Tal Ross a.k.a. detrimental vasoline — Giant Shirley (Coconut Grove Recording Company) Eccentricity has its place in pop music. Come to think of it, pop music may be the only industry in which going off the deep end might be considered a viable — if not exactly smart — career…
Al Stewart feels compelled to explain. “They seemed like good ideas at the time,” the Scottish-born singer-songwriter says in his delicate and strangely familiar burr. “But I really didn’t even particularly care for them then.” The “they” in question here are Stewart’s two big radio hits from the mid-1970s, a…
For Squirrels Example (550 Music/Epic) The knock on For Squirrels — and I ought to know, because I mouthed it more often than just about anyone else — always has been that they merely were R.E.M. Jr.: Pete Buck’s Murmur-era guitar strum-o-rama laced with Michael Stipe’s oblique mutterings. Well, while…
Jorge de la Vega and Carlos Franzetti Astor Piazzolla, a Flute and Piano Tribute (Milan) Astor Piazzolla took tango from the streets of Buenos Aires to the concert halls of the world. To the dismay of Argentina’s tango purists, and to the delight of just about everyone else, his compositions…
Paco de Lucia made his unlikely MTV debut earlier this year in Bryan Adams’s video “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman,” the theme song from the movie Don Juan de Marco. Portraying a wistful guitar player seated quietly among lovers in a dusty taberna, de Lucia easily steals the…
On their 1993 album, What a Crying Shame, the Mavericks demonstrated just how good feeling bad really can be. Brooding ballads about breakups and lost love, tinted with the retro glow of Buck Owens, George Jones, and Roy Orbison — and embodied by lead singer Raul Malo’s haunting lilt of…
Hal Shows Lifeboat (Raven) “Nobody said this would be easy,” intones Hal Shows at the beginning of “Pawnish Queen,” the second cut on Lifeboat. The line is prophetic, as the Tallahassee-based musician spends much of his self-produced album obsessing about the personal consequences of living in a dysfunctional society, while…
Lord knows how many poor, unsuspecting fools are killed by hidden tracks every year. Think of it — the late-night lone driver, winding down a mountain highway, happily head-bobbing to the latest CD by his or her favorite band. The final chord of the last listed track fades, but he…
Various Artists Desperado: The Soundtrack (Epic Soundtrax) Here’s yet another soundtrack that exists comfortably without its companion film A a self-sustaining disc that uses snippets of dialogue (see Pulp Fiction) to underline the effectiveness of its music, and not merely to give the songs context. And like Pulp Fiction’s soundtrack,…
Randy Newman’s publicist is on the phone one more time apologizing for the delay: Newman wants to do the interview, she explains, but he’s locked in a room trying to finish his songs for the upcoming Disney film Toy Story. The first movie made completely with computer animation, it features…
Billy Pilgrim Bloom (Atlantic) Andrew Hyra and Kristian Bush, who compose the folk-pop duo Billy Pilgrim, started strumming their acoustic guitars together in Atlanta bars and coffeehouses and are partial to sweet harmonies, so it follows that some scribes have labeled them “the Indigo Boys.” But on Bloom, their second…
When divers come up from the depths of the ocean too quickly, they risk getting the bends, a painful and potentially fatal condition caused by having too much nitrogen in the blood. The Bends is also the title of the second album by the English quintet Radiohead, and it serves…
In 1986, I was in a band that played “Runaway.” Not the late Del Shannon’s early-Sixties teen-angst classic, with that crazy Musitron electric organ solo. No, this was the Bon Jovi song, their first hit, from the self-titled 1984 debut album. “Runaway” was a useful song for a band in…
Bruce Hornsby Hot House (RCA) Since making his baby-grand entrance on the music scene a decade ago, Bruce Hornsby has released a handful of softly melodic albums, most notably The Way It Is, which he recorded with his group, the Range — it earned them a 1986 Grammy Award as…
The Gipsy Kings were already busting the charts abroad with their Eurotrash favorite, “Bamboleo,” when they first hit the United States in 1988. Standing somewhat stiffly in identical black leather pants and patterned blouses, the six husky, dark-eyed members of two gypsy families from the south of France performed at…
The music that makes up John Coltrane: Heavyweight Champion — The Complete Atlantic Recordings, a six-CD boxed set just released on the Rhino imprint, was cut over the course of a relatively brief period of time. Coltrane, fresh from several years spent as a member of bands led by Miles…
Various Artists Spirit of ’73: Rock for Choice (550 Music/Epic) The concept: a grab bag of contempo women musicians turned loose on Seventies songs associated with women artists from that decade. The purpose: to raise consciousness regarding the need to protect a woman’s legal right to obtain an abortion. The…
The decorative theme of the Coconut Grove Recording Company’s offices might best be described as Indie Label Unkempt. Framed posters and photographs of the company’s handful of acts, as well as otherwise revered nonlabel artists such as Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix, line the walls (or remain propped against them…
Take it from an expert. “Anywhere you go in Florida, you can party,” says rapper Prince Rahiem. “Jacksonville.” He laughs. “Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg. . . It’s the atmosphere,” the Hollis (Queens), New York, transplant explains. “Miami, the South, is a very sensual place. The less you wear, the better…
Bloodhound Gang Use Your Fingers (Cheese Factory/Underdog/Columbia) You’ll find white rappers generally fall into two camps: Beastie Boys disciples and the House of Pain clique. In the former, honky hip-hop has nothing to do with the African-American experiences that gave birth to the rap form; rather, the genre has been…
Almost nine years ago at Washington, D.C.’s Warner Theater, a grand, ancient vaudeville house, British synth-rock quartet Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark — by then generally known as O.M.D. — stood on-stage beaming and looking somewhat bewildered at a house full of enthusiastic fans. At one point, bassist-principal singer Andy…
Rosario Siento (SDI) Since the Seventies, the children of flamenco masters have adopted the rhythms of their gypsy ancestors to create their own genre of contemporary Spanish music A flamenco-rock, -pop, and -jazz hybrids that nonpurists classify as “new flamenco.” The daughter of renowned Andalusian folklorist and Fifties movie star…
