When the BellRays’ Let It Blast blares over the speakers in a local hole-in-the-wall record store, the eyes of bored hipsters in the aisles suddenly come aglow. A few whisper urgently to the nearest clerk, “What is that?” The music is unnerving, unreal after years of digitally enhanced sounds –…
Most observers regard the onslaught of teenage pop sensations like Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, ‘N SYNC and Christina Aguilera as proof positive of the cyclical nature of rock music. And like the big teen idol boom of the early ’60s, all this smiling and dancing must mean that a…
If you stop and think about it, 10 good rock ‘n’ roll records released in a single year is about all you can expect. And if you’re lucky, if it’s been an above-average year, a few of those records might even be great. Considering the hundreds of thousands of releases…
Down to the Promised Land is a kick in the pants for music fans, a thumb in the eye of naysayers and a great big moonin’ the board rooms of the music industry establishment, which has repeatedly rent itself asunder in the last half-decade, while the Bloodshot insurgents firmly planted…
For those who don’t believe the record industry is safely out of the hands of anyone who actually ever cared about music, I present Exhibit A — The A*Teens. Here’s a group that could not have existed unless the geniuses at the largest record company in the world (whatever Universal/MCA/Seagram’s…
You have to wonder what caused those early pioneers — bound for the West Coast, motivated by the promise of gold or, more simply, water — to plunk down and set up camp here in the Sonoran Desert. The Native populations — Navajo, Pima, Apache — who had inhabited the…
The hip-hop community has been anticipating the coming of Slum Village’s commercial debut with the same fervor Christians await the availability of a newly discovered gospel. And like the arrival of a sacred text, there were countless unauthorized versions and unlabeled bootlegs floating among believers for months before its official…
“Beethoven is my hero,” says Jeremy Enigk, Sunny Day Real Estate front man. “I mean, writing a song on his deathbed — that’s beautiful to me.” He pauses, reflecting on what’s placed him on the other end of the phone. “And that’s kind of why I do it: for the…
In 1994, New Times instituted “Tapes in the Mail,” a regular column inviting local musicians to send in their demos for critical assessment. We were immediately inundated with cassette mailers from every corner of the Valley. This deluge was soon followed by angry letters from people who thought our duties…
Thinking that a video game soundtrack is nothing but random bloops and bleeps is so ’80s. Donkey Kong was then. Final Fantasy VIII, with its lush soundscape of symphonic melodies and choirs, is now. And the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has made it official: Gaming soundtracks are…
We’re standing around in the airy Tiffany’s Cabaret parking lot, doing very little. Just shooting the shit, really. Johnny Ace’s resident lackey, Eugene Haugen, a bony kid with Social Distortion hair and thick eyeliner, is videotaping the scene with a hand-held. He says he’s making a documentary of his favorite…
Depending on how you count, Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer is the second or third solo outing by Mark Kozelek, the songwriting arm of the Red House Painters. Although the RHP’s Ocean Beach (1995) and Songs for a Blue Guitar (1996) were dominated by him (the latter completely, in fact), this…
It’s comforting to know that it’s always darkest before the dawn. Just when you think you’ve had your fill of all the ridiculous alt-country/roots-shtick outfits — the ones run by loser ex-punks whose options, like their tattoos, are slowly fading so they figure that by subbing twang for fuzztone and…
It’s not that White Pony is a bad album; it might even be a transitional album. Taken by itself, though, there’s just not much on it to distinguish Deftones from a host of other melodic metal bands, both above and below average. And that, especially from a band as inventive…
The first thing you notice talking to Chuck Prophet, naturally, is his voice. Not so much the way it sounds — a raspy, unfettered bark — but the attitude it projects. His is the tone of a polite cynic — filled with gallows humor, self-deprecation and a world-weary indifference. The…
Joseph Arthur is in the middle of a long series of phone interviews from the U.K., where he’s currently recording. Out of hundreds of variations on the same questions, what’s the one thing he doesn’t want to be asked? “Oh. Ahhhh . . . ‘How did Peter Gabriel get your…
When attacking the music business, one need not even break a sweat. After all, how hard is it to land a punch or a thousand upon a bloated carcass that can no longer move? In the not-so-distant future — maybe a decade from now, or a year from now, or…
Scaling cemetery walls and aching beneath dark skies in October rain. And brooding; always brooding. The odor of rotting fruit mingling with sod on moist ground. Celebratory funeral processions. Voices coming only in echoes, pale faces and eyes thick with coal-black eyeliner. Short days, long nights and inward journeys into…
So the New Times music editor calls up to inform me of a couple tribute bands playing at some horrible yuppie hellhole in Scottsdale. “Tributes” to Van Halen and Mötley Crüe called Atomic Punks and Shout at the Devil, respectively. Like I care. I hate tribute bands on principle. They…
Lord knows they must’ve had fun conceptualizing and executing the artwork for this CD. The fold-out booklet depicts various artifacts (a pistol and a switchblade, syringes, whiskey bottle, etc.) along with a raft of snapshots purportedly taken by a crime-scene examiner showing how each of the six Devils, plus one…
It’s somewhat comforting to know that the remains of the dead can fertilize new life. It’s a concept often found outside the realm of biology and one that can be seen in the genealogy of several of today’s most dynamic indie bands. An obvious example is the Cap’n Jazz dynasty;…
Standing on the stage of New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, the old man looked broken, beaten down, a scream reduced to a whisper. It had been almost two years since he had last performed in public, after announcing in October 1997 that he was suffering from Shy-Drager Syndrome, a form of…
