Fade away…please…God Stripped The Rolling Stones Virgin Records The title hints at an “unplugged” set-up–acoustic guitars, no overdubs, live and in-person–but the only thing Keith Richards is unplugged from is a life-support machine. This is rock and roll that sounds as though it were recorded in a museum or an…
Vaughan, not forgotten Greatest Hits Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Epic Records A best-of that kicks off with a previously unreleased cover of a Beatles song that should have stayed that way–that is, unreleased; that is, a Beatles song–this is the marketing gimmick for those who only know and…
Moody music Original Soundtracks 1 Passengers Island Records The Passengers are Brian Eno and U2 with special guests; the sound tracks may or may not exist in places other than their own minds; the album is more or less a sequel to Eno’s own brilliant, ambient “sound tracks” of the…
When Mac Curtis visited England in December 1977, it was not as a tourist, but as a long-awaited hero. Maybe even as something of a god. Curtis had not performed in front of a crowd like this in nearly 20 years, but when he stepped up to the microphone at…
In 1992, when I began performing Monday nights at the Winedale Tavern on Lower Greenville Avenue, it was Skid Row’s royal palace in Dallas. There, some patrons behave as if released from Parkland Hospital’s observation ward directly to the Winedale; others, as though sprung from the dog pound. The audience…
Middle-age riot The early albums led to it, the later ones strayed from it in varying degrees of brilliant: 1988’s Daydream Nation was the album, “Teen Age Riot” was the Epiphany, and the noise was never again so catchy or perfect. Those who’d claim not to “get” Sonic Youth–those who…
Soul survivor In the Mood Ernie Johnson Waldoxy Records According to Ernie Johnson’s legend, as he recounted to the Observer last year, the 44-year-old soul singer recorded his first track 27 years ago (“Lovin’ You,” by Fats Washington), performed with Texas guitar slinger Lowell Fulson, and was encouraged to sing…
“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…
