Scene, heard Drew Phelps has been around for so long and played with so many people — including Sara Hickman, the Dixie Chicks, and Café Noir — that he has the reputation of a hired gun, to the point that even when he’s playing gigs with his own outfit, people…
Bill Bentley never met Alexander “Skip” Spence, never even spoke with the man whose music meant so much to him. He had come close before, when Spence’s erstwhile band, Moby Grape, played at the Catacomb Club in Bentley’s hometown of Houston. But Spence wasn’t there that night, kept off the…
A year ago, Cory Kreig would have found it hard to believe that his band, Flickerstick, would be headlining at Trees, especially on a weekend night. The group seemed stuck in Fort Worth without a map, unable to find a way into Deep Ellum that didn’t lead through three-bands-for-three-bucks gigs…
I am the creator and this is my house, and in my house there is only house music. But I am not so selfish, because once you enter my house it then becomes our house and our house music…You may be black, you may be white, you may be Jew…
The food court at Valley View Mall is crowded, even for a Saturday morning. Hundreds of people are milling around, and none of them is here today to shop. The mall’s security guards obviously weren’t expecting this many people to be here, and though it’s not yet 11 a.m., it’s…
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Xtra-Acme USA (Matador Records) Jon Spencer probably counts his enemies among his fans, since at least those who hate him give a shit one way or the other. After all, the world is divided equally among those who think he’s a deconstructionist-revisionist-pomo godhead and those who…
Jack Ingram Close enough (Lucky Dog/Sony Nashville) It might not be fair to blame Jack Ingram for such acts as the execrable Pat Green or a thoroughly unoriginal and clichéd newcomer like Adam Carroll, but as one of the originators of the post- Robert Earl Keen syndrome, Ingram has definitely…
Del McCoury Band Don’t go see Del McCoury just because he cut an album (last year’s The Mountain) and toured with Steve Earle. Not that it isn’t a fine recommendation, but McCoury’s anointment by postmodern country icon Earle is just part of the story with the bluegrass singer, guitarist, and…
Elvis Costello with Steve Nieve It would make more sense if Elvis Costello were coming to Starplex Amphitheatre with a band, any band, rather than just his acoustic guitar and former Attraction Steve Nieve and his piano. It might not be better, but it would definitely be more appropriate. Starplex…
Mandy Patinkin There’s a lot to admire about the guy — and not just that he had the good sense to leave Chicago Hope, only to return when people stopped remembering why it was such a big deal that he left in the first place. Patinkin’s probably the last singer…
Dance Hall Crashers Nine years and four albums (including the recently released Purr, but not counting two subsequent reissues of its 1990 debut) into its career, Dance Hall Crashers is still mainly known for the fact that Operation Ivy’s Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman started the band before going on…
At the beginning of this year, Momus (known around the house as Nick Currie) began soliciting participants for a “portrait album” he was calling Stars Forever. The idea: People would give Momus $1,000 to write and record a song about them, and they would become “stars forever” when he released…
At the time, no one could have known how important Nirvana’s appearance on Saturday Night Live would be, how many bands would form in its wake, how different the world would sound soon after it happened. Nirvana was just another band on the way up that Saturday Night Live was…
Trees was packed that night, and you couldn’t help but wonder whether the club would have been quite so packed if the band on stage, Sleater-Kinney, were made up of three men instead of three women. Drummer Janet Weiss was capable but not great, suffering from that awkward, constipated look…
Terror Twilight, Pavement’s fifth full-length album, is a hard record to get a fix on. Scott Kannberg, Pavement’s guitarist, is having problems explaining it himself. Over breakfast in a restaurant near his home in Berkeley, he’s doing his best. “Parts of it are pretty light,” he says, “but at least…
By all rights, Smash Mouth should have come and gone by now, one-hit wonders saddled up on their one-trick pony and headed into the dimming sunset. “Walkin’ on the Sun” — with its cheese-log Farfisa beat and British-Invasion-by-way-of-Southern-California big-beat pop — was so ubiquitous in the winter of 1997 and…
Jon Randall is thinking about moving back to Dallas, coming home after 12 years in Nashville spent working on other people’s projects while watching his own fall apart. Well, he doesn’t say the last part, but it’s not too hard to finish his sentence. It’s a story that’s all too…
David Bowie “Hours…” (Virgin Records) He spent two recordings (Outside and Earthling) trying to cop Trent Reznor’s moves, which sounded as foolish as it looked. The Man Who Fell to Earth landed with a giant thud, proving once and for all that chameleons do indeed age with the gracelessness of…
Scattergun Reflex laughing at a dead man (Laser Trax Records) All too often, bands are defined by recommended-if-you-like comparisons, first impressions that stick around long enough to pick up negative connotations. Influences become indictments, the end of a sentence that begins, “They’re just ripping off…” It’s certainly difficult to avoid…
Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt It’s easy to think of Harris and Ronstadt’s new Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions as Duo; the only thing missing is Dolly Parton, which is like saying the only thing missing from daylight is the sun. That said, the trio’s first record in 1987 beats…
Motörhead How many years, how many allusions to This Is Spinal Tap must a band endure before digging its own grave and graciously crawling into it? You would have thought that singer-bassist Lemmy Kilmister’s need for speed, tempo and otherwise, would have severely curtailed the group’s staying power. Yet here…
Nerves There are pretty much two kinds of punks in the world: the ones who think the thunderous miasma of the Stooges’ Funhouse is the greatest album ever and those who believe the tinny, ripping sneer on Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power is what makes the world go round…
