Guttermouth Listening to many of Guttermouth’s songs could convince an average listener that singer Mark Adkins is a total asshole. His lyrics bypass normal social mores and can, for instance, extol the virtues and the fun in big-game hunting (“If I can’t shoot them / I’ll start a forest fire…
Pimping ain’t easy Kord Murphy should be enjoying himself right now. Murphy, better known to most rap-metal fans in Dallas-Fort Worth area as Dirty K, should be on the road with his band Pimpadelic, promoting the group’s major-label debut, Southern Devils, which Tommy Boy Records released in April. Murphy and…
Scene, heard A few years ago, guitarist Zach Blair and his bass-playing brother Doni were on the verge of quitting Hagfish and joining Bobgoblin. Now, both are finally getting their chance to work with the band. Well, sort of, since Bobgoblin doesn’t exist anymore. However, the band it morphed into,…
For Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman–known to their fans as Dean and Gene Ween, respectively–Ween’s new album, White Pepper, was a long time coming. The duo released a double live album, Paintin’ the Town Brown: Ween Live ’90-’98, last year, but it was a quickly assembled archival set; they haven’t…
Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips took different paths to get to the exact same place. For Hitchcock, it began in Cambridge, England, starting the Soft Boys in the late ’70s and getting thrown in with the class-of-’77 punk camp, even though his sensibilities were more closely attuned to early…
It wasn’t until a few years ago that the cerebellum got mixed up with booty music, that furrow-browed folks began to deliberately examine beats intended for the butt and began picking these beats apart. In the process, some ended up deflating the bounce altogether, to the point that all the…
Local schoolteacher-turned-historian Stanley Oberst is on the homestretch of an ambitious project: documenting Elvis Presley’s frequent, though rarely mentioned, Texas appearances in the 1950s. It’s a daunting task, especially considering that Presley played in this state more than anywhere else in the country during the ’50s, and, well, Texas is…
The John Doe Thing Freedom Is.. (spinART Records You wouldn’t think John Doe would know much about freedom, certainly not enough to base an album around the concept. X has always marked his spot, his erstwhile band dooming anything else he’s tried to do, a choke chain keeping him from…
Tastes Like Love Records Summer ’00 Sampler Various Artists (Tastes Like Love Records) OK, so maybe this how-do disc from Lewisville-based Tastes Like Love Records sounds as if it were recorded (and just barely) on a Walkman positioned under a pile of garbage in a trash can across the street…
Metallica Metallica may have been anointed the supreme beings of hard rock after their self-titled (or untitled, actually) 1991 album sold millions and inspired the masses to bang their collective heads, but that dominance has been questioned in recent years by even some of their more zealous fans. All the…
Mötley Crüe In late May, Los Angeles’ Wyndham Bel-Age Hotel (well, room 211 of it, at least) was transformed into a headbanger’s ballroom and tattoo parlor as Mötley Crüe took over the lavish suite to preview their upcoming album, New Tattoo (released July 11 on Motley/Beyond Records), which we’re still…
Scene, heard The X went out of business last week, reducing the number of good record stores in Denton (for new discs, at least) to, uh, zero; CD Warehouse doesn’t really count. No reason was given for the shutdown, though we’d guess the store was hurt by longtime employee John…
It creeps up on you like a summer cold, a cat on the carpet. At first, it doesn’t stand out from the usual ambient noise created by barflies and ‘tenders–the clinking bottles and quiet rumble of ice falling into plastic cups, friendly conversations and fumbled introductions, people entering here and…
Shortly after signing the group to his Grand Royal Records label, Beastie Boy Mike D said the young members of Bis were the richest kids in the music business. Reminded of this statement a few years later, Bis’ Amanda MacKinnon, a.k.a. Manda Rin, busts Mike D for “lying a lot…
In May 1997, singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley put on his best thrift-store suit and got a friend to drive him to the Memphis Zoo. Buckley, an ascendant alternative-rock icon and reluctant heartthrob, had decided to apply for a job as a zookeeper. The 30-year-old Buckley had temporarily relocated from New York…
After months (and months and months) of speculation, it appears that Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios is finally on the verge of opening its long-promised bar. According to the club’s Robin Phillips, the bar (beer and wine only for now, it seems) will begin operating nightly in late July–in other words,…
Down to the Promised Land: 5 Years of Bloodshot Records Various artists (Bloodshot Records) Maybe it’s the novelty freak speaking, but this fifth-anniversary pat-on-the-ass boils down to one contribution from a little outfit called The Unholy Trio. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” turned into…
Hank Thompson Seven Decades (HighTone Records) There is perhaps nothing sadder than seeing a great musician who’s stayed in the spotlight just a little too long, tripping at the foot of the stage instead of making a graceful exit. And since musicians never seem to retire, you see it far…
Marky Ramone & The Intruders As anyone not currently suffering from a coma knows, summers in Texas can be hot. So hot you’re sweating by the time you reach your car when leaving home. So hot you can become a dehydrated mess, dazed by the sunlight and wondering how in…
End hits Since just more than a year has passed since we took over the reins of Street Beat, we feel it’s time for a bit of reflection. Keep in mind that what follows was written under the duress of excruciating pain in our back and lower extremities, to the…
When attacking the music business, one need not even break a sweat. After all, how hard is it to land a punch or a thousand upon a bloated carcass that can no longer move? In the not-so-distant future–maybe a decade from now, or a year from now, or the day…
Bourbonitis Blues, Alejandro Escovedo’s sixth and most recent solo album, is the culmination of a life spent growing up in public. It wasn’t an easy growth–his path has been pockmarked with deaths, births, and changes in musical styles to match–but between the album’s swelling strings, ebullient country stomps, and meditations…
