AC/DC Stiff Upper Lip (EastWest/Elektra) Steely Dan Two Against Nature (Giant Records) Angus, Brian, Donald, and Walter could have gone out and screwed up the formula, which, at their age, would have thrown out their backs. As it stands, expect to hear Stiff Upper Lip’s title track in one of…
A man in his 30s sits down to write his autobiography. He knows that doing so is a rather silly proposition. After all, what does a man in his 30s know? What has he lived through worth retelling? What experiences can he recount, what knowledge can he impart, that others…
New Jersey has long been the butt of jokes — the Polack of states, a place where all the bridge-and-tunnel cretins have Manhattan daydreams and bad ’70s ‘dos. Then along came a man they call The Boss and his colorful band of associates to make the Garden State cool. Yep,…
Last spring in Denton, Gregg Foreman — long-legged and wolf-voiced frontman of The Delta 72 — won my heart, along with that of everyone else in the audience at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios. He sang in smooth, guttural growls, played a mean slide guitar, and owned the stage as if…
It’s one of the oldest saws in show business: Ya gotta have a good gimmick. For Los Straitjackets, the gimmick came about by accident, but it turned out to be a nifty one: Mexican wrestling masks. Not that there is any relationship, per se, between Mexican wrestling and the instrumental…
George Neal moved to Denton in 1991, leaving behind Midwestern State University and Wichita Falls to attend the University of North Texas and immerse himself in the area’s rapidly expanding music community. Since then, he’s been Denton music’s biggest cheerleader, a familiar face at almost every show in town, whether…
Captain Audio LUXURY or whether it is better to be loved than feared (Last Beat Records) You get the feeling, after listening to LUXURY or whether it is better to be loved than feared a few times, that Captain Audio is trying to figure out where to go next. That’s…
Richard Thompson When I was 10, I dragged my father out of his hospital bed to take me to the Dallas County Convention Center for a Richard Thompson concert. I had never been to a concert, had no idea what actually went on at concerts, and was, in truth, partly…
The Mr. T Experience The following is an excerpt from the October 1999 issue of The T-Team, a monthly newsletter written, published, and distributed by Lawrence Tero, better known to friends and fans as Mr. T. Tero began the newsletter in 1983 when he was starring as B.A. Baracus in…
Beulah Beulah, Colorado, is a lovely hamlet nestled between the Wet Mountains, just 25 miles southwest of Pueblo. On the Fourth of July, Beulah, Wyoming, is home to the “Largest Parade in the Smallest Town” in the country. Beulah, North Dakota, boasts a nine-hole putting green made of real grass…
It happened around the time the Jungle Brothers and De La Soul had their verses removed from the final version of A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario,” the last song on the group’s 1991 breakthrough The Low End Theory. A three-way partnership was erased with the push of a button: Until…
Like the best mid-’60s work by Bob Dylan, the first three albums by the Clash redefined the rock-and-roll landscape into which they were unleashed. Between 1977 and 1979, the British punk foursome issued The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, and London Calling, along with a brilliant string of singles that…
The complaint most frequently levied against Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a conceptual one. Putting up a tourist-friendly, mainstream memorial to what began as anti-establishment music, critics of the Hall say, is the best possible way to snuff out any sense of danger the form…
The The has never really been a band, just an outlet for singer-guitarist Matt Johnson and his songs, his tales of dogs of lust and sweet birds of truth. Since the band formed in 1979, it’s been Johnson and whatever lineup he happened to be playing with at the time…
Jimmie Dale Gilmore One Endless Night (Windcharger/Rounder Records) The rise of the singer-songwriter has been one of the most gratifying and disastrous developments in contemporary popular music. Yes, Bob Dylan raised the folk and/or pop singer’s own song to high art. But ego has subsequently placed more weight on the…
>Bad Livers Blood & Mood (Sugar Hill Records) In the interest of full disclosure, Bad Liver Mark Rubin’s klezmer band, Rubinchik’s Orkestyr, played at my wedding a couple of years ago. But what’s a poor Jew boy from Dallas to do when it’s time to put the shtetl to the…
Chris Cornell SEATTLE — Former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell’s larynx was replaced today in an operation doctors described as the first of its kind. Cornell was forced to undergo the emergency surgery after a routine examination late last week determined that, after years of abuse, his larynx had virtually disappeared,…
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Déjà Vu: A One-Act The curtain opens, revealing four old men on a stage. They’re all standing in shadows, obscured from the audience. In the background, we hear what sounds like an echo of an ancient, familiar song — something long forgotten, except by the…
After a string of nominations and near-misses, Brave Combo finally won a long-deserved Grammy at the 42nd annual installment of the Grammy Awards, which happened February 23 in Los Angeles. The group won in the Best Polka Album category for last year’s Polkasonic, following previous nominations in 1996 for Polkas…
We won’t be hypocritical and claim that we’ve ever been big fans of the North Texas New Music Festival, but we’ll admit the organization has made several steps in the right direction in the past year. The latest is, perhaps, the best yet, though nothing can really top getting rid…
All too often, musicians are defined solely by their music, the lyrics they write, the records they make. A single frame becomes the entire film, a lifetime of personality quirks, habits, likes, and dislikes summed up by an hour of words and music — a few albums’ worth, if they’re…
Ed Hamell talks like he sings and plays guitar — fast. It’s a necessity for him; he has much to say and little time. He tells true stories that other songwriters couldn’t make up to save their souls or secure a record contract. He’s seen both sides: Hamell had the…
