Maybe it was some need to exorcise the past that sent Roger Clyne and P.H. Naffah hiking through the desert this summer. Clyne, the singer and primary songwriter of The Refreshments, and Naffah, the band’s drummer, had just decided to pull the plug on the group that had brought them…
In the booklet for his 1985 career anthology, Biograph, Bob Dylan mused on the differences between his rapturously received 1974 “comeback” tour and the contentious series of shows he had given eight years earlier. On the surface, much was similar about these two tours. In both cases, Dylan was backed…
Old habits certainly die hard. Blake Schwarzenbach knows this well. Nearly two years ago he brought his band, the seminal San Francisco punk-pop outfit Jawbreaker, to an end after fronting the band for the better part of a decade. Jawbreaker had been, and continues to be, one of the most…
Anyone shocked by the rampant intrusiveness and utter lack of accountability of Ken Starr and his posse probably has never had a run-in with Arizona’s liquor board. For years now, this group of self-styled morality czars has indiscriminately dropped its wrecking ball of disfavor on any club that chose to…
In the state of Washington, 764-HERO is an instantly recognized alphanumeric code, and for good reason. The superlative phone number is omnipresent along the state’s highways; operators are standing by on the other end of the digits should you happen upon one of society’s terror-mongers, the carpool-lane violator. In another,…
O’Shea Jackson, known to friends and enemies alike as Ice Cube, has a daughter, a son and a stepson whose ages range from 4 to 11. But despite their tender years, he sees no reason they shouldn’t be able to enjoy the furious wit and wisdom he puts on his…
PJ Harvey Is This Desire? (Island Records) Because PJ Harvey’s music changes so drastically from one album to the next, it’s inevitable that with every new release you find yourself missing something from the previous CD (though I could have lived without the indulgence of 4-Track Demos). When she and…
Not too long ago, one of Jack Logan’s friends paid him a strange compliment. In assessing the 39-year-old Georgia singer-songwriter’s sophomore CD–the endearingly ragged 1996 Restless release Mood Elevator–Logan’s pal said he liked the album because he could tell that Logan was reading his words off a lyric sheet as…
Mike Coatney is smiling, but it’s a smile that betrays frustration. He’s temporarily fulfilling the drum-kit duties for local rock quartet Haggis while the band’s usual timekeeper, Scott McDonald, plans for his October wedding. It is only Coatney’s second rehearsal with Haggis, and in two days he has to play…
In times of desperation, people always look for a savior. That tends to explain the music press’ recent compulsion to ordain so-called electronica the next big thing. It’s a bit reminiscent of the old notion that in a world of blind folks, the one-eyed person is regarded as a visionary…
Phunk Junkeez Fear of a Wack Planet (Trauma Records) There’s an adage that’s oft repeated among those who grow up in addiction-infested societies–“once a junkie, always a junkie.” It’s a saying that can also be applied to the question of Fear of a Wack Planet’s success. The Phunk Junkeez have…
All afternoon Bill Blake catalogued his depression. The money was gone. The beer almost. Rent long past due. Worse, beating-off had lost all charm in time with the porn. And the porn was just some semi-glamorous soul-killing connection to a world that was offered up through a peep-hole known as…
“The shocking thing about Oklahoma [is] it was the only thing I was allowed to play when I was little,” Tori Amos says from Omaha, Nebraska. She’s at a stop in her tour supporting her latest musical exploration into the human psyche, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and the prairie city…
Before the interview is to begin with Knack front man Doug Fieger, the man would first like to ask his own question. “I was wondering, why do you want to do an interview with me?” he says, his voice full of anger and confusion. Because, I tell him, I love…
As yet another scalp-searing summer draws to a close, the local gentry at Casey Moore’s seem suitably pacified with drink and the promise of cooler temperatures just around the corner. That cheery notion isn’t enough to straighten out the furrowed brow of the Grievous Angels’ figurehead, Earl C. Whitehead. Tonight…
Hole Celebrity Skin (DGC Records) Courtney Love is nothing if not self-aware. So it makes sense that she titled her first post-Hollywood album Celebrity Skin, because this album documents the period in which Love’s celebrity–and infamy–grew from mere distraction to overrriding theme. When Love’s late husband Kurt Cobain was confronted…
Big Mama was fuming. The notorious nighttime DJ for KPTY-Party 103.9 FM had come into the station’s office on September 8 to find that Valley parents were calling in to voice concerns about his station’s risque content. So Big Mama responded the only way he knows how. That night on…
The boys in Pansy Division are fags. It’s no secret–the band has been proclaiming its affinity for homo-sex for seven years over the course of six records in short pop-punk ditties like “Pretty Boy (What’s Your Name?),” “Smells Like Queer Spirit,” “Fem in a Black Leather Jacket” and Revolver’s favorite–the…
Frank Black and the Catholics Frank Black and the Catholics (spinART Records) Frank Black’s fourth CD begins with a brief guitar goof on the Green Acres theme, followed by a messy false start. His band then lunges into one of those absurdly speedy tempos that Black uses, not to convey…
When it comes to hip-hop artists, nicknames are the norm, but “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” are not rappers. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the U.S. effort during World War II to produce an atomic bomb. In 1942, four scientists convened in New York with calculations and…
Tom Anderson has seen a lot of DJs over the years. Many of them have spun for him over the past 16 years at his Scottsdale dance club, Anderson’s Fifth Estate. But he says he’d never seen anything to prepare him for what he experienced a few months ago, when…
How do you build a record store in six days? That was the tough question Steve Wiley and his partners, Lloyd Hummel and Kristian Luce, surely asked themselves a couple of weeks ago. Wiley, until recently the general manager of Zia Enterprises, had put together a proposal for a record…
