PASS THE JAM

Pearl Jam Vs. (Epic) They’re back for round two, folks. Vs., the second album from Pearl Jam, finds the Seattle grunge men cranking it out in top form. Though Eddie Vedder’s voice has always been the band’s main feature–the vibrating, gut-driven growls of one white boy’s angst–the guitars of Stone…

UNCLE JAM’S ARMY

It’s hard to believe that in 1906, the term “funk” referred to sexual body odors, and only some 50 years later to a music that sounded just as dirty. No one in yer grandma’s lifetime has done as much as George Clinton, the Parliament/Funkadelic kingpin, to supply a soundtrack for…

DRE MATTER

The rules of music promotion force stars to help sell their products by declaring each new album to be a) a work of genius, or b) different from anything they’ve done before. Both are malarkey–but time-tested, effective malarkey–concocted to make record buyers feel better about paying for something their favorite…

BUFFALO TOM’S QUIET STAMPEDE

Bill Janovitz vividly remembers the night last summer when his band’s manager called with big news. “He said, ‘I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is you got a five-page spread in Rolling Stone. The bad news is you guys have to do this fashion type of…

ROCKIN’ PAST 40

John Hiatt’s heard it all before. Over 40. Past his prime. Lost his edge. Too old, too tired and, lately, too happy to still be relevant. “Too happy is the one that gets me,” Hiatt growls over the phone from L.A. “Has anyone ever been too happy?” These days, Hiatt…

ROCKABILITY REGAINED

Rockabilly retrorocket Colin Winski has spent most of his life in a love-hate relationship with the ghost of Elvis. Blessed–or cursed–with a physical resemblance striking enough to trigger an Elvis sighting, Winski has spent 15 years alternately promoting and defending himself against comparisons to the King. Looking like Elvis has…

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT DOPE?

Without drugs, there’d be no such thing as popular music. Virtually every major form of tonal exploration in this country has gotten a good measure of spunk from a particular drug of choice–bluegrass and corn liquor, folk and caffeine, techno and ecstasy, jazz and heroin, reggae and pot, rock and…

NEW RELEASES FROM THE DESERT

Arizona’s music scene is in an unusual state these days. Here in the Valley, hip-hop knuckleheads Phunk Junkeez and smooth R&B singer Malaika are blossoming into national acts. And speaking of Blossoms, the smashing success of Tempe’s Gin Blossoms has grown to the point that divine intervention is the only…

HERE COMES TROUBLE

He’s the most bodacious rebel to come out of Music City’s narrow corridors since David Allan Coe, but Travis Tritt has done one thing Coe hasn’t: sell millions of records, real quick. See, those folks in Tennessee don’t suffer independent insolents or musical infidels–and they certainly don’t cotton to those…