Entrepreneur Mark Begelman–the man who answered the question “I wonder what a 75-foot-high stack of calculators looks like?” when he was in charge of Office Depot–has taken his pallet-intensive retail philosophy and applied it to MARS, which is now to be known as the Musicians’ Planet. Planets are usually quite…

More than a bunch of ‘toons Songs in the Key of Springfield Original music from the TV series Rhino Records Back in 1990 there were two shows on the Fox network that turned the sitcom on its ear. Married: With Children and the brand-new The Simpsons presented the American family…

After the heart-rending breakup of Killbilly–not long after a wildly successful tour of mainland China, no less–many folk pinned their homegrown alt-country hopes on the Cartwrights, a group that included ex-‘billy Alan Wooley, longtime local light Barry Kooda (Nervebreakers, Yeah Yeah Yeah), and Donny Ray Ford, one of the purest…

That’s w-o-m-a-n Maria Muldaur is one of the music industry’s most frustrating phenomena: the artist who never really lived up to her early potential, who had one quick period of pop dominance surrounded by early struggle and later popular decline. In this she reminds you most sharply of Nicolette Larson,…

Vast stretches of miles between Jimmy LaFave is the kind of artist a category like “folk-rock” was invented for: a clever, empathetic artist who knows that if you lean into it, tried and true need not mean dusty. LaFave may be the master of existing forms–cliches, if you’re feeling less…

The grungy guy in the practice room talking to Sharon Brown, publicist for the Dallas gospel group Greg O’Quin and Joyful Noyze, is quite a contrast to the rest of the folks gathered for rehearsal. He’s tall, lanky, and white; the sides of his head are shaved, while on top…

Son of Blind Joe Death Few career arcs break the way Leo Kottke’s did–starting out as a so-folk-he’s-jazz prodigy on 6 and 12 String Guitar, his definitive (and once ubiquitous, though now out of print) 1970 Takoma release. Kottke was at first an instrumentalist, his fingers seemingly doing eight things…

If you live in Austin, it’s easy to grow weary of that town’s annual South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference: Downtown becomes impassable, restaurants and clubs are clogged, and the myriad ways in which the shindig makes clear the differences between those with wristbands (for common folk and other peons…

Mothers of re-invention Pop U2 Island Records They probably never thought of themselves as an ordinary outfit, but ever since 1990 and Achtung Baby, it’s been obvious that U2 have aspirations (far) beyond that of your standard rawkenroll band, pushing themselves toward something more reflective of the life around them,…

Action-packed There are artists who carry with them a sense (and sensibility) of time and place, like a living time capsule. In Muddy Waters, you can hear the great migration from the Deep South to the factories and mills of Chicago; in Dick Dale, the boundless electricity of the California…

Though many were surprised by the unexpected break-up of Tablet last week–including some band members–it did not come as a surprise to Tablet frontman Steven Holt. “It was something I’d been thinking about for a long time,” Holt says. “It wasn’t an emotional, sudden decision.” Holt, who formed the band…

Ever since The Concert for Bangladesh, albums aimed at benefiting worthy causes have been suspect, either as collections of inferior live versions of songs you already have or material adjudged not good enough for purely commercial purposes. If a Tree Falls–a collection of tunes abundant in chlorophyll and message from…

What a difference a year makes. Last June 13, when Cake played the Galaxy Club, there were perhaps two dozen people in the audience–if you count each person who came and went and came back again twice. Local act UFOFU played an absolutely ragged set right before the Sacramento quintet…

R.O.C.K. in the Americas If you ever wax nostalgic for rock the way it used to be–concerts as major events, music that isn’t afraid to act like it’s willing to assume a major role in your life, passion rather than posing–you should look to the nascent rock en espanol or…

Sound and color Marisa Monte A Great Noise Metro Blue Records With A Great Noise, Brazil’s Marisa Monte announces herself as queen of MPB, or Musica Popular Brasileira. The album, half live and half studio, is a condensation of a much more elaborate two-disc package from her home. It’s not…

The company you keep Few artists move between genres–let alone worlds–with the ease of John Cale. Who else has been featured in a 1963 New York Times article on the performance of an 18-hour-long John Cage avant-classical composition and then, 16 years later, fronted a punk band at CBGB’s, down…

Slouching toward distinction Equus Plebeian Monarchs Carpe Diem Records Like another band on the local Carpe Diem label, Cafe Noir, Plebeian Monarch’s music is a reconstitution of familiar melodies. But Plebian Monarch’s Equus lacks what Cafe Noir–through its distinctly Old-World sound–presents: a truly new experience. Throughout most of the nine…

I was lucky enough to first see Bill Hicks in a comedy club in Austin in the early ’80s; he was a fresh voice in a medium already going stale and self-indulgent. Nobody else so perfectly captured the rage that came with having a brain during the Reagan years, that…

Fifty miles of elbow room The movie Tender Mercies is about as evocative a movie about a place (in this case, Texas) as has yet been made; not so much for the acting or story (both of which are excellent), but for the cinematography–particularly the shots in which the sky…

“Hey; kids, let’s put on a show!” has been a hallowed pop catchphrase since Mickey Rooney played Judge Hardy’s sincere but trouble-prone son Andy. Rock ‘n’ roll reduced the prerequisites to a few instruments, drums, and electrical outlets, and youngsters across the globe have been cleaving the night with their…

We think long and hard about our culture’s infatuation with retro- (both -grade and -spective); it beats thinking about the VISA bill. How much is too much? When does our constant reworking of the past cease to be funny or cute and begin to be genuinely hateful? Where to draw…