David Wilcox–known for his adventurous guitar tunings and sensitive-guy song stylings–seeks to take listeners to a higher plane not just musically, but personally. “I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but there is some music that just kind of says, `We won’t solve these problems, but we can anesthetize,'” he notes…
John Rogers, guitarist, lead vocalist and extremely bright spokesman for the fledgling Denver-based trio Swoon, is on a quest. “We’re in search of the biggest groove,” he says. “A monster groove. A groove better than sex.” He’s definitely on the right track. Attending a live performance by Rogers and his…
Richard Thompson Mirror Blue (Capitol) What a bizarre fix Richard Thompson is in. This extraordinary guitarist, vocalist and songwriter has released outstanding discs since his Sixties stint with Fairport Convention; likely no other popular-music artist performing during the same period has produced so undeniably consistent a body of work. Sure,…
Tyson Meade, the singer, main songwriter and key creative force behind the twisted pop quintet Chainsaw Kittens, was on the receiving end of literal and figurative brickbats for much of his youth. Considering where he grew up, however, it’s not surprising that he had a rough adolescence. In the small…
If your idea of a good time involves tales of heartache and mass murder set to the same three chords that have served songwriters from Hank Williams Sr. to Jonathan Richman, the Claymores could be your kind of clan. Formed in mid-1993, the Denver-based band does not take its name…
Flat Duo Jets, with Reverend Horton Heat, Friday, March 11, at the Mercury Cafe, hail from the hallowed ground of Chapel Hill, North Carolina– home to promising alternative rookies such as Superchunk and Polvo. Yet the Jets are a different kind of beast altogether. Comprised of guitarist/ vocalist Dexter Romweber…
Iggy Pop’s address is Planetarium Station, P.O. Box 482, 127 West 83rd Street, New York, New York, 10024-0482. For fans, this is an important piece of information–and not because everyone sending correspondence to the destination will receive an eight-by-ten glossy personally autographed by a machine. No, they’ll get something better:…
James Blood Ulmer Blues Preacher (DIW/Columbia) Ulmer’s music has always been an acquired taste, and he’s never seemed that interested in others acquiring it. Unlike most blues-based players, who frequently claim to be taking tremendous musical risks even as they succumb to the seductions and stereotypes of the genre, Ulmer…
Counting Crows, Saturday, March 5, at the Ogden Theatre, with Cracker, is one of the freshest, most darkly romantic bands to hit the music scene in a long, long time. The songs written by lead singer Adam Duritz, an amazingly keen poet for the under-thirty generation, burst with melancholy thanks…
Given the deluge of so-called new-music acts lately, it’s no wonder many of them sound the same. It seems that too many of these performers are so busy trying to provide an alternative to bland pop music that they’re neglecting to provide an alternative to each other. As Scott McLoud,…
In its rawest form, country-and-western music can be every bit as threatening as punk rock. But now that the genre has hit the mainstream, the outlaw angst of Johnny Cash and George Jones has taken a backseat to the suburban self-pity of trailer-park hacks such as Billy Ray Cyrus and…
The Grammy Awards–or the “Grandma Awards,” as the Beatles dubbed them in the mid-Sixties–have been around for 35 years, yet they continue to be ridiculed by those who feel it’s more important to reward excellence than commercial success. Among the most famous Grammy gaffes: Elvis Costello losing the Best New…
Machines of Loving Grace, with Course of Empire and Stabbing Westward, Saturday, February 26, at the Mercury Cafe, is one of those bands that PMRC moms have to listen to several times before figuring out all the lyrics. But even if Tipper Gore wannabes catch the few dirty words on…
“There was a time in high school when we were into wearing overcoats and looking at our shoes when people took our pictures,” says Kurt Ohlen, bassist for the punk-popsters in Denver’s Hop’d. “But I’d like to think ultimately that punk rock has more to do with being true to…
To get the scoop on the Meters, you need to talk to the right people. Ask an aficionado of early New Orleans blues rock and he’ll tell you that the Meters were, with Allen Toussaint and Lee Dorsey, the originators of this timeless sound. Ask a Neville Brothers fan and…
The time was 1978, and Carlene Carter was young, nervy and unafraid to say anything at any time. Her debut album, a self-titled affair released by Warner Bros., had turned critics’ heads in part because of her distinguished accompanists (her backing band on the record included members of the Rumour,…
Roy Hargrove, Wednesday, February 16, through Friday, February 18, at the St. Petersburg Jazz Club and Restaurant, 4851 East Virginia Avenue, is among the new and improved crop of even younger “young lions” aiming to fulfill the promises made by their most recent predecessors. At 23, this retro-bop trumpeter is…
Various Artists Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (Reprise) Beautiful People If 60’s Were 90’s (Continuum) We, the members of the record-buying public, have been deluged with more than enough tribute albums lately–enough, at least, to know that they don’t work very well when the albums’ performers think their…
By mid-1993, Phantasmorgasm had evolved into a remarkable band, capable of blending rap, rock, metal and practically anything else that wasn’t nailed down into an utterly original whole. Which is why it seemed so inexplicable to many local-scene observers that on July 22 of last year at a low-key Skyline…
By The new album by old-school rapper Schooly D, entitled Welcome to America, neatly encapsulates the plusses and minuses of so-called gangsta rap. Producers Schooly D (born Jesse B. Weaver Jr.) and Mike Tyler achieve a harrowing sound throughout; the focus is on dark, bass-driven grooves that give the title…
All right, let’s get this out of the way right from the start: Candlebox is from Seattle. But vocalist Kevin Martin insists that Candlebox isn’t a typical Seattle band. In fact, the group–whose music critics describe as grunge, metal and alternative, while Martin calls it “real, honest rock”–got very little…
Alice in Chains Jar of Flies (Columbia) Wherein another conglomeration of grunge heroes tries to prevent its career from dribbling away into an increasingly irrelevant pool of stereotypes. But unlike Nirvana, which established its credibility last time around by releasing a disc (In Utero) so calculatingly grating that it separated…
