After several nights on the road, the tour bus has finally come to a daylong rest in North Carolina, and the sun is shining for the first time in weeks for the five young Michigan boys who call themselves the Verve Pipe. Drummer Donny Brown has just gotten off the…
For a couple of years now, Homer Henderson (Phil Bennison) has provided folks who like to mix tapes for their friends with an infallible indicator of just when those tapes get listened to. Put one of Henderson’s sardonic ditties–“Nightclub Cancer” or “Lee Harvey was a Friend of Mine”–on the tape,…
Almost there Too Far to Care Old 97’s Elektra Records Wreck Your Life, the 1995 effort of the Old 97’s, was a snapshot from a band stretching their original premise to the breaking point, an album that sounded almost like a parody–a problem that dogs many of the acts signed…
Formula one racers Lamb Lamb Mercury Records Something smells like a trend here. The basic formula seems to consist of a sexy female singer casting out seductive vocals while a geeky DJ-producer sits behind the boards conjuring a whirl of electronic drum ‘n’ bass, comfortable in his position of relative…
In the middle of answering a question, Mark Eitzel notices a jacket worn by one of the Warner Bros. Records publicists who are hanging around his hotel room. He forgets what he’s saying–something about why he doesn’t really hate people, he just likes when they ain’t around–when he sees the…
Two heads better Strange Happy Earl Harvin and Dave Palmer Leaning House Jazz I’ve got about 40 CDs in the drawer next to my computer. I listen to them when the guy at the desk next to me gets too loud or the construction crew across the street starts blasting…
They’ve been around so long, you probably thought it would ever be thus, but Lithium Xmas–first founded in 1985 and one of the few acts that remain from that era–has decided to call it quits with a pair of shows over the next few weeks. “It’s all so sprawling that…
The comforting sounds of Walking Wounded are playing in the background at New York’s Tower Records as a crowd gathers to meet Ben Watt of the coolly subdued dance-pop duo Everything But the Girl, but Watt isn’t in town this Tuesday night to spin at a club or promote a…
Dream team In an age of commercialization, wherein big shots such as U2 undergo Lon Chaney-into-Wolfman transformations in calculated attempts to remain hip to fans half their age, it’s refreshing to run across Malford Milligan. As the frontman and big voice behind Austin’s Storyville, Milligan (pictured) practices a times-gone-by sort…
Like a present Wrapped Bruce Robison Boar’s Nest Records The romantic habits of talented–or at least well-known–people often seem to get a tedious amount of attention, but the fact that Bruce Robison is married to Kelly Willis makes such perfect sense that it’s hard not to mention, especially when Robison’s…
What with Radish, Quindon Tarver, and LeAnn Rimes clogging the arteries of the music press these days, it’s often overlooked that North Texas’ original major-label wunderkind was jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove. But that was a few years back, and it’s easy to forget that Hargrove, who graduated from Dallas’ Arts…
Far from the same old news Most Things Haven’t Worked Out Junior Kimbrough Fat Possum/Capricorn Records Mr. Wizard R.L. Burnside Fat Possum/Epitaph Records There are all kinds of blues, from the downtown blues of Bobby Bland to the by-now Disney blues of B.B. King and the greasepaint blues of clowns…
Opposites attract Slag the West End for being a tourist pit if you will, but it deserves credit for being the original bonding ground for bluesmen Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King. King was a Louisiana-born jazzman who didn’t figure blues even existed anymore until he accompanied vocalist Kendra Holt…
Few bands are as startling visually–or as mixed a bag–as Carolyn Wonderland and the Imperial Monkeys. First of all, there’s Wonderland herself, the proud possessor of a truly impressive set of pipes that seem to make all previous comparisons to the Big J (Janis, as in Joplin) seem a bit…
Although there are times when you might wish that songs, like milk, had expiration dates–perhaps right after the DJ says “Say, whatever happened to these guys?” and plays Frankie Goes to Hollywood–music is far more than just a diversion or background accompaniment. It is almost inadvertently a record of a…
Answering the door of his Los Angeles home on Mulholland Drive, perched between the Valley and the sky, Harry Dean Stanton appears as he has for decades–a bit ragged but surprisingly sturdy, stubble on a wilting chin, rumpled clothes over a thin frame. His hair, which lies back on his…
Snap, crackle, power pop Telecommando Americano Material Issue Rykodisc There seems to be no Local Band Hell more deserving of the title than that which is found in Chicago. With the possible exception of a healthy–if a tad contrived–alt-country scene, Windy City bands slave away and slag each other as…
Only in a strange world would this happen: You settle down for a nice little afternoon nap and wake to the sound of the phone ringing. You answer, and an unfamiliar voice says, “Yo, this is Todd.” Dazed, you think to yourself, “Todd who?” But before you can ask, he…
Whenever–and whatever–he wants John Mellencamp deserves something. Sure, he’s a mouthy, pushy, arrogant guy who seems to take himself very seriously and often has a chip the size of an asteroid on his shoulder. In the past, he’s made much hay over “bad-ass” episodes like the punching out of a…
There’s nothing wrong with a little self-empowering confidence or belief in your mission, but there comes a time when you have to acknowledge that your plan ain’t workin’. After seven years and three albums, and a period of popular ubiquity in the early ’90s, Soul Food Cafe is facing that…
Smells like Texas spirit Gospel Tunes form the Bowels of Texas Various Artists Sutra U Records Big Hits Iron Bong Lost Records As apathy rules the local airwaves, albums like Gospel Tunes from the Bowels of Texas are welcome, if only for stirring the stagnant mud of industry-friendly rock. Even…
Do you hear a lone trumpet blowing Deguello as you walk from the parking lot to work each morning? Do you still mourn Lee Van Cleef’s descent back into television or wish you could peer icily out from under your flat-brimmed cowboy hat at your boss, slowly remove your cigar–a…
