Nestled within this year’s list of nominees for the Chicago-based Blues Foundation’s annual W.C. Handy Awards–which most blues artists and their industry kin rightly lend at least as much weight as the Grammys–is an item with a sharp local kick. You’ll find it in your program under category 19, “Traditional…
The life expectancy of the average hip-hop group is comparable to that of the average housefly. Have a smash one year, and you’d better have a smash the next, or you’ll wind up as extinct as the dodo. Sure, a few rhymers (such as Queen Latifah) have beaten this death…
Boss Hog Boss Hog (DGC) It’s hard not to think of Boss Hog as the Mrs. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Not only is the Hog led by Cristina Martinez–Spencer’s wife and fellow Pussy Galore alum–but Spencer himself plays guitar and shares vocals in the band. Barely even a side project,…
The Bad News: Despite KUKQ’s business-asusual broadcasting, the indie-rock AMenclave will cease to exist sometime Monday–the third and, evidently, final time the financially strapped station has folded since it signed on in 1989. The Good News: There really isn’t any. The Cause of Death: What else? Money. Sandusky Newspapers, a…
Ian MacKaye is a man who likes to get to the point, so here it is: MacKaye was one of the primary architects of punk rock in America. The British invasion pulled stateside rock ‘n’ roll out of a creative morass in the early ’60s. MacKaye–son of a U.S. senator…
Alice in Chains Alice in Chains (Columbia) Alice in Chains’ new, eponymous album would make a perfect soundtrack to one of Hieronymous Bosch’s paintings of hell–it’s a claustrophobic, harrowing piece of work that is conversely beautiful and uplifting in the most unexpected of moments. Like its predecessor LP, Dirt, and…
The late Frank Zappa was both paradoxical and perverse: As a musician, he was influenced primarily by the late-19th-century ideas of composers such as Stravinsky and Varese, yet most casual listeners will probably remember him as a quintessential ’60s- and ’70s-style rock ‘n’ roll guitar strangler. He was an instinctual…
The unofficial bio for the Chimeras has all the stereotypical ingredients of a rock ‘n’ roll miniseries: alcoholism, drug addiction and rehab, chronic depression and suicide. It’s not a happy tale, but after nearly four years in development, the plot line finally seems to be aligning with what the band…
… And Who Could Forget About These Great Hits? (The Ten Best Albums of 1995) 1. P.J. Harvey To Bring You My Love (Island) Britain’s Gen-X version of Patti Smith gets gruff and bluesy on her latest set of psyche-aerobics. It’s not exactly easy listening–first-person songs about drowning one’s children…
Goldie Timeless (ffrr) Timeless indeed, but also precisely of the moment, the 30-year-old mixed-race London deejay/graffiti artist named Goldie has accomplished something exceedingly rare with his debut album: Like Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and maybe a handful of other recordings, Timeless firmly plants itself for the…
When the holiday hordes descend from the suburbs to swarm the gallerias every year on the day after Thanksgiving, many a dutiful consumer snaps up at least one of the Yuletide albums that magically appeared on the shelves overnight like presents under a tree. But few probably wonder how the…
Name: Yuta Kiyono Age: 23 Birthday: December 15 (happy birthday, Yuta!) Hometown: Yokohama, Japan Arrived in the Valley: September 15, 1995 Future Plans: Learn English and study at ASU Current command of English: Shaky, but a hell of a lot better than my Japanese. Current command of eight ball: Nippon’s…
Tony Bennett Here’s to the Ladies (Columbia) Tony Bennett’s unlikely ascent from has-been to hipster continues to be one of the coolest, if most puzzling, success stories in pop. Somehow, Bennett has gone from one of mom and dad’s favorite artists to a fave with the kids, without appreciably altering…
“There’s a white riot going on in Congress,” Bruce Springsteen said at a Neil Young concert in California last month, just before he dedicated the title track of his new album to Newt Gingrich. “It’s going to make this country less safe and less equal.” The Ghost of Tom Joad…
Melissa Etheridge Your Little Secret (Island) What’s almost better than a box of sugar cereal with a prize at the bottom? Melissa Etheridge’s new disc, with cute and clever liner notes that double as an interactive puzzle! Anyone who buys Your Little Secret might as well take full and immediate…
To better understand the way people acquire language, linguists are always on the lookout for a wolf boy–a person raised without benefit of human contact. When the 1993 documentary film and soundtrack Deep Blues introduced guitarists Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside to an audience beyond northern Mississippi juke joints, it…
Australia’s teeny grunge sensation Silverchair is the biggest (and youngest) band to conquer down under and beyond since the Easybeats had Friday on their minds way back in 1967. Silverchair’s debut, Frogstomp, entered the Australian charts at No.1–a first in Aussie rock. And, like this country’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,…
Normally, I love the hate. There’s nothing to jazz up a Muzak day like a spitting-mad New Times reader jabbering in my ear about the sacrilege of superimposing Barney the Dinosaur’s head on Jerry Garcia’s body. And any day I get to hear someone call Garth Brooks a musical genius…
Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Virgin) There he is: Billy Corgan. The Baby Huey of modern rock. The Pillsbury Dough Boy with chops. The pudgy-faced 800-pound gorilla who can sit anywhere he damn well wants. Corgan and his band, Smashing Pumpkins, are currently squatting atop the heap…
So I’m cruising down Apache Boulevard on November 29, taking the virgin listen to my bootleg of the Jim Rose Circus’ sold-out performance at Electric Ballroom two nights prior. I’m thinking to myself, “Maybe tape-recording a freak show isn’t the brightest brain flash I’ve ever had. What am I gonna…
In case you missed all six hours of The Beatles Anthology and its accompanying hoopla (what are you, living in a Turkish prison?), just accept this premise: The Beatles are still the yardstick by which all pop music is measured. Whenever some shlub of a group scores a breakthrough hit,…
Programmed by Mac and Strong, KUKQ is the place to find music devoid of commercial influences Somebody hold a wake, because “alternative” is dead–gone the way of all labels that catch fire and fry in marketing hell. Ten years ago, the battle lines were clear: There was commercial radio and…
