For LL Cool J, or Ladies Love Cool James, the man who made the terry cloth fishing hat into de rigueur streetwear, the hits just kept a-coming. From his breakout single “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” in 1985, the first for Def Jam Records, to the double-platinum Mr. Smith…
With songs like “Martian Martians,” “I’m a Little Aeroplane,” and “Abominable Snowman in the Market,” it’s hard to believe that troubadour Jonathan Richman played such an important role in the burgeoning punk movement of the 1970s. But the Talking Heads, Television, and even the Sex Pistols (they covered the Richman…
When a musician cites influences as diverse as the poetry of William Blake, the country blues of Sleepy John Estes, and the field recordings of Alan Lomax all in the same breath, you know you’re in for something interesting. With all that poetry and roots mixed with jazz, rock, and…
here’s a story of a jazz saxophone player, one of the great avant-garde tenors, who was approached after a concert in Europe a few years back by a fan wanting an autograph. The fan handed him two CDs recorded by the sax player’s son, Joshua Redman, and asked him to…
Is Laurie Anderson the coolest chick on the planet? Not only has she thrived all these years with her artistic integrity intact, but she’s done it while scoring a number-two hit on the pop charts (in England, even cooler), making the critically acclaimed concert film Home of the Brave, and…
From this Miami Beach office window, you can almost see the Sony building. For independent dance label SFP (Sounds For the People), this is about as close as it gets to the record-biz big time. In fact the only thing SFP seems to have in common with the music giant…
If there’s been one constant in the long and winding career of Turkish virtuoso Omar Faruk Tekbilek, it’s his music, emphasis on his. From the nightclubs of Adana and Istanbul; to the production line of a Rochester, New York, clothing factory; to a string of albums and recognition as one…
“Just when I was thinking of getting out of the business … ” begins Beres Hammond. Before he can finish a chorus of boos breaks in, letting the Jamaican soul crooner know exactly what the audience thinks of that idea. The singer lets the response stand as an explanation of…
Madam, my name is unimportant, and this is my wife, whose name is unimportant, and our two lovely children, whose names are unimportant. Robert Ashley does not exist. He is a character William S. Burroughs invented in Tangier in 1955, the throb of a raw nerve in the fever dream…
If music is a journey, then John Abercrombie is a tour guide through a strange and wonderful land. A ride on the back of his guitar takes a listener through what appears, at first glance, to be a jazzy pastoral landscape. And just when you think the scenery is predictable,…
I feel like funkin’ it up. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s the summer weather in the middle of January, or the hot sauce in my beans. Or more likely it’s the distant drums from an approaching brass band workin’ its way down the street, getting louder and louder with…
ue the song “Last Night” by the Strokes, a band with a jangly hard-driving punky sound everyone says is so New York — sneering latter-day Lou Reeds. Immediately follow it in the randomizer with electronic artist Jega. The Manchester native’s dark, rapid-fire cut “D.M.C.” rips through the previous track’s guts…
This is Danny Jessup: Danny of the one-liners, Dan of the local music scene, the man onstage with the microphone and a quip, the impresario, the promoter, the artist, the handyman, the erstwhile talk show host, the poor man’s Letterman, the jokester friend on a barstool near you. This is…
Ever wonder what old Specials or Madness songs would sound like in Yiddish? Or hear a reggae memorial to those who died in the Holocaust? King Django will let you know, as well as sound out plenty of funky drums, reggae backbeats, and rockin’ guitars, with a dose of loop…
They’ve got the look, they’re gettin’ the buzz, and their sound is straight out of a New York garage via Memphis. This is the kind of lo-fi, hi-fuzz sound that rattled the windows of the neighbors’ houses across the U.S.A. — 30 years ago plus. Named after a couple of…
Aslender bamboo leaf floats from above and alights on the surface of a shallow pond. Under the water a school of dime-size minnows darts among the reeds, under a moon bridge, then circles around carefully placed rocks. Amid all this Asian greenery, a visitor resting beneath the shade of a…
Partially hidden behind palm fronds and gurgling fountains, the Green Room is working its way through a nine-song set on the patio of Piccadilly Gardens. The tropical landscaping of the design district restaurant/lounge that hosts Saturday night’s PopLife might obscure the band from sight, but the sound system is impeccable…
In a small storefront chapel in a typical neighborhood of San Francisco, between a corner market and an African fabric store, sits the Church of John Coltrane, where members meet twice a week to praise the Lord through the music and spirit of the late jazz legend. If Coltrane is…
On October 15, 2001, Derrick Morgan was awarded the Order of Distinction from the Jamaican government for his enormous contribution to the distinct culture of the island. “I’m so humbled that my country really recognized me and give me this honor before I’m dead, because many people get this honor…
Matthew Sabatella is back to music-making after his self-imposed three-years-plus immersion in cyberspace. Putting his own music career in mothballs, Sabatella set up the online music company SlipstreamPresents.com in early 1998. This week he’s finally found the time to release a followup to his 1997 album, Where the Hell Am…
In a flowing white tunic, the band leader takes up his mallets nimbly like a new appendage. With a subtle four count, his hands maneuver in quick jumps around the concave surface of his steel pan while the band follows with what sounds like a jazzy calypso tune. The plinky…
To see it from Birdman’s eye view, the sparse crowd for his Friday-night set recently at Churchill’s might signal a lack of appreciation for the veteran rocker’s special brand of music, a sort of southern Florida culture on the skids. But maybe it was just the shitty weather. Either way…
