The mean streets of Compton have claimed many, but 24-year-old, self-proclaimed gangsta rapper MC Eiht has taken the lurid, true-life tales of his hometown to the top of the charts. Along the way, he’s managed to upset hip-hop moralist Dr. C. Deloris Tucker and psychic legionnaire Dionne Warwick with his…
At almost any given moment during the last 40 years, while most Americans have been doing things like going to the dentist, balancing checkbooks, eating toast or snoozing soundly in their very own beds, a man named Sleepy LaBeef has been at the wheel of some large vehicle barreling down…
Amid all the manufactured mainstream media malarkey about 1) both Woodstocks (anniversary and 94), 2) the Rolling Stones’ toothless and soulless new album, Voodoo Lounge, and the band’s “Till Death Do Us Part” kabillion-dollar U.S. tour, and 3) the breathless promise of a concert, live from Graceland, of Elvis songs…
Ever get that, you know, not-so-fresh feeling about an artist? It’s probably because you’re associating that artist’s music with a separate, unpleasant experience. For instance, I know this gentleman who has a deep-rooted resentment of Henry Mancini, simply because someone threw up on him in a car when “Moon River”…
Though you’ll probably never hear titles like “We’re a Scandinavian Band,” “Sweet Home Nawasaka” or “The Haarlem Shuffle,” more than a handful of cunning linguists have slipped through the predominantly English Only world of Top 40 hits. Here are a few. 1956: An octet of French vocalists scat-sing George Shearing’s…
If you haven’t figured it out, I’m old. And I’ll tell you something else: I have a tough time getting it up for great, big rock n’ roll shows anymore. But I’ve had my fun in the past, sure. For example: I got smashed against the front wall, stoned out…
Throw a rock at any group of music fans and you’ll likely hit someone who claims to enjoy minimalism. Someone who’ll rattle off the charms of a three-hour, “plink-plink” piano piece and act bemused if you don’t agree. He’ll blather on about spirits set free by minimalism’s incessant repetition, using…
Michael Diamond runs the Beastie Boys’ empire, a very small empire: a label, distributed through Capitol Records, with Luscious Jackson and DJ Hurricane and, of course, the Beasties; X-Large, a clothing store in New York specializing in very ugly clothes that the b-boys pay phat dollars for; and a 30,000-circulation…
His fan club includes the nation’s top two executives (he played at President Clinton’s inaugural), as well as staunch admirers like gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Now, after more than 25 years of road work and as many albums, Jerry Jeff Walker, writer of “Mr. Bojangles” and singer of the…
All right. Before we dive into the always controversial and titillating world of local reviews, let me tell you this: I went to see rockabilly shouter Robert Gordon at the fine establishment that is the Rockin’ Horse the other night. Some of you were there, too, a handful of Gordon…
Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge (Virgin) It’s the Stones. It’s great. Buy it. Little Jimmy Scott Dream (Sire) America is a wonderful place. A country that, no matter how much misfortune comes your way, no matter how much you just plain fuck up, if you hang around long enough, things just…
Why did it take so many tries to figure out the magic recipe for serving up Meat Loaf again? The all-telling cover art provides us with the necessary clues! Note: Every ignored follow-up is missing the three essential ingredients, in tandem: a muscle-bound boy, his bike and that darned bat!…
Dazzling Pantene spokesmodel Kelly LeBrock once said, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Maybe LeBrock’s plea was less breathtakingly presumptuous than it seems. Perhaps it was a simple assessment of a basic human attitude toward the naturally gifted, a little naive noblesse oblige from someone born to the runway. Let’s…
The only negative thing I can say about Joe Myers’ new release is that you might get splinters from it. The guitarist has gone all out with the packaging of Sonoran Snake Lady, creating a roughly hewn wooden box for his second CD to live in. And before you begin…
By now, almost everyone has seen those nauseating beer commercials. They feature twentysomething slackers with thirtysomething memory banks rattling off their favorite TV shows, cultural artifacts and popular music from the Sixties and Seventies, with nary a receding hairline or beer gut in sight. The worst one to date offers…
Until the beginning of this summer, Jack Logan was one of the best-kept secrets in the history of rock n’ roll. He and his musical cohorts (he calls them his “enablers”) had been churning out songs in rural Georgia for years, to little notice and no acclaim. Now, though, an…
Felix Cavaliere remembers it vividly. One day in early 1966, he was walking down Madison Avenue in Manhattan and first heard the Young Rascals on radio. “Somebody had a transistor radio and told us that Cousin Brucie, who at that time was the disc jockey in New York, was going…
In 1963, in Cardiff, Wales, there was a music store named Barrett’s of Manchester, located just down the road from the Capitol Theatre. One day in late May, the biggest band in Britain stopped there to play, and the afternoon before the show, the manager of Barrett’s–no fool he–sent one…
Week after week, I spout off about what I like and don’t like here in this column, and, while it may be hard for the legions of Screed loyalists out there to comprehend, there are some who do not always agree with my opinions. Believe me, for every teeming mail…
Willy DeVille Backstreets of Desire (Forward) Since DeVille’s last effort, Tower Records stopped stocking vinyl, Doc Pomus passed away and John Cougar went Mellencamp. What hasn’t changed is DeVille’s voice (except it’s got a lot more phlegm in it now) and his overriding passion for Brill Building songwriting (he dedicated…
Wanna know what’s wrong with the CD single? Get a copy of Belly’s new CD maxi-single, Moon. If this were a vinyl 45 release, the A-side would be the group’s recent cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced.” The snazzy take of Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” would be the…
Pablo Picasso once said, “The chief enemy of creativity is good taste.” Of course, Pablo never heard Cannibal Corpse. He never heard songs like “Fucked With a Knife,” “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” or “Force Fed Broken Glass,” and he’s no longer around to tell us whether good taste should perhaps…
