Those were great and scurrilous times. Picture it: A roomful of upright, high-level journalists, circa 1985. Some are suffering oxygen deprivation to the brain from wearing ties (a malady common to newspapermen). Each is an individual, but all are locked in the ivory-tower, black-and-white mentality typical of newsroom employees at…
When Bob Marley died in 1981 at the age of 36, he was mourned by the millions for whom he had been a musical and political messiah. Revolutionary both in style and in lyrical content, Marley’s songs were an accurate reflection of the man: defiant, idiosyncratic, perceptive, and infectious. Marley…
To those born within the past 30 years or so it must come as a stunning shock to learn that rock did not always rule the land, much less demand consideration as a viable force in the world of entertainment. But once this white-dominated exploitation of black R&B did take…
While the thought of actually listening to a real jazz band doing what it does best might seem to be the biggest drag imaginable to the majority of today’s music consumers, it is the very lifeblood of others. We read the general press, the trade journals, the yuppie and buppie…
It’s a long, long way from East Orange, New Jersey, to Ocean Drive, and Jacquim, “The Wicked Buddha,” never lets the illusion faze him. Sure there’s the standard parade of girls (“lust college – twelve o’clock”), and the sun has a tendency to make everything glimmer, but the mood and…
The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached on the subject. — John Faucit Saville I got a letter the other day from a musician I haven’t seen in months, a pretty fair guitar player who used to be…
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain graces the cover of the April 16 issue of Rolling Stone, in his carefully frayed jeans and his way-cool shades and his oh-so-defiant “CORPORATE MAGAZINES STILL SUCK” T-shirt, desperately trying not to look like a millionaire rock star with a babe-o-rama trophy wife. Cobain is this year’s…
The results of the latest incredibly scientific New Times poll are in. In case you were among the quarter of a billion or so U.S. citizens we somehow failed to contact, the burning issue was this: Which version of Elvis should the post office put on the stamp? The landslide…
Hear that thunder? The concussive ricochet of stick on skin, mortar-fire drum licks kicking this most compelling song along, then lightning guitars flashing and crashing, and a perfect rock and roll voice roaring, “Out on the streets your chances are zero.” You’re never out of danger here, and the only…
The wanna-be rock star basking in the spotlight at Washington Square or Cactus Cantina or Churchill’s Hideaway might get up the next morning to deliver pizza, handle retail customers at a record store, go to school, or program computers. (Those four occupations seem most common among local musicians with day…
The soft glow of innocence in a child’s face. The meeting of two souls who will become one through love. The all-consuming pride of parenthood. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of the trend in music that scoffs, mocks, and berates such sweet and pure notions. There is goodness in this…
Many have tried, most have failed, but I tell you there are some new bands, not new at all really, doing everything musically possible to make geezers like me feel young again. Maybe due to their rejuvenating powers, or perhaps because they’re simply great bands, these acts are hot fodder…
All music is local to somewhere. Here at New Times Music Central, we’ve always believed, and tried to express, that music should be judged by its merits, not its geographic point of origin. The recordings reviewed below are examined using the same criteria we’d use for any other release, be…
It’s Sunday night and I’m sitting at the bar in the Cactina trying to immerse myself in enough beer and conviviality to cleanse the pain of Ohio State’s heartbreaking overtime loss to Michigan in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament earlier that afternoon. Michigan’s Fab Frosh have robbed me of a…
All music is local to somewhere. Here at New Times Music Central, we’ve always believed, and tried to express, that music should be judged by its merits, not its geographic point of origin. The recordings reviewed below are examined using the same criteria we’d use for any other release, be…
I joined my first band when I was seventeen. We knew a total of four songs, but somehow we managed to stretch them into an hour-long set. We’d play make-out parties in someone’s basement, with everybody stoned on pot or Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, an alleged wine notorious for inducing…
It wasn’t long ago that music, to me, was beginning to feel like dirt under my fingernails – unattractive and mundane at best. Nothing spoke to me. Rock seemed as polluted as the Miami River and about as palatable as puke. In short, I became a walking, muttering cliche: the…
You never know. To some the circus is raw-sawdust, peanut-shell memories of great hilarity and pure awe. To others it is an inexcusable example of how animals are tortured and individuals humiliated for the sake of entertainment. That’s the subjective. Objectively, a circus is chaotic, three rings of activity, acrobats…
Marianne Flemming blew it. The nomadic Miami native had made a name for herself and her eclectic, category-defying (“Just don’t call it folk”) music in locales as diverse as the Bitter End in New York City, Le Tam Tam Club in Washington, D.C., the Video Cafe in London, England, and…
If mild-mannered Clark Kent had a hip, record-spinning counterpart, it would be Carlos Menendez. But while Kent played the fool in order to keep secret his other-worldly powers, Menendez plays it cool – ultra-cool – and utterly collected. But both, when they are called, perform miracles of a sort. One…
Imagine: a war to end all wars, today’s music stars pitted against yesterday’s. A battle to the death in the name of rock and roll. From the beginning, it’s a massacre. Ouch! Vanilla Ice drawn and quartered by Carl Perkins. Yikes! The Pet Shop Boys bayonetted by Eddie Cochran. Kerrunch!…
Used-record store trappings, the detritus of stacked vinyl counterpointed by glossy CD reissues, seems familiar stuff. There are a half-dozen recorded-music stores in town whose owners see something beyond financial profit in their trade. Once around this place, change seeps in, commonality disintegrates, information banks burst. The summum bonum of…
