Looper Up a Tree (Sub Pop) In recent years, sonic experimentalism has taken a foothold in pop music. This infiltration of the mainstream has come most notably through the work of Beck, who’s spawned a legion of imitators eager to copy his formula for combining hip-hop beats, folk stylings and…
Willa and Corrie Alexander aren’t related, but it’s natural to assume that they are. Granted, they don’t look much alike, and the statuesque Corrie literally towers over her diminutive friend. But they not only share the same surname, they both have the exotic-in-the-Valley accents of their native Holland. More important,…
Elvis Costello once told the story of giving an advance tape of his 1982 masterpiece, Imperial Bedroom, to the artist who was going to paint the album cover. Costello thought he’d created the sunniest pop album of all time. He thought he’d made a Left Banke record. When the artist…
DGeneration Through the Darkness (C2/Columbia Records) Produced by famed glam hag Tony Visconti (T. Rex, Bowie, etc.), Through the Darkness differs little from DGen’s last Ric Ocasek-knobbed No Lunch. There’s a torrent of jumbo, sperm-filled Clash chords, soaring Mick Jones harmonies and ersatz-Clash topical politicizing atop an invented street hustle…
Everybody has an agenda, you say? That may well be true, but it’s hard to imagine Creed, Fastball or whatever selections you can order from the BMG Music Club putting sentiments like these on their album covers: “We are a lonely people, pulled apart by the killer forces of capitalism…
Philadelphia’s greatest contributors to hip-hop, the Roots, like to begin their CDs with a snatch of dialogue. It’s their way of introducing a new set of themes, of offering a kind of preamble to the state of the union message that’s on the way. But the exchange that launches the…
What a difference a few weeks can make. In mid-December, Jimmy Eat World was one frustrated emo-punk band. The Mesa quartet had completed a masterful, ambitiously produced album for Capitol Records last summer, hoping all along to have it out by October ’98, so the band could squeeze in a…
It’s Saturday afternoon in downtown Tempe. The Coffee Plantation’s patio off Sixth Street and Mill is warmed by a late winter sun that slow roasts the usual blend of slackers, hackers and idle overachievers. A four-piece band is tucked off in a corner of the courtyard. The music, a bouncy,…
Kelly Willis What I Deserve (Rykodisc) It’s been a good decade since Austinites began predicting stardom for Kelly Willis. Even within the context of her late ’80s roots-rock band Radio Ranch, it seemed obvious that anyone with such angelic beauty and honey-soaked pipes was a can’t-miss proposition. Despite many false…
A gunshot blast is as predictable as nightfall now, and twice as evil as anything the night could otherwise offer. That metallic discharge that conquers all sound and grace in these slow, dark nights is the most obvious sign of hate–the ugliest sort of hate–the kind that comes paired with…
Paul Westerberg is almost 40. He’s married, a father and has a bad back. Those aren’t uncommon characteristics for someone his age, but in the case of Westerberg, who released his third solo album, Suicaine Gratifaction this week, growing old has been difficult. For those of us who came of…
When the original members of Kiss re-formed for a take-the-money-and-run tour in 1996, a persistent rumor followed their platform boots from city to city. According to this slice of gossip, guitarist Ace Frehley was occasionally in such fragile (read: drunk) condition that at some shows a look-alike had to fill…
Jason Falkner Can You Still Feel? (Elektra Records) “Take a chance with me.” Those are the first words out of singer-songwriter Jason Falkner’s mouth on his sophomore CD, a message delivered with a touch of vaudeville piano and a disembodied vocal that sounds like it could be coming from a…
Disco dead? Hardly. According to Headbangers Against Disco (or H.A.D.) it’s still alive and sucking. This self-proclaimed “idealistic organization that works to prevent the spread of disco and all it stands for” wants to sell you $24 tee shirts advising you to “burn down your local disco now!!” The headquarters…
As a kid, I went through a very brief infatuation with the clarinet after watching The Benny Goodman Story on TV with my dad. All these years later, it’s as clear to me as the horn-rims on Steve Allen’s ugly mug that this film was a ludicrously romanticized bio-pic typical…
In the liner notes to his new bluegrass album, Steve Earle concedes that his primary motive for engaging in the project in the first place was to achieve immortality. An “ambitious and selfish” desire to be sure, but as Earle puts it, “I wanted to write just one song that…
It’s impossible to talk about Valley music for long without the subject turning to the sad state of local radio. Even natives frequently shake their heads in disgust, unable to comprehend that a market of this size could be stuck with so few credible music options. The most glaring omission…
Irony visited Charles Brown in his final months. The great rhythm-and-blues pianist and vocalist, best known today for having penned “Merry Christmas, Baby,” made it through one last Christmas, but he couldn’t make it to what probably would have been the biggest celebration of his career–his Rock and Roll Hall…
For years Nick Francis dreamed of producing a contemporary instrumental album. For years Cliff Sarde dreamed of having a producer to help him shape his musical ideas. These dreams collided two and a half years ago when Sarde–a veteran Valley musician who’s recorded for MCA and done extensive film and…
Built to Spill Keep It Like a Secret (Warner Bros.) Since the dawn of psychedelic music in 1966-1967, rock auteurs have searched for ways to stretch the pop song into longer and wider shapes. But it’s unlikely that anyone has ever expanded the form with more twisted grace than Doug…
When you tell people you’re writing about Squeeze, you get one of three responses: a) “Are they still together?” b) “They used to be really good.” c) “They’re a little too clever for their own good.” Yes kids, Squeeze did split up back in 1982, but the band reassembled three…
For most people, this space in the ’60s-style condo in downtown Phoenix would serve as a small bedroom, the kind your teenage sister would complain about before she packed up her things and moved into the garage. But to Brian Talenti, guitarist, singer and primary songwriter for the local rock…
