Full gallop Hell Among the Yearlings Gillian Welch Almo Sounds In a recent issue of Billboard, the owner of a San Francisco record store claims Gillian Welch’s 1996 debut Revival was one of his chain’s top-10 sellers for six months because Welch is, above all, “authentic.” Spoken like a true…
Even now, all these years later, David Bean still gets letters and phone calls from fans who wonder where he is, what he’s up to, why he disappeared. Perhaps they’ve heard the stories about how he became a recluse after he left the stage, which isn’t true at all. More…
They’re looking for a scapegoat up in Denton right now, someone to blame for the silence you hear creeping up from the stairs connecting the restaurant to the basement at Mr. Gatti’s on the downtown square. Up until July 3, the basement–described in these pages just weeks ago as a…
One size fits all All Time Low Check R.S.R. Records This Denton foursome, made up of former members of Junebug and still kicking three years into its heroically obscure career, doesn’t quite know what it wants to be; Check has all the direction of a blind man on the Tilt-A-Whirl,…
Since the release of 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi, three-quarters of R.E.M.–the band more responsible than any other for bringing so-called alternative rock into the cultural mainstream–has been branching out in non-musical directions. Bassist Mike Mills is something of a regular on the celebrity golf circuit and has even commented…
It began eight years ago as a hobby–no, a passion. It gave a home to bands no one else wanted, or bands who wanted no one else. It was an asylum where art came first, commerce never, and records sold by the dozens to aficionados who wanted their rock and…
“This is how some of us have fun in the ghetto,” Marc Ribot says slyly from the stage of Los Angeles’ cozy Luna Park, a dinner club nestled in West Hollywood. The handsome New Jersey Jew is way out on a limb–a prosthetic limb, at that–and soon the thing is…
Tom’s wild years Beautiful Maladies Tom Waits Island Records There’s a small cadre of cultists who argue over whether Tom Waits’ Elektra/Asylum years or his Island stint best defines him, and theirs is an argument that takes place in a vacuum. Fact is, there’s little difference between Stephen Sondheim croaks…
Everybody’s trying to get a smile out of Brian Wilson. He’s nearing the end of a photo session, sitting on a stool in the spacious, cluttered garage of his Los Angeles home, and his face is like iron. The photographer is running him through a series of poses–arms crossed over…
Rock like a man Love or the Decimal Equivalent Legendary Crystal Chandelier steve It’s tempting to call Peter Schmidt a survivor, if only because he’s been around long enough to have been forgotten by those who never knew any better to begin with. He escaped Three on a Hill, split…
Today’s Specials Life Won’t Wait Rancid Epitaph Records With its fourth album, Rancid has hitched up its bondage pants and recorded a career-making album without changing all that much. It isn’t the double-album answer to London Calling that was promised, but it’s no Cut The Crap either–if anything, it feels…
It’s not how they planned it, bidding farewell in the margin of an advertisement. But there it was last week, buried in the Trees ad found on page 97 in the Dallas Observer. On July 18, reads the ad, Course of Empire will play its “last show ever.” The announcement…
Action packed Live at the Continental Club Ronnie Dawson Continental Records Ronnie Dawson confirms it is indeed possible to age in rock and roll without growing old; even in his 50s, he’s still the action-packed Blond Bomber, capable of tearing up any venue without running out of breath at the…
The history of jazz is the history of reputations. Musicians who impressed critics during their primes, such as John Coltrane, tend to be held in ever higher esteem as the years go past, while artists tarred by negative notices throughout their careers are seldom granted access to the music’s pantheon…
Forget, for a moment, his more famous dead brother. Do not make comparisons, and do not buy into the myth that to celebrate one you must tear down the other. Do not think that just because one brother sold hundreds of thousands of records and the other mere thousands that…
Paul’s Boutique remains their masterpiece, even if its genius is mostly borrowed from old funk vinyl sitting on the Dust Brothers’ shelves. The 1989 album–still their poorest seller, mostly because it didn’t have to fight for its right to party–is the Beastie Boys’ post-hip-hop triumph, a slingshot around the moon…
Cowboys from hell REO Speedealer REO Speedealer Royalty Records There’s never been a question as to whether or not REO Speedealer rocks. Hell, man, that’s all they do. They’re the bastard sons of Lemmy and Jim Heath, abandoned at birth at Carl’s Corner with a stack of nudie mags and…
Andrew Baxter Sr. is a distribution manager for a computer warehouse, and his wife, Angela, is a travel agent; theirs is a happy, healthy home in the middle of middle-class suburbia, deep in the heart of Carrollton. They are parents of two clean-cut kids any parent would proudly claim: 14-year-old…
Death is a big part of Cheri Knight’s life. A former member of the Blood Oranges, an acclaimed but obscure roots band that dropped off the branch a few years back, she is finally getting noticed thanks to The Northeast Kingdom, an album on Steve Earle’s E-Squared label certain to…
One of the busiest recording studios in the area is in the middle of nowhere. Well, Argyle actually, which isn’t technically in the middle of nowhere, but you can probably see it from there. Argyle is little more than a city-limits sign between Lewisville and Denton, a glorified bend in…
Singer-songwriter Jim White’s life has a made-up quality about it. Among the reasons is his colorful way with descriptions; his anecdotes are sprinkled with metaphors and literary allusions softened by self-deprecating humor that suggests William Faulkner after his first joint. And then there are the tales themselves: admirably curious sketches…
Perfectly imperfect Car Wheels on a Gravel Road Lucinda Williams Mercury Records Only critics and accountants care about the eternity it took Lucinda Williams to record her fourth record in nearly 20 years. That it ate up six years–not to mention four producers (including Steve Earle), a handful of engineers,…
