Every city has a few musicians like Stephen Nutt–talented performers who, for whatever reason, never found an audience. They probably never will, yet they’ve stuck around forever anyway, working as temps and busboys so they can keep their rock-and-roll dreams alive. They never made a fall-back plan, because they didn’t…
Few pop-culture developments have been so inevitable as a book of poetry by Jewel, rock music’s reigning queen of dime-store spirituality. A ripe tomato of a woman and a rotten apple of a songwriter, Jewel emerged from a Southern California coffeehouse a few years back armed with a canon of…
Setting sun Imagination Brian Wilson Giant Records “When I grow up to be a man,” he once wrote, but they didn’t let Brian Wilson grow up–they being his family and fans who wanted more fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun; so they called him a lunatic and drove…
That Nick Lowe has ducked the big, bright spotlight of Rock Stardom is a longstanding mystery of pop music. That he’s also managed to enter his fourth decade as one of rock’s most respected songwriter-producers with so much grace and wisdom is no mystery at all; he’s a clever one,…
He’s almost unknown now, another anonymous musician who sweats to get gigs and sells his basement tapes at shows and the odd independent record store that stocks local releases. He’s got a day job operating the clock at amateur hockey games around the area, and when he’s not keeping time,…
Coughing, hacking, and snorting phlegm, David Yow is half-asleep and trying to sound coherent. It’s 12:30 p.m. on a recent Tuesday, and Yow is in a Montreal hotel room, resting between concerts while on tour with his infamously aggressive band, the Jesus Lizard. He has no idea he was scheduled…
Groaning the blues Angels with Dirty Faces Tricky Island Records Tricky provides his own static, every other word a distorted rumble from the bottom of his throat; his voice defines him as much as the languid groove or the knotted coil of rhythms that snake beneath the melodies. And yet…
The record begins with the familiar, famous introduction: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he rumbles, his voice as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. He tries to add something to the trademark, but the crowd, clapping and cheering the presence of myth, doesn’t let him. Then there’s another man’s voice,…
Sonic Youth–the Grateful Dead of Amerindie rock. The sentiment seems, at first, improbable, if not laughable. After all, much of the Dead’s appeal can be traced to the accessibility of the assortment of American music that inspired it; theirs was a warm, familiar blend of country and blues and folk-rock…
Bourbon and water street Slurp! Hippie Gumbo Instigator Records Most bands from Dallas sound as though they could be from anywhere; theirs is so often a brand of music plucked from a Sam’s Wholesale shelf and served up stale before it’s even out of the box. Bands such as Loveswing,…
There are 192 copyright registrations sitting in the Library of Congress for the song “I Think About You”–who says all of the good ideas are taken? There’s a 1977 Patti LaBelle track titled “I Think About You”; another from 1989 by Michael Bolton; one more from 1979 by Sinatra knockoff…
This circle starts with one point: A quarter century ago, before the NBA era of shower-curtain shorts, when the Laker-land Forum floor was slicked with Happy Hairston’s hair grease and the sweat of Jerry West, a ballboy named Mark Ramos Nishita towel-dried the lane beneath the Stilt’s frame and fed…
One local musician once summed up the contributions of his band’s producer this way: “He smoked a lot of pot, yelled at his girlfriend, and hit record when we told him to.” Once, during the recording of Reverend Horton Heat’s Liquor in the Front at a Dallas studio, Al Jourgensen…
They don’t need to grow up Mass Nerder ALL Epitaph Records When Milo Aukerman left the Descendents in 1987 to pursue a career as a microbiologist, it wasn’t like the band couldn’t carry on. Aukerman was the Yber-nerd, the spastic, horn-rimmed geek that embodied the band’s lyrics of suburban alienation…
Like Don Quixote and his windmill, the leading lights of alternative rock defined themselves by what they were fighting. To varying degrees and with distinct stylistic differences, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor, and Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan battled the jocks who beat them up in high school (that is,…
The realest Deal Lovin’ Shootin’ Cryin’ and Dyin’ Kevin Deal Blind Nello Records Country music has long forgotten its roots; today’s music is no older than yesterday’s; and last week is damned near ancient history for the hillbilly millionaires of tomorrow. Those fetishists left in the audience who crave a…
For a moment, she seemed like she was country music’s underage savior, a teen angel with the voice of a rode-hard, road-weary woman. For a moment–a moment long since forgotten now, though it happened only…when was it?…Lord, just two years ago?–it appeared as though LeAnn Rimes would rescue country music…
Jim Lauderdale will be the first to tell you that, try as he might, he lacks the goods for Nashville megastardom. After all, the prolific singer-songwriter knows himself better than any Music City imagemaker could ever hope to; he has heard all about how he’s too much of this, too…
Two points, no foul He Got Game Public Enemy Def Jam/Mercury Records It’s not the blast from the past a fanatic might hope for–1994’s Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age had plenty more kick than this return from the grave, and that record’s considered by all but the most weak-kneed apologists to…
Tim Sanders must be going the wrong way. He’s on the Dallas North Tollway, heading toward Frisco. Conventional wisdom tells us that anyone driving a van carrying music equipment, wearing dark sunglasses, and not still living with his mother should be driving south, toward Deep Ellum, Exposition Park, Lower Greenville,…
See Tommy drink. Watch him grin. Hear him gush over the snapshot of his 8-year-old daughter, Ruby, who is far, far away. Observe the casual sips from his huge martini glass. The days of heavy drinking and drugging are behind him now. But Tommy sits happily tonight amid a great…
Crock rock Loveswing Loveswing Last Beat Records While Darlington reaps local praise for upholding a music tradition with its 1977 punk brattiness, or Cowboys & Indians are beloved for its too-good-to-be-true old-school Western swing, why can’t Loveswing be keepers of a flame, too? Because the grass fire of grunge still…
