Veruca Salt From a press release, received this week: K-tel proudly announces the release of the second volume of Unlistenable ’90s: The Alternative Years, which will arrive in stores July 4, 2000. Celebrate the spirit of indie-pendence with this cool alternative, featuring Urge Overkill (“Sister Havana”), Concrete Blonde (“Joey”), Liz…
The Makers In the past few months, The Makers have gotten unprecedented hype even though their act–like most of those that get relatively huge in the world of college radio, record-store employees, and alternative newsweeklies–is neither new nor particularly spectacular. Beginning early in the ’90s, they put out some wild…
Modest Mouse The overwhelming bleakness of the Pacific Northwest has produced more than its fair share of melancholy artists, people both inspired to genius and doomed to failure by their dismal surroundings. Kurt Cobain is probably the most famous, the so-called spokesman for his generation who ended up on the…
The Bangs Susanna Hoffs’ former outfit briefly used the name, but it never quite fit; they were Bangles, after all, sparkly-spangly little do-dads no more or less significant than a candy bar or a belly-button ring. To bear the name The Bangs, you gotta have more meat on your bones,…
The Blazers I’ve always thought of The Blazers as the younger brothers of Los Lobos. Of course, The Blazers remind me at times of Los Lobos in their early days, back before Lobos discovered their ability to be as expansive with roots music as The Band, and as artistic, in…
Scene, heard Let’s be completely clear about this: Former Observer writer Christina Rees meant no harm when she wrote about the basement shows happening at Mr. Gatti’s on The Square in Denton (“Rock bottom,” May 28, 1998). Of course, her story indirectly led to the fire marshal coming down on…
When CDs get stuck and start skipping violently, it’s a million times worse than the sound of an album locked in a groove ever was. It’s more like hearing a Martian deathray obliterating a favorite record, one digital particle at a time. Next time you’re at a party and someone…
The Toadies’ new album (titled Feeler last time we checked, though that’s probably changed) is–drum roll, please–finished. As in, it’s been recorded, mixed, and mastered. Done. All of it. Finally. Well, just about. There are still a few pesky details to take care of, such as artwork, liner notes, and…
Scene, heard Of course, there aren’t that many local bands available to open for The Toadies on May 27, mainly because a number of them will be at Trees that night as part of The Adventure Club’s sixth anniversary concert. The lengthy lineup includes, in order of appearance: Alan Randolph…
Billy Bragg & Wilco Mermaid Avenue Volume 2 (Elektra Records) For weeks, the top of the pops has been dominated by pretty, empty heads whose mouths have been filled with pretty, empty words written by hacks who find inspiration in rhyming dictionaries. The teen market has taken over, and grown…
Early Tracks The Old 97’s (Bloodshot Records) At this point in The Old 97’s career, a collection like Early Tracks isn’t really necessary. Early Tracks is a bit of music-industry sleight of hand, a trick designed to divert the attention of their fans until a new album is ready. But…
Don Henley Don Henley’s new album, Inside Job–his first in 11 years, incidentally, making it “one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the new century,” or so reads the back of the advance CD–arrived in the mail a month ago. I still have not listened to it, and I…
Robert Earl Keen’s Texas Uprising In theory, Robert Earl Keen’s Texas Uprising is a splendid idea: A celebration of rising singer-songwriter and neo-country talent from Texas, capped off by one of the state’s finest products since Big Red soda. In practice, it’s almost as good, if slightly schizoid to these…
National Skyline Sitting at home during a break from touring with his band Hum after the release of its surprisingly successful major-label debut, 1995’s You’d Prefer an Astronaut, Jeff Dimpsey decided to write a 40-plus-minute song. Well, he didn’t intend the song to be almost an hour in length–it just…
Potential. It’s an overused and double-edged word, implying lack of present-tense success and the possibility of future failure. It’s is a word that was used, quite accurately and frequently, to describe what the band Mineral had. The group released only two full-length albums, The Power of Failing and EndSerenading, during…
Electronic music may have survived the great hype of 1997, but the aftershocks still echo through the halls of the pop industrial complex. Now, the music is healthier than ever, in no small part because of the fact that the majors have realized there is no quick buck to be…
Stick Men with Ray Guns Some People Deserve to Suffer (We Don’t Have the Time Productions) From nowhere–or Lantana, Florida, more precisely–arrives this 16-song tombstone, to be placed on Stick Men with Ray Guns’ unmarked grave. Noisy, messy, and unholy, this disc of previously unreleased lumps of coal–most of them…
Fang It’s no secret that Fang’s decade-long hiatus was because of vocalist Sam “Sammytown” McBride’s eight-year stint in a California prison. His time in the joint was fairly short considering the reason he landed there: The strangulation death of his 24-year-old girlfriend while he was completely out of his head…
REO Speedwagon, Styx, Starship, Loverboy, and Eddie Money Is this a concert bill or a punch line to a joke that begins with the words “April Wine?” If you don’t know the answer, most likely you’ve already been to Texas Tickets and paid $500 for a pair of front-row tickets…
Standing on the stage of New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, the old man looked broken, beaten down, a scream reduced to a whisper. It had been almost two years since he had last performed in public, after announcing in October 1997 that he was suffering from Shy-Drager Syndrome, a form of…
“Welcome to my website. Yes, this is the same Joe Jackson who had a couple of pop hits some years ago. A lot of people have understandably lost track of me over the last five years or so…I’m not dead yet.” –Introduction to www.joejackson.com Joe Jackson’s autobiography–A Cure for Gravity,…
To the casual listener, Louisiana’s two major roots music styles, Zydeco and Cajun, probably sound like similar servings from the same pot of gumbo. It’s an understandable misperception; both Zydeco and Cajun accent the accordion and dancing, and the two genres share many of the same riffs and even songs,…
