 22-year-old star has already accomplished a nearly impossible feat–turning a jazz record platinum. This fall, Connick’s…
Bruce Kurtz was dressed in screaming yellow bell bottoms and a vest covered with pennies at the Phoenix Art Museum’s opening July 6. Beatles music was blaring through loudspeakers and the hors d’oeuvres were Twinkies, Wonder bread, cheese puffs and celery sticks. Kurtz’s outfit was a tribute to the show…
Southern Pacific drummer Keith Knudsen likes to imagine what it might be like if the early Doobie Brothers or Creedence Clearwater Revival suddenly appeared on the music scene today. Just picture the double bill, Knudsen suggests: A group of San Jose longhairs singing lazy clap-along ditties about the virtues of…
Before you meet Cowboy Junkies singer Margo Timmons, it’s easy to picture her as one of the more glamorous Canadians on the planet. Her intense, whispery voice has led the Junkies to a continuing series of roaring successes. All over the world, Timmons and her group have startled critics and…
