Did you ever hear the one about how the young George Gershwin, hoping to break into show business, was sent packing by Sholom Secunda, an established songwriter in the then-vibrant Yiddish theater? Secunda slammed the teenage Gershwin for being “too American” and said he’d never make it with the Catskills…
It’s been 25 years since Augustus Pablo released what most reggae lovers consider his masterpiece, East of the River Nile. Now the good folks at Shanachie are using the anniversary as a reason to reissue the album — with much-improved sound and a half-dozen killer bonus tracks. Still, one has…
Pink wants everyone to know that she isn’t Britney Spears. She’ll yell it from the rooftops. She’ll tattoo it on her washboard midriff. She’ll hold a high school principal hostage just so she can scream it over the intercom during morning announcements. She’ll even sing it. Her latest album, M!ssundaztood,…
There are 26 bands, 114 dudes and one woman performing at this year’s Ozzfest, the annual headbangers’ bacchanalia where the queasy mix of Coors and Coppertone often feels like one prolonged Maalox moment. Amid all the tanning lotion and testosterone, Otep is the lone woman. “It’s like being a diaper…
When Morphine front man Mark Sandman died from a heart attack onstage in 1999, he left behind friends, loved ones and an exceptional body of musical work. He also left behind a curious batch of crudely rendered cartoons drawn on everything from cocktail napkins and bowling score sheets to fancy…
It’s like a wacked-out comedy sketch from an All That episode. The four hot young hunks of R&B boy band sensation B2K are hanging out backstage after their set in London, clowning around in their matching electric-blue tracksuits, exchanging high-fives. Onstage, headliner and special guest Destiny’s Child is finishing up…
He may be a bald, vegan, gospel-loving peacenik, but ask him the wrong question, and Moby turns into one touchy little dude. Witness this exchange: New Times: So, new record, new songs, new live show. What can we expect this time out? Moby: Well, when I make the records, it’s…
If El Tri’s Alex Lora gets his way, after the nuclear holocaust, his band will be kicking out the jams for the cockroaches and Keith Richards and continuing to be a voice for the Mexican people. It’s hardly an inconceivable proposition, given Lora’s unnatural career longevity, which can be attributed…
Nearly four years after they joined forces in the tiny mountain community of Nederland, Colorado, life is mighty good for the members of Yonder Mountain String Band. But bassist Ben Kaufmann and his mates can’t take all the credit for their rapid rise in the jam-band universe. “There’s always been…
Giving heads up to a musical hero in a band name is asking for trouble, like a guitarist calling his band Jimi Hendrix’s Pick Guard. But after Johnny Cash went against his own attorney’s advice and gave the Bastards his blessing — and his legitimate heir John Carter Cash produced…
If The Willies is any indication, Bill Frisell could probably make “Achy Breaky Heart” sound like a walk in the clouds. Here, the rangy jazz guitarist, banjo player (and Bad Liver) Danny Barnes, and bassist Keith Lowe revisit the terrain Frisell explored on 1995’s Nashville, spinning a handful of folk…
It was bound to happen. One by one, all of your hipster friends started breeding like rabbits. Suddenly they traded in their Dickies and Doc Martens for onesies and booties, and showed up at parties with sippy cups instead of six-packs. Then, as their little replications began to walk and…
To most casual fans, the name Jazzy Jeff conjures up images of Fresh Prince’s bubblegum raps — and it’s true, Jeff Townes was the man behind the turntables and the beats on most of Fresh Prince’s early work (save the classic “Summertime,” produced by Hula and Finger). But Jazzy Jeff…
Golden is the most modest indie supergroup imaginable. The band sports an impressive underground pedigree. Alex Minoff, who splits singing and guitar-playing duties with Ian Eagleson, has logged time in Six Finger Satellite and the Make Up; drummer Jon Theodore has worked with Royal Trux, Palace and Mars Volta; and…
“‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down’? Quite a loony selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates!” Christopher Lloyd uttered those lines to said bunch of drunken reprobates as he ripped the gramophone needle off a 78 in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He was referring to that merry melody that launched a thousand…
At one point in its history, it was entirely possible that Imperial Teen would forever be associated with Rose McGowan and her deadly confection, given the fact that the band is best known for contributing the creepy, stalkerish “Yoo-Hoo” to the soundtrack of the 1999 film Jawbreaker. The fact that…
Anyone who wants proof of the sorry state of mainstream country music need only look at the struggling career of 30-year-old Allison Moorer, who by all rights should be a major star by now. The Alabama-born singer and songwriter made a big splash in 1998, when her heartfelt ballad “A…
Perhaps the truest line ever written about Bruce Springsteen appeared in Village Voice scribe Robert Christgau’s 1975 review of Born to Run: “Springsteen may well turn out to be one of those rare self-conscious primitives who gets away with it.” As Christgau implies, Springsteen isn’t the sort of fellow who…
It used to be that people struggled to place Sonic Youth’s music within some kind of context. Was it avant-garde improv or pop-culture pastiche? Was it fueled by theoretical abstraction or punk-rock impulse? Self-indulgence or self-negation? Now that Sonic Youth has become a bona fide institution, the band has lapsed…
Salesman’s Girl was never supposed to happen. If everything had gone according to plan, Laura Minor would still be tucked away in a Floridian ivory tower, working on her doctorate in poetry. But shortly after moving to Gainesville to start her Ph.D. program, Minor had a fateful run-in with local…
The hype surrounding RJD2’s debut release, Dead Ringer, is building quickly. Among hip-hop heads, the album already has a next-big-thing glow to it. But this review should really be for non-hip-hop circles: those of us who like hip-hop and who own a few key albums here and there, but who…
Yes, it’s a tired cliché, but the guys of Guster really do march to the beat of a different drummer . . . and that drummer plays the bongos. In a markedly successful “college try,” the band released its first two albums independently, the first while all three members were…
