All stories have a beginning, but if the story is about ska music, it’s hard to say just when and where that is. In America, ska music began in 1982 with the Toasters, a multiracial group of Manhattan hepcats who introduced U.S. audiences to the frenetic mix of American R&B…
The Native Americans are restless. It’s a chilly January night at CJ’s Coyote Lounge, a tee-shirt-and-jeans tavern where dollar bills paper the ceiling behind the bar. The Dallas Cowboys have just won the Super Bowl, and the crowd is in a dancing mood. But so far there is no sign…
Guided by Voices Under the Bushes Under the Stars (Matador) One listen to Guided by Voices’ latest release, Under the Bushes Under the Stars, is convincing proof that GBV is something special. Front man Robert Pollard–a former high school football star and fourth-grade teacher turned general of the Ohio indie…
Girls Against Boys Gibson’s April 30, 1996 When I was 21, it was a very good year. I spent a third of my time in New York City, subsisting on cheap Indian food and crashing in a prewar walkup in the heart of the East Village. My place was right…
“Stormy, husky, brawling/Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action/Building, breaking, rebuilding.” The words which poet Carl Sandburg used to describe Chicago 80 years ago apply today to Ministry front man Al Jourgensen, the godfather of that city’s industrial scene, and something of a maniac. How the dreadlocked Ubermensch’s…
Consider this a call to arms. Alternative is a lie. Rock radio is a tool in the hands of the military-industrial-entertainment complex. Music is ideology. And if the System controls your stereo, the System controls your mind. The System knows this, and likes it. We must defend ourselves. Tear down…
When Jewel Kilcher quit the nine-to-five life in early 1994 and moved into the cramped comforts of a ’79 Volkswagen van, all she wanted to do was play music, surf and stay fed. Since then, however, Jewel has racked up credentials that evoke the envy of seasoned music veterans. Her…
Tyree Michael Carter has many pictures of himself on the walls of his office, but only one in which he’s smiling. It’s a shot from last Halloween, and Ty is dressed like a blaxploitation-flick pimp–a veritable mack daddy. The outfit took 13 thrift stores, $100 and two weeks to put…
First, rhythm and blues begat “rock ‘n’ roll,” a term that still has cachet in a few crumbling, former Soviet republics. Then came all of rock ‘n’ roll’s bastard offspring–folk rock, acid rock, hard rock, progressive rock, country rock, punk rock–everywhere a rock, rock. But if rock became too vague…
The Jesus Lizard Shot (Capitol) With Shot, the Jesus Lizard has made quite a leap–not only jumping ship from longtime indie Touch and Go to Capitol Records, but also taking one giant step forward as a rock ‘n’ roll band. God knows the Lizard has always used ammo crates of…
The defining moment of the first New Times Music Awards Showcase came, for me, almost two weeks before the actual event. It was a Tuesday night and New Times was hosting a logistics summit meeting upstairs at Minder Binder’s in Tempe. Representatives from all 36 bands in 11 showcase categories…
Well, stick a monkey in front of a typewriter and sooner or later he’ll write a haiku. Four years into a career ignited as a lark, and fueled on hype and connections, 7 Year Bitch has finally come up with a few decent garage-punk songs. And, Christ, how hard can…
Seattle punk songstress Mia Zapata got famous for the most evil of reasons–not because of her singing, which was good, but because of her death, which was horrible. On the night of July 7, 1993, Zapata had a few beers with some friends at the Comet Tavern on Pike Street,…
Live Tracks (Freedom) The Derailers Jackpot (Watermelon) These two albums prove that your arms are never too short to shake hands with the upper management of Hillbilly Heaven. How else do you explain the spirit of Buck Owens’ majestic late guitarist Don Rich entering the body and fingers of the…
The first band I ever went to see in the Valley was Dead Hot Workshop. I could relate to the name. It was last year, on a Friday night in mid-July. I had just moved here from Alaska and promptly discovered that hangovers are even worse when you are dehydrated…
Best Alternative Rock Beat Angels They may look and play like it, but the Beat Angels aren’t really under the illusion that it’s still 1979. They just don’t think rock ‘n’ roll has gotten any better since then. “The way we look at it, there’s this certain spirit that was…
Oh, way to go, Ohio. Dayton, Ohio, that is. The town that is sprouting rock bands like corn. Check out the run-down: Guided by Voices (together since 1986, discovered in 1993), Brainiac, the Tasties, the Method, the Afghan Whigs and–the subject of our talk today–the Amps. A sort of Dayton-scene…
The scene: Forte Crest Hotel, Glasgow, Scotland, around midnight, April 7, 1994. It is ten months before Oasis’ second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, tops out at No. 4 on the Billboard charts, boosted by the hit single “Wonderwall”; ten months before Oasis will win the Brit Awards–the UK…
I have this recurring nightmare where I’m in hell and Satan is informing me with a sulfurous chuckle that my punishment for a life of sin is spending eternity as an entertainment reporter for a local TV station. In Phoenix, nonetheless; the town where a talking head’s transfer to the…
Iggy Pop Naughty Little Doggie (Virgin) It’s 1968 and James Osterberg, a white-trash trailer-park kid from Michigan, unwittingly helps invent punk rock. He does so by christening himself Iggy Pop and gracing the concert halls of America with a live act that features the excitable Iggy in various stages of…
Remember–it’s always better to have a Revolver and not need one than to need a Revolver and not have one. So clip and save, ’cause it’s time for another waffle-stomp through the sewers of indie rock. Your trusty guide will steer you clear of the sludge piles, but keep your…
I stand at the crossroads, baby, now there’s no turnin’ back: I’m here to make a deal, so let the Devil deal the pack! –Blue Bob Crawford I don’t believe in the devil, but I believe Robert Johnson did. And according to root doctors–voodoo priests of the rural South–the first…
