In the indie-rock underground, the skinny white kids in vintage ringer tees don’t really pick their battles. There’s the arm-crossers and the pocket-stuffers, the bike-riders and the Vespa fans, the tapered-legs and the boot-cuts. And then there’s the kids who fight about music. (Thanks, I’ll be here all week.) The…
With a chameleon as flamboyant as Perry Farrell, it’s hard to tell where the performance ends and the person begins. Jane’s Addiction spawned fans and sneers in equal amounts and for the same reasons. It unleashed an ocean-sized ruckus of glam-metal post-punk up the beach in the late ’80s, followed…
In some small circles, the legends are legion. There was the time Light Bright Highway took off for one uninterrupted two-hour song as Good/Bad Art Collective’s Martin Iles bathed the band in a computer-generated wash of colors that stretched until nearly 3 a.m. There was the time Jetscreamer’s Will Kapinos…
A couple of years back, when Beachwood Sparks first stepped into the spotlight–its members looking very much like they’d just stepped off the cover of the Notorious Byrd Brothers LP–it was an easy group to tag. Four guys wrapping themselves up in Gram Parsons’ Nudie suit, sailing along on a…
Once a style has moved from retro through nouveau, is there anything left? It’s a valid question for the Black Crowes. The band hangs its influences on the sleeves so obviously–the Rolling Stones and the Faces–that you have to wonder what it’s thinking. There’s absolutely nothing modern about digging in…
Detroit makes sublime, no-frills rock bands the way Mexico distills tequila: It goes down smooth but has a wicked kick. We’re not referring to the Huge Nuge or Alice Cooper’s custom-built chassis here. And we’re really not talking about au courant fashions like the Go or Slumber Party. Think more…
Only the most jaded music fans could’ve ignored the full-page review–more like a white-knuckled hosanna–that Britain’s Uncut offered to Denton’s Lift To Experience a few months ago. Just to recap one of the more evocative passages: “They walk onstage, unannounced, looking truly frightening. Here is drummer Andy Young, bug-eyed, sweaty,…
When we first heard rumors of the Toadies’ demise, the idea seemed impossible. It was, we figured, like making it through Vietnam and choking on a pretzel on the flight home. Obviously we were wrong–hey, there’s a first!–but you do still have a few chances to say goodbye. Believe they…
African-American pop’s had a wild ride over the past two years. In the Top 40 division, business is booming: Destiny’s Child has virtually remade the best-seller list in its image, selling more records than Jesus and becoming more popular than the Beatles (or whatever). And it’s no accident: Whether or…
Soul brothers can’t win for losing. While sisters can share the throne–there seems to be plenty of room at the top for Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Macy Gray, Mary J. Blige and even rising divas like Mya–in the guy’s court, as in the Highlander series, there’s only room for one…
For no small portion of North Texas music fans, the sound is unmistakable. The soulful electric piano runs, the swinging hi-hat rustle, the strolling bass line. The three intertwine to form the opening salvoes of “Manitou Inclined,” the fiery first track on the new Earl Harvin Trio album Unincorporated on…
Norah Jones, an unknown for now, came this close to landing a gig on tonight’s Late Show with David Letterman and canceling this interview. A guest on the August 27 show had backed out, and Jones’ name, unfamiliar to all but those who’ve heard her play piano and sing in…
Being blessed an alt-country songstress must be as endlessly tiresome as being Cher’s plastic surgeon. You have to compete with gusto as genuine as the impossibly bewitching Neko Case and pop-country schmaltz like 2001 Best New Artist Grammy winner I Am Shelby Lynne (and I’ve been around since 1989). No…
On John Vanderslice’s second LP, Time Travel Is Lonely, printed lyrics have been replaced with a series of handwritten letters from Jesse, our strange protagonist who is trapped in Antarctica, lost without GPS coordinates or Internet access. After a few listens, it becomes clear that each of these lonely and…
Some things never go out of style, and if the recent fracas stirred up by the “how to prepare a kitty” mpeg on the Internet is any indication, Pavlovian revulsion is one thing that’s here to stay. Of course, people who get riled up over such detritus usually aren’t any…
If you remember, a year or so ago, we told you about John Freeman and a few other local types doing voices for the wildly popular Dragonball Z anime cartoon show for Cartoon Network. Now, it seems that even more area musicians are making appearances on Dragonball, the precursor to…
Bob Dylan’s last studio album, 1997’s Time Out of Mind, was about as much fun as a eulogy. With its songs of remorse and regret, with its plaints of begged-for salvation and yearned-for deliverance, that collection sounded like a last will and testament–a big adios from the jokerman in pancake…
In March, the four members of the Toadies–Todd Lewis, Lisa Umbarger, Clark Vogeler and Mark Reznicek–sat around a table at a Lakewood Italian restaurant to celebrate the impending release of the band’s second album. They were giddy with anticipation, a welcome relief after so many months–years, actually–of not knowing whether…
James Mercer, a quiet, soft-spoken guy from Albuquerque, New Mexico, is helping save the music he loves best. He’d probably never tell you that, even if you decided you wouldn’t hate him if he did (which you really couldn’t do once you talked to him anyway). But take a listen…
We’ve never met Jim Heath, whom many of you know as the Reverend Horton Heat. Or the Rev, maybe, if you’re tight with him. Heath has called us a few times to express his, um, extreme disappointment with our treatment of his and his band’s recent efforts, but no, we’ve…
As the reasonably dependable member of the fourth estate I take myself for–shit, Dubya sucks–I can see the merit in two recent descriptions of the new Chicago band Owls. One, from the band’s Delaware-based record label, Jade Tree Records, calls the band its town’s “newest art-funk post-rock groove outfit.” Because…
Kool Keith should never worry about finding his niche in a hip-hop world obsessed with marketing and gimmicks, because he’s got the market cornered on total insanity. We’re talking the sort of blue material that sounds like Blowfly and Redd Foxx getting together to tag team Millie Jackson, or Ishmael…
