God only knows what anyone loafing around Arlington, Virginia-based Inner Ear Studios thought upon hearing playbacks of Jets to Brazil’s just-released second album, Four Cornered Night. Recording home to bands such as Fugazi, Bluetip, the defunct Jawbox (whose former frontman, J. Robbins, has produced both Jets to Brazil discs), and…
Har Mar SuperstarHar Mar Superstar(Kill Rock Stars)Sean Na NaDance Until Your Baby Is A Man(Troubleman Unlimited)Never let it be said that St. Paul, Minnesota, ain’t got no soul. If there’s any doubt as to whether the R&B underground is thriving in the northern climes, the brothers Tillman have stepped up…
Lucy Pearl How long before Lucy Pearl’s self-titled debut reminds you its members–Raphael Saadiq, Dawn Robinson, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad–made their names with other bands, specifically and respectively, Tony Toni Toné, En Vogue, and A Tribe Called Quest? Oh, about two seconds. As his guitar noodles along “Lucy Pearl’s Way,”…
Weezer The point of previews like this, if there is one, is to give readers a chance to become listeners, maybe convince someone to go to a show they hadn’t considered, or warn them away from one, perhaps. That’s what they tell me, anyway: I always thought they were for…
After countless bass players, a few guitar players, a handful of name changes, more tattoos than most cell blocks, and at least a couple of years teetering on the brink, Darlington is no more. Stevey Stress (also known as Steve Visneau) and Brigitte Darlington (no telling what he’ll also be…
LaikaGood Looking Blues(Too Pure)Laika is the black-clad goth girl you sat next to in high school geometry. She scribbles poetry on the soles of her concert-worn combat boots. Black nail polish is never absent from her unkempt, nibbled nails. She wears a nose ring on the weekends. She’s slightly pretentious,…
In three weeks, the Black Heart Procession finishes the solo leg of their U.S. tour and hooks up with Man or Astro-Man? for a series of dates in the Northwest and along the East Coast. Man or Astro-Man?, as you might be aware, plays manic, intergalactic surf music, Dick Dale-on-crank…
The scene outside the Spotlight Lounge in Baden (just outside of St. Louis) was insane, nearly riotous. Inside, a couple thousand people were crammed together, waiting for the music to start. Outside, two lines held another thousand or so people. But the staff wasn’t letting anyone else in. In the…
It’s mid-morning and guitarist Charlie Hunter sounds surprised as he picks up the phone and cuts off his answering machine, which beat him to the punch. “I didn’t even hear the phone ring; I’m going to have to fire my phone,” Hunter says with a laugh, speaking from his apartment…
Watcha Tour In its second season, Watcha Tour comes back to remind us that Ricky Martin is not the sole face of Latin music, nor are Los Tigres Del Norte or Tierra. (Do people actually think Mexican kids listen to these guys?) While one concert tour can do only so…
From the musicians that brought you Weener (two of them, at least) comes Bluh, a band dedicated to the music of Blur. Well, that’s what we think it’s called, anyway; it was late, we’d bellied up to the bar a few too many times, and we have ears worse than…
Teddy ThompsonTeddy Thompson(Virgin Records)Rickie Lee JonesIt’s Like This(Artemis Records)He’s the son of Richard and Linda Thompson–hence, the no-shit CD review, since Teddy’s the heir to more than three decades’ worth of giddy accolades and piss-poor sales–and dear ol’ dad shows up on five of the debut’s 10 singalongs. But the…
Various artistsWhistle Bait: 25 Rockabilly Rave-Ups Ain’t I’m a Dog: 25 More Rockabilly Rave-Ups(Columbia/Legacy)Wild, raunchy, and brimming with chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, rockabilly–real rockabilly–was a musical sucker punch delivered to the button-down Eisenhower years. As unrefined as moonshine but packing twice the kick, here was homespun, hard-driving nose-thumbing aimed right at Mitch…
It’s a late night at Nomad Studios in Carrollton, where The Paper Chase’s John Congleton works as a sound engineer. At the moment, he’s sitting in a studio with one of his clients, gospel popster Kirk Franklin; Congleton, who worked with Franklin on 1997’s God’s Property, is acting as an…
It’s a Dallas stage, a few years ago. Picture a slightly younger Phillip Karnats onstage, clad in a black jumpsuit, “08” on the back. He’s just moved from Bloomington, Illinois, to add his guitar to the pre-Commercials, pre-Adventures Of Jet pop-rock stylings of Bobgoblin. On this particular night, a feisty…
The Joshua Tree home of musicians Victoria Williams and her husband, Mark Olson, is not easy to find. Situated on 10-odd acres, a mile or so off the main road on an unmarked, unpaved street–trail might be a better word–the home rests in the middle of a dusty patch of…
Rick’s Place–the anchor of Denton’s Fry Street for years and home to more drunken frat boys (‘scuse us, fraternity members) than a South Padre Motel 6–suffered an estimated $100,000 worth of damage following an early morning fire on August 16. Of course, it wasn’t quite as bad as some had…
The Who said good-bye in 1983, then again in 1989 with a stadium concert that barely escaped tarnishing the legend for good. There was Pete on the Cotton Bowl stage with his hand plastered and bandaged after having impaled himself on his guitar’s whammy bar; most of the time he…
There’s a strong temptation right now to rechristen this aging musician/megalomaniac as Stink, ’cause man oh man, does his new album suck. It’s called Brand New Day, and it does herald a new phase in the man’s career, one in which he is completely and utterly irrelevant. (Seen the video/Jaguar…
The BandMusic from Big Pink The Band Stage Fright Cahoots(Capitol Records) For far too long now, The Band has rested on the dusty shelves of musty intellectuals who treat the works of Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Rick Danko as though they’re history lessons instead of…
FlickerstickWelcoming Home the Astronauts(226 Records)Change, stay the same, sell out: With these three easy steps, you too can become a modern-rock phenom like Matchbox 20…er, Twenty. And Flickerstick’s debut, Welcoming Home the Astronauts, seems to illustrate that the band is willing to give this formula a shot. With the exception…
What you see before you — two brothers sharing a stage in front of the adoring handful, two boys singing songs about football, their grandfather’s birthday, and doing the dishes — is the opening few minutes of any episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, the happy tale before it mudslides…
