Rope swinging stageside. Wearing body-electric suits made from Christmas lights. Jell-O wrestling with members of Jack Off Jill. Ritualizing breakfast at Denny’s. Playing shred-it-or-forget-it rock — just some of the characteristics that collectively make them the Itch. Their philosophy is simple. They were a band, they are a band, and…
Horace Silver It’s Got to be Funky (Columbia) By Bob Weinberg Whether pounding the keys alongside Art Blakey or leading his own dynamic trios and quartets, jazz pianist Horace Silver managed to accomplish the impossible: he made records that grooved and jammed with hard-charging R&B and still satisfied jazz purists…
You say you want to sign your favorite local band to a lucrative recording contract? Share its music with the rest of the world? Why not do what Bruce Iglauer did 22 years ago and start your own label? It was back in 1971 that Iglauer, a young blues enthusiast…
The industry calls it “the sideman clause.” The next time you’re browsing through CDs at your favorite record store, check the not-so-fine print. Along with the work of the artist you’re seeking, you might find a bonus musician or two. Or an unwelcome guest. The “sideman” phenomenon has been around…
The right hand moves with dazzling speed, jackhammering the keys like a five-pronged backhoe stuck in overdrive. But it’s the left hand, slowly and steadily rolling out rhythms, that holds the key to the loping stride of barrelhouse piano. It’s easy to become mesmerized watching Piano Bob Wilder’s fingers trip…
The showcase that rocketed Piano Bob and the Snowman and the Roach Thompson Blues Band into the Handy Awards history book and the national spotlight is in peril. After two consecutive victories by local acts in the national battle-of-the bands, apathy, mistrust, and irreconcilable differences of opinion are dogging the…
Birthday parties are supposed to be festive occasions (at least when it’s someone else’s birthday). So it should come as no surprise that Stephen Talkhouse’s first was a real blowout. A baker’s dozen of the area’s top original acts showed up bearing the same gift — free live music –…
The rock world needs new heroes. Elvis is dead (really, he really really is). Bruce is old and paternal (and dads, heroes though they may be, are not rock heroes). Kurt and Axl and Perry just don’t cut it as role models, icons, or even plain old-fashioned rock stars. Where…
Melvin Taylor Plays the Blues for You Eddie Shaw Movin’ and Groovin’ Man (Evidence) By Bob Weinberg The latest crop of blues re-releases from our cousins in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, celebrates the blues as it was remade in the clubs of Chicago. Two noteworthy CDs from the collection come from successive…
“Ten working days.” That’s been Doc Wiley’s mantra for the past three months. Wiley made the mistake of giving me an advance listen to the Live at the Square Vol. II tape in April. Since then I’ve been on his case constantly. “Any word on that CD, Doc?” “Ten working…
Pawn your gold tooth. Hawk your glass eye. Sell your blood if you must. Whatever it takes, find a way to obtain Live at the Square Vol. II. The critical first ten seconds present a perfect preview of what’s to come: A too-real to not be real drum riff from…
“I will not give up the music.” — Ed Hale, New Times, November 1, 1989 He didn’t. He has changed his name — back then he usually called himself Eddie Darling — but the members of Broken Spectacles never used their given names anyway. That’s changed, too. In fact, it…
Tunefully metallic, eschewing imprecision, the Dallas-based Buck Pets are a silver key crunching in an unfamiliar lock, a small room filled with sharp slant-angles of sunshine. The Pets’s third LP, To the Quick, is their strongest effort to date, and should secure the band’s fame among fans who like their…
Talk about your love-hate relationships. Opinions don’t get much more divided than those among the patrons who caught the Tumbling Dice show on July 17 at Stephen Talkhouse. People marched out in disgust. People cheered for three hours and begged for encores. It was that kind of night. The all-star…
Chris Smither Happier Blue (Flying Fish) By Bob Weinberg With just guitar and foot, Chris Smither held a tent full of Riverwalk Blues Festgoers in thrall. No easy task, particularly following the electric performance of the Kinsey Report on the main stage. Smither’s voltage comes not from amps, but from…
Some of the local bands drawing raves and followings: Load, Jack Off Jill, Black Janet, Holy Terrors, Dore Soul, Collapsing Lungs, Snatch the Pebble, Drive Choir, Quit, Timescape Zero, and, of course, Marilyn Manson. You may have caught wind of a recent concert that drew 12,000 to Bayfront Park with…
Sweet guitar chords roll down the Broadwalk with the breeze, beckoning passers-by to the open-air, stone-face tavern. Nautical knickknacks — ships’ wheels, fishing trophies — fill the low-ceilinged, dimly lit interior. And the place is packed, mostly with locals, people who’ve known and loved Nick’s on Hollywood Beach for years…
If Terence Trent D’Arby’s career offers one lesson, it’s this: record a top-notch album, be hailed as a quickly rising star, feed the press large doses of outlandish self-aggrandizement, fall headlong into the sophomore slump, bruise hard, hole up for four years, and finally re-emerge with another top-notch album. Followed…
The dictionary offers various definitions for the word “band.” The first: a company of persons acting or functioning together. I guess the bands these four guys emerged from skipped right over Webster’s and made up their own. Singer Eddie Gowan (formerly of Queen Anne’s Revenge), drummer Bobby Borg (formerly of…
Rotations 12 Dada Puzzle (I.R.S.) By Steve Almond There is nothing quite as kickass as a power trio that clicks, nothing that jangles the nerve centers so sweetly as three naked instruments — in sync. A trio means the bare minimum of sounds required to qualify as rock, with no…
Struggling musicians. By definition they haven’t reached the pinnacle of success they would like to reach A that maybe you’d like them to reach. It’s a plain fact. Whatever money they make from their live gigs doesn’t exactly put them on the A list for a visit from Robin Leach…
There are plenty of local bands and musicians we all agree should be national stars, major-label projects, MTV pinups. If any of them were half as good as Billy Yeager, we might be right. And I have just one request for every artist currently residing in pop music’s Top 40,…
