The phone is no friend of Curt Kirkwood. Too often, the tidings it bears are foul. He calls them “incomings from Tempe.” They go like this: Your brother’s wife overdosed this morning; She’s dead. Your brother got busted again last night, and he told the cops he was you. Your…
The Cardigans Gran Turismo (Mercury) This disc has been getting a lot of negative reviews, all undeserved. The Cardigans are from Sweden, have a cute, blond female singer, and scored a big international hit with the airy “Lovefool,” included on the teenybopper soundtrack to 1996’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet…
It seems like forever ago that R.E.M emerged from Athens, Georgia, looking like art-school students who drove pickups to class (except for Michael Stipe, who probably rode his bike). What has it been now, seventeen years, since the first single? How time flies when you’re having no fun at all…
Having a producer or four helps a lot on the new Jon Spencer Blues Explosion record, Acme. Although no single person is credited as a producer, there are no fewer than ten people listed as “mixers” of individual songs, and there are six different studios listed as recording sites for…
Here at New Times we think of our Top Ten lists as a time-honored tradition. For our third annual CD poll we reached out to the musical community yet again, in search of the best, or at least best-loved, albums of 1998. This time we asked local musicians and composers…
Afghan Whigs 1965 (Columbia Records) On the Afghan Whigs’ sixth album, singer Greg Dulli showcases his fascination with hip-hop and R&B by quoting Puff Daddy, Mase, Nas, the Temptations, and Marvin Gaye. It’s not that Dulli isn’t capable of coming up with his own words — his twisted-love narratives are…
After almost two years in hiding, Eric Knight, ex-leader of Vandal, has returned with a solo CD and a new backup band. Fans of Vandal’s pop-tinged hard-rock sound should enjoy Near Life Experience. Knight himself is simply happy to have released the disc. Not long ago he figured his days…
Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee may have the most famous penis on the Internet, but his prodigious man-part wasn’t the source of his initial fame. Lee has been a popular personality since the early Eighties, when he and bandmates Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and Mick Mars burst on to the…
The Christmas season is upon us again, and that means your local record store is stuffed with “holiday” music. A mini-industry that pulls in a half-billion dollars each year, the Christmas music boomlet sees the release of more than 2000 holiday-theme albums. Among the artists going Yule this season are…
It’s official: The Boss is dead. Not literally dead, like Elvis or FDR. Just conceptually dead, like the Christian Coalition or professional boxing. No one will be more delighted by this development than Bruce Springsteen, who first tried to kill his Boss alter ego about ten years ago when he…
There’s an absolutely great short film titled Neil Diamond Parking Lot that, unfortunately, most people will never see. Shot by two guys in Maryland, the film was done in 1995 as the followup to their 1985 underground cult classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Neither film had a budget; it’s strictly…
Randy Newman Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman (Rhino) Has there ever been an artist as politically incorrect as Randy Newman? Has there ever been a songwriter who risked so much of his reputation by singing in the voice of the unreliable narrator? Ever since 1968, when Reprise records issued…
Old Cuban music never dies, it just gets reissued. Blame it in part on the success of the 1997 Grammy Award-winner Buena Vista Social Club, but remastered or re-recorded CDs of all manner of Cuban oldies keep on coming. In 1998 record companies strip-mined the seemingly infinite mountain of Cuban…
When the Rolling Stones staged the first genuine rock-and-roll circus in 1968, they distributed gold-embossed metallic tickets to the members of their fan club, fed them, gave them twenty hours of music, clowns, and amusements, and then arranged for buses to take everybody home. All free of charge! In stark…
Al Galvez, the singer/guitarist/songwriter of A Kite Is a Victim, sits at a candlelit table in a bar on Coconut Grove’s Miami Marina just as night has fallen. A breeze stirs up the waves and rocks the boats docked in the distance. Across a patch of grass and under a…
I am dreaming as I write this. Forgive me if it goes astray. The artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, and currently known only as The Artist, has been baffling critics and fans for the better part of the decade. Ever since his 1993 decision to…
Even if you’re the most devoted Prince fan in the world, you’re going to get sick of “1999” before Labor Day. Here, then, are some alternatives for Song of the Millennium. “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” One of REM’s finest moments,…
Wendy & Lisa Girl Bros. (Girl Bros. Inc.) Seekers of a poignant, modern-day music saga need look no further than Wendy & Lisa. As members of Prince’s Purple Rain-era band, multi-instrumentalists Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman broke from their Napoleonic mentor in the mid-Eighties and recorded three auspicious albums, including…
Jonny Lang Wander This World (A&M) Pop culture mavens are always looking for a pretty new face on which to pin their fortunes. Nearly three years ago they found one in sixteen-year-old Jonny Lang, an anomaly of a teenager. Unlike most others his age, Lang spent the majority of his…
Growing up in the historic Old San Juan section of Puerto Rico’s capital, Giovanni Hidalgo didn’t dream of becoming a musician. He didn’t have to. “I’ve been playing since I was three,” he explains. Hidalgo was one of the founders of the groundbreaking Puerto Rican group Batacumbele, and he has…
It’s weird to think that it’s taken this long for the box set community to get around to John Lennon. Yet it has been eighteen years this week since he was gunned down in front of his apartment in New York City. His recording career from the time he released…
Sunny Day Real Estate is less a band than a psychodrama. Decisions aren’t just made; they’re agonized over. Relationships don’t simply end; they shatter. Reunions aren’t merely satisfying; they’re life altering. With these guys there are no half measures. They’re as openly creative and nakedly sincere as their songs, and…
