The Mermen Songs of the Cows (Mesa/Bluemoon) San Francisco’s Mermen take the concept of instrumental surf music so far from shore that something new comes bubbling to the surface. It’s the audio equivalent of Dick Dale poached in psychedelics, a strum and twang that’s both invigorating and mesmerizing as it…
“Going down into town tonight/To drink our fill and start a fight.” So goes a line from “Helen Reddy,” the “hear me roar” opening track from the Piersons’ tempestuous debut CD, Humbucker, scheduled to hit shops Tuesday. Maybe it’s the put-up-or-shut-up seriousness of finally being encoded in digital oxide, but…
Here’s a mentally stimulating game–think of any song written in the last 45 years, then imagine Tom Jones singing it. No matter what your level of creativity, it should be tough to picture Jones botching a tune–any tune. In the last 30-plus years, theWelsh Wonder has recorded everything from “My…
Her name was Holly Golightly–not the Audrey Hepburn character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but the Hollywood hooker who lived at the same hotel as the Beat Angels last October, when the Phoenix fivesome was in L.A. to finish recording its debut album, Unhappy Hour. “The Sunset Palms is a cheesy,…
We’re gonna make this one a letter-and-response column. Here’s the letter: “Was there really a good reason for David Holthouse to trash Brian Smith of the Beat Angels (Coda, February 15)? “Holthouse doesn’t have to like the Beat Angels’ music and he doesn’t have to listen to it, but does…
Groupies are a sore subject in the Phantom Surfers’ camp. “The only people who want to meet us are overweight record collectors looking for matrix numbers,” says bassist Michael Lucas, sighing. “The women who attend our shows have a few drinks and leave. In that respect, surf shows are a…
The Refreshments Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy (Mercury) There’s nothing like success to bring out the muttering bastards. Instead of celebrating this ubiquitous Tempe bar band’s major-label debut on Mercury, outspoken members and fans of less-fortunate local acts have taken to branding the three-year-old quartet’s sudden success as grossly undeserved…
Gunshot. Not the deep boom of a high-caliber revolver, but the sharp, evil pop of a nine millimeter. Everyone else in the room and the hall just outside it–there were eight of us, in all–hit the floor in a hurry and started making for the corners, the back walls, anywhere…
White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult speaks in the whiskey-and-cigarettes drawl of a heavy-metal road warrior, a title she’s earned after nearly four years of constant touring in support of her band’s 1992 major-label debut, La Sexorcisto, and last year’s follow-up, Astro-Creep: 2000. Over that time, Yseult says she’s learned a…
It’s January 29, but no one here’s calling it “Super Monday.” All last week, Tempe had been under siege as blimps of every shape and sponsor circled overhead like buzzards, and beer-guzzlin’ NFL enthusiasts of every shape and temperament took over the streets below. Throngs of out-of-town Dallas Cowboys fans…
Various artists From Dusk Till Dawn (Epic) Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s stab at a vampire thriller turned out to be a wobbly stake in the heart, but the setting of its gore-fest finale–a cavernous, border-town bordello called the “Titty Twister” that’s infested with the undead–made a good excuse for a killer…
Peculiar, plastic things from strangers have recently become a motif in my life. The first was a Jesus-head Pez dispenser (yeah, I didn’t know they made ’em, either), mailed with no return address, phone number or accompanying explanation other than a crayoned note that read, “Sinners Re-Pez.” Next up, Big…
Theater Works used to be housed in a small, barnlike building on West Thunderbird Road, a facility which made up in charm some of what it lacked in space and flexibility. With the inventive sets and lighting designs of technical director Jim Hyte, the old barn made an excellent, intimate…
Name: Jason Finn Current occupation: A President of the United States of America (“I play drums”). Previous employment: Percussionist for grunge combo of note Love Battery; booking agent; bartender in Seattle, Washington. (“I’d still tend bar if I had the time. I can’t think of another job–except maybe the one…
Rock ‘n’ roll?? SXSW never heard of it! On February 1, I received a manila envelope in the mail. Inside were a few posters promoting the release of the Beat Angels’ coming debut album, Unhappy Hour (due out on Epiphany February 27); a demo from said release; and a note…
Ministry Filth Pig (Warner Bros.) Like a piece of heavy machinery commandeered by a speed freak, the Ministry juggernaut rolls into its 15th year, bestowing a kind of classic-rock status upon the synth-pop Euro poseurs turned foremen of the Chicago industrial scene. With several cuts on the new album clocking…
There used to be a place to go dance in this town … –“Used to Be,” the Red Dirt Rangers The throbbing hum of the nearby interstate, the occasional bark of a stray dog and the piercing whistle of the high desert wind are the only music playing tonight along…
Club Congress in Tucson is an intimate room with good acoustics that books important bands on a regular basis. For example, the Congress was one of the few places in the U.S. last year where Frank Black played before he went into the studio to record his new album, The…
I’d heard the stories about Mason Jar owner Franco Gagliano and his temperamental impersonation of Godzilla on coke (a shorter, squatter Godzilla, that is). But I didn’t believe them because I hadn’t experienced any firsthand. Now I do, because now I have. Here’s my story: It is Saturday night, February…
Tori Amos Boys for Pele (Atlantic) Kate Bush is the artist to whom Tori Amos is most often compared–usually in cynical accusations of aesthetic plagiarism and emotional fakery–but Jerry Lee Lewis makes a good, if not a better, parallel. Like Lewis, Amos is the rebellious, piano-playing child of a conservative…
Think the rock pantheon’s already overcrowded with mad musical geniuses, do you? Well, make way for England’s Joe Meek–the late, great Sixties record producer who merits an entire mental ward all for himself. Because he was highly eccentric and specialized in over-the-top production techniques, Meek is typically compared to his…
AC/DC Ballbreaker (AC/DC) AC/DC albums are about as interchangeable as Heinz Ketchup bottles on your grocer’s shelf, but you’d notice a quality-control problem right away if Heinz started making its condiment with the smelliest, most bruised tomatoes instock. And AC/DC screecher Brian Johnson has become onebad, battered tomato who’s been…
