It was an odd, unexpected sight at the Christmas party thrown this year in Austin by Hamstein Publishing and Lone Wolf Management: the four members of Sixteen Deluxe–Austin’s great white (pop) hope–gushing about their brief encounter with ZZ Top’s Dusty Hill at the shindig. In an era dominated by unabated…
Captain Fantastic rides again Back in 1975, when my best friend and I were screaming, weeping, Tiger Beat mad about Elton John, our small grade-school hearts raced faster the minute one of his songs came on the radio or one of his antics made the news. Although I acquired an…
If you don’t know what a “wet line” is, check out Samuell Boulevard between Sibley and Boone, the boundary that separates where liquor may and may not be sold. Of the 16 establishments that line this section of street, 12 are either liquor stores, beer stores, or bars. One of…
More than HoJo mojo Voodoo Love The Voodoo Kings Virtual Records The borders of genre are often cliche or even worse, especially when you start dealing with questions of cultural imperialism–like taking the blues and turning it into good-time party music for white people. Voodoo–or as they say in Haiti,…
Rock and roll legend Carl Perkins died on Monday morning, January 19, at 10:30 a.m. of complications developed following a series of three strokes that he had suffered at the end of 1997. He was 65. Although spit-curled Bill Haley is arguably the first white rock and roll star, Perkins…
Gregory Slavins is alert and attentive, even intense, behind the piano at Sambuca restaurant in Deep Ellum, but he’s not constricted by his creativity like some virtuosos. Around him, the pre-Christmas swirl of drinks and dinner turn, especially warm in the holiday glow; most people listen to conversation–or blather–not the…
For less than the ages Certified Funky 2 Professor D and the Playschool D-Funk At certain population levels, people start to cluster their dwellings together; then they build walled villages, then big cities. Like roads and aqueducts, bands like Professor D and the Playschool come about when there are a…
Sonny Bono looked so fragile the day we met, wearing an insurance salesman’s suit and a politician’s smile. The suit was brown, the smile enormous. That was seven years ago, and Bono was in town at the Adolphus Hotel receiving reporters during his trip through town, just another stop on…
Native sounds Tribal Fires various artists Earthbeat!/Rhino Records Mirabal Mirabal Warner Brothers Records The concept of Native American music covers a lot of ground. Anyone who’s traveled much through the American West–particularly if on a tour of state and national parks–is familiar with the authentic bone-flute-drums-and-chanting albums that are constantly…
Dallas is hardly a town devoid of rap and hip-hop talent. Unfortunately, of the many groups trying to find a niche in the city’s music scene, few seem to know how to go about doing it. This past year Dallas hip-hop talent finally got a dose of credibility by way…
Well on their way When you consider the direction that contemporary gospel music has been moving recently–draining away any grit or unpredictable emotion and substituting danceable grooves and appealing production–it’s little wonder that one of the biggest gospel acts, the vocal septet Take 6, makes its headquarters in Nashville, the…
Too Far To Care, The Old 97’s (Elektra) UFOFU, UFOFU (Medicine) Redo The Stacks, Centro-matic (Steve) The Twelve-Point Masterplan, Bobgoblin (MCA) Barrel-Chested, Slobberbone (Doolittle) Hell Is Other People, Dynamite Boy (Off-Time) Golden Energy, the tomorrowpeople (Last Beat) Chromatose, Novachrome (self-released) Shimmer, Buck Jones (steve) The Impossibles, The Impossibles (Red 5)…
Local musicians had one thing going for them this year: With the national music scene cruelly besieged by market forces, there was less difference between local and national in 1997 than ever before. Radish was the focal point of a fevered bidding war in 1996, with label execs renting cars…
Sometimes they come back Anyone who has cause to look back ruefully on the ’80s probably can recall a band like A-Train. You know the type: hard-working floor-stirrers providing the soundtrack to another night of blitzed barroom bonhomie, the kind of a band you declared to be greeeat! This was…
One of the reasons blues stays great is that so few people support it. Unfortunately, a small, picky audience can ensure a scene where little abject bilge is marketed but it can’t stop the bland, mannered albums that were the norm this year. The market is dominated by thoroughly dispensable…
One of the good things about the howling, whirling, all-ingesting mouth of the pop-culture machine is that as it strips the surroundings bare of anything that might prove useful–septuplets, people who are afraid to love, cigar-smoking dogs–it does occasionally stir up some pretty neat stuff from olden times. Here are…
Too Far to Care, The Old 97’s (Elektra Records). Lost in the Land of Texico, Tom Faulkner (Serrano Records). ear X-tacy II, Andy Timmons (oo/Sony Japan). The Land of Freedom and Pleasure, The Hollisters (Freedom Records). Marchel Ivery Meets Joey DeFrancesco, Marchel Ivery (Leaning House Records). Let Me Play With…
Soul brother Stevie Ray Vaughan died just as he was becoming the great guitar player the cult of millions always insisted he was–not just a man who could play faster than God, not just an acolyte who could turn ancient riffs into tomorrow’s templates, not just a reformed drunk who…
OK Computer, Radiohead (Capitol) Tone Soul Evolution, The Apples in Stereo (SpinART) Urban Hymns, The Verve (Hut/Virgin) The Wannadies, The Wannadies (RCA) Nimrod, Green Day (Reprise) Retreat From The Sun, That Dog (DGC) Revenge Is Sweet, And So Are You, Mr T Experience (Lookout!) Too Far To Care, The Old…
Buddy Miller, Poison Love (Hightone Records) Lonesome Bob, Things Fall Apart (Checkered Past Records) Steve Earle, El Corazon (E-Squared/Warner Bros. Records) Ray Wylie Hubbard, Dangerous Spirits (Rounder Records) R.B. Morris, Take That Ride (Oh Boy Records) John Fogerty , Blue Moon Swamp(Warner Bros. Records) Steve Forbert and the Rough Squirrels,…
Richard D. James, Aphex Twin (Elektra Records). The revolution starts and stops here: This is techno music, noise as melody, static as pleasure, pleasure as pain. As whimsical as it is menacing. Everything I Touch Runs Wild, Lori Carson (Restless Records). Love songs are rarely this painful; breakup songs, seldom…
How do you experience a year? Can a person ever shed his innate subjectivity and perceive or appreciate something on a different level than he would a warm, fuzzy sweater, a pork chop, or a long car trip? It doesn’t really matter; nobody’s going to pay me to write about…
