“Indie-rock,” once used simply to describe music made on independent record labels with no connections to the majors, has become a genre unto itself as much as “alternative rock” or “metal” or “free jazz.” It now signifies a lifestyle, an allegiance to an aesthetic, a specific sound born in the…
God’s favorite singer Your Heart’s in Good Hands Al Green MCA Records When Reverend Al gave up girls for God in the late ’70s, he was only redirecting his love without sacrificing his passion; he moaned for the Father, groaned for the Son, begged for the Holy Ghost, but even…
Mumbling toward Bethlehem When he wants–when the mood strikes him and the lights aren’t too bright and the planets are aligned and the promoter’s check doesn’t bounce–Bob Dylan can give you a great show. Not merely shadowdancing on stage, not just Image and Legend going through the motions, but a…
The three members of Lower Caste Struggle sit hunched around a table, their eyes intense and their fingers fidgety. They scarf down pizza, suck down beer, exhale cigarette smoke, and pontificate about their young lives as punk rockers. Of the three band members, singer-guitarist Peter Yoass (not his real name,…
Santiago Jimenez Jr. reverently lowers the needle of one of the old wooden phonographs onto an old 78 RPM record made by his late father, Don Santiago Jimenez, in 1928. “Now this is the first record he ever recorded,” Jimenez explains, before sitting down in his San Antonio living room…
“I’d like society to have an open mind about music and not believe everything you hear on the radio and television. Investigate different ideas.” The man who says this sits in a nearly empty Deep Ellum restaurant between the breakfast and lunchtime rushes, preaching to an audience of one. Dressed…
When producer Ralph Sall set out to assemble his Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits album–which takes the concept of the tribute album to its extreme, blurring the line between gimmick and genius–he first decided which songs he wanted to use. A self-proclaimed “developmentally arrested” cartoon junkie fixated with the cartoons…
Eeeeew age From the Foundation of the World Chris Snidow Independent release New age music is tasteful background music for people who don’t need music at all, aural wallpaper for people who’d rather stare at blank spaces. When done right, when the music gives into the ambience and atmosphere and…
It’s a Moog point return of The Rentals The Rentals Maverick/Reprise Weezer’s 1994 debut revealed the occasional and surprising diamond among the coal: “Say it Ain’t So” and “My Name is Jonas” are perfect pop singles of the post-pop age, witty and cleverly crafted. The band’s contribution to the new…
Bleached roots rock The lyrics for Geraldine Fibbers’ first full-length album – Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home, released earlier this summer – are laid out as a book of short stories, table of contents and all. The song titles are presented as chapters (“XII. Get Thee Done”),…
To make a point about a song on his new album Gone, to underline how easy it would be to make a rock song sound like a country song sound like a bluegrass song, Dwight Yoakam uses as an example the works of Swiss-born abstract expressionist Hans Burkhardt. It’s a…
Heartland, but no soul Walk On John Hiatt Capitol Records A perennial journeyman on his fourth label in 20-plus years, Hiatt has seen his shots at fame come and go; once a new-waver pegged as the Elvis Costello of the Heartland, later resurrected as a roots-rocker with influential friends, he’s…
“I’m a martyr. It’s part of my insanity.” –Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan in the December 1994 Spin Billy Corgan is not the average, anonymous and faceless Rock Star. His offstage persona can’t be separated from his music because who he is in “real life” informs who he is on album–a…
Diva do and don’t Since departing the Supremes in 1970 and parting company with the talents of Motown’s hit-making songwriting factory (Holland-Dozier-Holland), Diana Ross has soared upon and sunk beneath the crashing waves of Stardom. She has been an adult-contemporary hit maker (“Touch Me in the Morning”), a disco diva…
Heavy, not metal Love American Style Caulk One Ton Records Caulk’s debut EP Learn to Take wasn’t metal, not really, though the novice could mistake it for such; it was actually pure noise heaped upon impure noise, and if there was an actual song to be found anywhere on the…
It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and singer Toni Price has just arrived at the back door of the Continental Club in Austin to play her weekly after-work gig known to its regulars as “Hippie Hour.” Up the hill behind the roots music haven, bulldozers and backhoes are clearing away the remains…
When his phone rings at the allotted time–precisely at midnight, as per his request–Will Johnson is fast asleep. His voice groggy, his words at first a random mishmash of syllables and hazy thought, Johnson explains he got home from the library earlier than he expected and went right to bed…
Looking back, forward Rollin’ Blues The Hash Brown Band Browntone Records If rock and roll’s stuck in low gear, if jazz is for snobs, if country’s gone pop and pop’s gone south, if R&B’s turned into barber-shop-quartet-soul, then the electric blues is really screwed: This music hasn’t changed in decades,…
Critics like to say the Velvet Underground is the second most influential band of the ’60s behind the Beatles, which is fine enough if you believe the Rolling Stones or the Who or even the Jefferson Airplane didn’t spawn their own evil brood in equal numbers. There’s the old saw…
The artist still known The Gold Experience Prince Warner Bros./NPG Written off as dead or dying by those who proclaimed him a genius just a few years ago, Prince (pronounced “Prince”) is now just another R&B artist who releases albums with prolific regularity; there’s no longer any hype or hoopla…
Aden Holt stretches out his 6-foot-9 frame on the floor, lying on his back with his Subway dinner in his lap and his head propped up on the back of a futon. Underneath shocks of messy blond hair, clad in his homemade “Deep Blow Someone” T-shirt and black jeans, Holt…
Scary Monster The Concept Album is a frightening beast that allows an artist to live out his most self-indulgent tendencies; if the pop-musician writes short and self-contained songs that are meant to tell a story, the creator of the Concept Album considers himself a bona fide artist who resides above…
