Blow fi the American Analog Set the American Analog Set Independent Them indie-rockers are a tortured lot–torn between two worlds, weary of rock and roll but unable to exist without it. They see these rock and roll instruments strapped over the shoulders, these drum kits standing in front of them,…
A languid harmonica, the trumpet of the downtrodden, is the first sound you hear on Bruce Springsteen’s new LP The Ghost of Tom Joad. Then comes the gentle tug of guitar strings and a voice too wise, too weary to worry about enunciating last syllables. “Men walkin’ ‘long the railroad…
Beached boy Orange Crate Art Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks Warner Bros. Records Whatever their collaborations in the past wrought–most of which was an album nobody’s ever heard in its entirety, the legendary Smile album, plus the single “Heroes and Villains”–this isn’t the promised return to form. It lacks…
No performer ever had to grow up in public like Frank Sinatra. No one has ever had every second of his adult life chronicled with so much detail and tenacity–in film, in photos, in books, and most certainly in song. As a result, he is man and myth in one…
Soul survivor There’s a genius in there somewhere–a genuine artist instead of a bullshit artist, Prince instead of Lenny Kravitz. But that’s Terence Trent D’Arby for you, an egomaniacal would-be superstar when he debuted in 1987 with the audacious Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby (hit single: “Wishing…
When Rita Webb left KNON-FM (89.3) a year and a half ago under the most trying and disheartening of circumstances, it was like being kicked out of the house she had grown up in. Her departure from the community radio station came during a difficult period in the station’s decade-long…
It’s Neu! and improved Acid/Opium Matt Castille Vas Deferens Organization The third cassette in the 10-tape series from local avant-noise collective Vas Deferens Organization, this is indeed the sound of men playing with their penises in public. But God love ’em, they aren’t ashamed about it. Art-rock, Krautrock, trance-rock–whatever the…
Before his November 7 appearance at the Dallas Music Complex, Bob Dylan hadn’t performed in Dallas since his 1990 concert at the Fair Park Music Hall. It was a sit-down (and scratch-your-head) affair, with Dylan blurring the line between mattering and muttering, lathering and butchering, as he rendered his own…
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…
