Exile on mainline Acme The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Matador/Capitol Records Jon Spencer’s all concept–post-punk, post-blooze, the Delta by way of SoHo–so the execution’s not a problem; hasn’t been since he and Pussy Galore turned the blues into performance art and boogied on that fine line that separates revolutionary genius…
Willie Hutch’s studio sits along a desolate stretch of Highway 67 in Cedar Hill. It is just off the highway, not far from an exit no one seems to use very much–unless, perhaps, they are in need of used tires, which are sold at the establishment sitting next to the…
Uncle Tupelo’s 1990 debut No Depression was a lousy way to start a musical revolution. Taking everything they’d learned from their beloved Gram Parsons and Replacements records, Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy strived to create a country-rock synthesis and wound up just making a mess. For all its youthful exuberance,…
Let me begin by stating that I have seen Simon Reynolds do the methylenedioxymethamphetamine boogie. Moreover, I have on occasion shared water bottles with him. This seems important to note for two reasons. One is to reveal that books are sometimes reviewed by colleagues or friends of the author (yes,…
Hair today, gone yesterday Buried Alive Chet Arthur Presidential Records It’s not hard to imagine the members of Chet Arthur watching This is Spinal Tap and not getting a single joke, so blissfully unaware are they of rock-and-roll cliches. I mean, any band that writes “You can be my rock…
It seems like forever ago that R.E.M emerged from Athens, Georgia, looking like art-school students who drove pickups to class (except for Michael Stipe, who probably rode his bike). What has it been now–17 years since the first single? How time flies when you’re having no fun at all. That…
Hard as a rock 1965 Afghan Whigs Columbia Greg Dulli would like to think he’s the blackest cracker around; the only thing he loves more than his magic johnson is his soul-music record collection, which he hauls out every now and then when he wants to rearrange the words to…
Two years ago, Blake Schwarzenbach wasn’t being interviewed by writers. He was one, paying the bills by contributing reviews to PC gaming magazines such as GameSpot and writing for a couple of travel guides. After six years as the frontman for Jawbreaker–six years of constant touring and incessant bickering–he had…
He is the walking dead, a corpse who roams the earth long after his time ran out. He has died twice now: first, when the world discovered he was a fraud and a liar and abandoned him to making films with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; the second time, when…
Dust, brutha You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby Fatboy Slim Astralwerks/Caroline Norman Cook’s pure-pop pleasures do not last beyond…quick, now. You can listen to his music–a concoction of distorted samples and big-beat throwdowns–all day and all night, and still it doesn’t last beyond the moment when everything goes silent. Then…
In the booklet for his 1985 career anthology, Biograph, Bob Dylan mused on the differences between his rapturously received 1974 “comeback” tour and the contentious series of shows he had given eight years earlier. On the surface, much was similar about these two tours: In both cases, Dylan was backed…
As witch movies go–even lighthearted, supposedly comic witch movies–Practical Magic is conspicuously lacking in supernatural phenomena. Director Griffin Dunne (Addicted to Love) can’t scare up a single bedeviled infant or evil spirit living in a Ouija board; the best he can come up with is a boiling cauldron and a…
Early last week, Arnold Joseph Poovey held in his hands the compact disc that was going to rescue his name from the dustbin of rock-and-roll history. The disc, titled Greatest Grooves, summed up his career, all 40-plus years of it, in one rollicking 55-minute burst. It revealed a rockabilly kid…
Bless this mess The Nu Nation Project Kirk Franklin Gospo Centric/Interscope Kirk Franklin is preacher as pop star, a Man of God who worships the shiniest coin and the shiniest song. He has brought Jesus into the mainstream like no one since The Artist Formerly Known as a Jewish Carpenter…
Mose John Allison, Jr. That’s the way it’s written in the book Don’t call me Moss, don’t call me Moose It’s not some made-up show biz hook You can call me Mose But only if you come from down Mexico way. –“MJA Jr.,” from Gimcracks and Gewgaws, 1998 I first…
Bad Livers Industry and Thrift Sugar Hill The Gourds gogitchyershinebox Watermelon/Sire The Gourds’ Kevin Russell and the Bad Livers’ Mark Rubin and Danny Barnes used to live in the ol’ 214, used to play Deep Ellum on weekends for spare change and drink tickets…and used to dream about moving to…
For many bands, signing a major-label deal is like trying to date two girls at once: It hardly ever works, people hate you for doing it, and although the pitfalls are well-documented, it’s tempting enough to try anyway. When a Dallas band signs to a major label, it’s even more…
Hank Williams was a drunk, a mean drunk who died at 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac. He was a semiliterate plagiarist, a whoremonger, a brawler, and an egomaniac. He was a stingy manager of top-flight musicians and a notoriously unreliable employee who somehow managed to get canned…
Tupelo honey Weird Tales Golden Smog Rykodisc Wide Swing Tremolo Son Volt Warner Bros. It’s far easier to like Jeff Tweedy’s songs than those written by his old friend and partner Jay Farrar. That’s because they’re written for you, about you, to you; they come at you with open arms…
It should be the stuff that Nashville’s dampest dreams are made of: two strapping singin’ and songwritin’ brothers from a wild-west small town in Texas. Both grew up ranching in the Hill Country, working on an oil pipeline, and playing in a local band before both won sports scholarships to…
James Lavelle, the 24-year-old founder and president of England’s Mo Wax Records, has an active fantasy life, and movies are his touchstone. The promotional items for Psyence Fiction, a new CD credited to a project he’s dubbed UNKLE, include a mockup of the original poster from Star Wars (his favorite…
Intercourse without love. That’s how local KDGE-FM (94.5) disc jockey Josh Venable plans to introduce a certain band on his Sunday-night show, The Adventure Club, when he spins a song from the group’s new record, Conduct. That, or a word scramble: “It has an F, a C, a K, and…
