Pop-top Robert Pollard Waved Out Matador Guided by Voices’ early-’90s breakthrough records (Propeller, Vampire on Titus, and Bee Thousand) were uniformly great, full of songs on which the patina of quirk–fragmentary structures, amateur recording quality–scarcely masked a peaking melodic sensibility; last year’s Mag Earwhig, on the other hand, was a…
If you haven’t heard of Beautamous Loaf International, a Dallas record label that specializes in dishwater-dirty trip-hop and ambient sound collages, you’re not alone. Beautamous Loaf seems less like an indie record label and more like an exercise in proving just how underground something can be without ceasing to exist…
Ani DiFranco emerged from Buffalo, New York, at the decade’s dawn and differentiated herself from other young artists with guitars and something to say with her financial acumen. She founded her own label, Righteous Babe Records, and unlike the owners of most other start-ups, she ran hers with a savvy…
Blowing smoke Cleansed by Fire Pervis Idol Records They used to be the biggest contrivance in town, two half-half-dressed women undulating to the beat only they seemed to hear; the soundtrack was Sonic Youth with in-tune guitars, the gimmick was just a variation on a familiar cock-rock theme–the mostly male…
Nostalgia is a hobby for those too afraid to move into tomorrow; it’s the pastime of cowards and fools. But as we inch closer to the millennium–which, don’t kid yourself, will look, feel, smell, taste, and sound just like today–there’s an increasingly annoying trend that involves looking over one’s shoulder…
Billy Bragg knew from the beginning what Mermaid Avenue sounded like in theory: a freakin’ disaster. He could hear the snickers even before he began the task of writing music to lyrics left behind by Woody Guthrie, words for which the Dust Bowl prophet never wrote any music. “On paper,…
Down in Austin, there are people who insist that Don Walser is the greatest country singer in the world. Of course, if you happen to have spent time in that town three hours south of Dallas at any point since the 1960s, you probably know there are folks there who…
Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones has long been a hero of mine, but until last week, I had never heard his name. He can be heard playing on a handful of the greatest songs ever recorded in and released from this city; he was, for two years, a member of one…
On Thursday, Hector Fontecha will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Orbit Room. Bands will play, regulars will come, and all will be as it has been, for the most part, since June 18, 1993, when the Buck Pets and Bedhead inaugurated the club that has since…
Nostalgia is a hobby for those too afraid to move into tomorrow; it’s the pastime of cowards and fools. But as we inch closer to the millennium–which, don’t kid yourself, will look, feel, smell, taste, and sound just like today–there’s an increasingly annoying trend that involves looking over one’s shoulder…
Charleston, West Virginia’s Yeager Airport sits atop a mountain, which is typical in a state that enforces few, if any, building codes. Request a window seat if you ever drop in; the views are spectacular. Green hills roll forever, with soft “fairways” notched into the landscape as though it were…
Made for you and me Mermaid Avenue Billy Bragg & Wilco Elektra Records As music-biz gimmicks go, this one’s high-brow: Leftie punk-folk Billy Bragg and alt.country.pop.rockers Wilco writing and performing music built around lyrics unrecorded by songwriter-of-the-people Woody Guthrie. It’s a disc that screams important; might as well hold the…
One degree of separation everybody’s a pinata El Gato self-released There are a million ways to say a record is boring without really coming out and saying it; Spin has been doing just that for more than a decade. You can say it’s a good record to listen to while…
Celtic pride Broken with a Word The Killdares Self-released The bumbling weight of hard rock and heavy metal has dropped like a barbell on nearly every other genre of pop music, with mixed results. When it happily collided with punk in the ’80s and early ’90s, it conceived grunge; when…
Every city has a few musicians like Stephen Nutt–talented performers who, for whatever reason, never found an audience. They probably never will, yet they’ve stuck around forever anyway, working as temps and busboys so they can keep their rock-and-roll dreams alive. They never made a fall-back plan, because they didn’t…
Few pop-culture developments have been so inevitable as a book of poetry by Jewel, rock music’s reigning queen of dime-store spirituality. A ripe tomato of a woman and a rotten apple of a songwriter, Jewel emerged from a Southern California coffeehouse a few years back armed with a canon of…
Setting sun Imagination Brian Wilson Giant Records “When I grow up to be a man,” he once wrote, but they didn’t let Brian Wilson grow up–they being his family and fans who wanted more fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun; so they called him a lunatic and drove…
That Nick Lowe has ducked the big, bright spotlight of Rock Stardom is a longstanding mystery of pop music. That he’s also managed to enter his fourth decade as one of rock’s most respected songwriter-producers with so much grace and wisdom is no mystery at all; he’s a clever one,…
He’s almost unknown now, another anonymous musician who sweats to get gigs and sells his basement tapes at shows and the odd independent record store that stocks local releases. He’s got a day job operating the clock at amateur hockey games around the area, and when he’s not keeping time,…
Coughing, hacking, and snorting phlegm, David Yow is half-asleep and trying to sound coherent. It’s 12:30 p.m. on a recent Tuesday, and Yow is in a Montreal hotel room, resting between concerts while on tour with his infamously aggressive band, the Jesus Lizard. He has no idea he was scheduled…
Groaning the blues Angels with Dirty Faces Tricky Island Records Tricky provides his own static, every other word a distorted rumble from the bottom of his throat; his voice defines him as much as the languid groove or the knotted coil of rhythms that snake beneath the melodies. And yet…
The record begins with the familiar, famous introduction: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he rumbles, his voice as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. He tries to add something to the trademark, but the crowd, clapping and cheering the presence of myth, doesn’t let him. Then there’s another man’s voice,…
