Q: What did the snail say on the turtle’s back? A: “Wheeeeeee!” If you were at Hollywood Alley last Saturday night (January 18), you probably heard Les Payne Project guitarist James Karnes tell that one. I was, and I did. And I’m glad for it, because I also heard Karnes…
The Louvin Brothers were country music’s best-ever brother team, and when they titled their greatest album Tragic Songs of Life, they weren’t kidding around. Over the course of the recording, a woman wanders “this wide world all over,” leaving her abandoned lover to contemplate suicide; a man, rich beyond his…
Shaquille O’Neal You Can’t Stop the Reign (T.W.IsM.) It took $120 million to persuade Shaquille O’Neal to apply himself on a basketball court (free-throw percentage as of this writing: 46 percent). How much of himself can he be expected to commit to a rap album that returns but a fraction…
Caroline Whisnant is an attractive woman. Tall, well-proportioned, nice smile. Easy on the eyes, as it were. Sexist statements? Not when you consider that Whisnant performs opera and makes a career of playing beautiful, alluring women in various stages of duress. The soprano appeared as Freia, the Goddess of Youth…
Last summer, blues guitarist Jono Manson passed through Tempe on a national tour. He was booked into Gibson’s, but arrived to find his gig had been bumped to Balboa Cafe, a much smaller venue on the other side of Hayden Square. Between sets, Manson stepped outside for a smoke and…
So you gotta ask yourself–here are two bands, both clones of the Boogie Knights, who are managed by the BK’s firm, Perfect World, and use the same keyboard samples, play the same song selections (what’s the fascination with “Copacabana” anyway?) and buy their wigs from the same thrift shops. So…
Music Editor’s Note–This week I turn over Coda to local hip-hop impresario Mr. P-Body Scott, who observes that some of the urban club patrons who complain about club closings are the same ones contributing to the negativity surrounding hip-hop/R&B events. The characters in his time line are fictional, and any…
Music and language. Tracks and lyrics. Beats and rhymes. East Coast. Queensbridge, motherfucker–the brutal public-housing projects in Long Island City where the fundamentals of hip-hop never fell out of flavor. The Juice Crew’s Marley Marl and MC Shan immortalized “The Bridge” with their 1986 cut of the same name. But…
Johnny Cash Unchained (American Recordings) Just when his myth was in danger of being destroyed by too many mediocre albums–and too many wonderful albums underpublicized by uncaring labels and ignored by country radio–Johnny Cash was rescued from the country-music trash heap and restored to the sort of honorary status afforded…
Smokin’ Joe Kubek and his band have terrific timing. Although Kubek and singer Bnois King are music-biz vets, their first album appeared only five years ago–just in time to surf the new wave of interest in blues. “Thank God,” Kubek says from his Dallas home. “Several years ago, I was…
On New Year’s Eve, Deon Foreman and a sport-utility-vehicle load of fellow Tempe ravers arrived at the Grand Olympic Auditorium near downtown Los Angeles about an hour before midnight. Shit was hectic. “There were cops on the freeway trying to block the auditorium exit, and looking down you could see…
Wilco Being There (Reprise Records) The cynics who would dismiss rock ‘n’ roll–the formula kind, the guitar-vocals-bass-drum kind, the kind Chuck Berry created and the Beatles and Brian Wilson made perfect–look instead toward a rave new world; they write off rock as a dead form to be discarded like a…
The Beach Boys single-handedly popularized surf culture in America. Fine. The Beach Boys were the West Coast nemesis of the Beatles. Great. The Beach Boys are the commercial inseminators of surf rock. Yippee-skip. I know, I’ve read the books. But I’m sorry–to anyone under 30, the Beach Boys mean little…
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Emancipation (NPG/EMI Records) Now that Madonna’s a stylish new mom and Michael Jackson is trying to pass himself off as a father-to-be, it’s fitting that The Artist Formerly Known As Prince has settled into domestic bliss as well. All three are ’80s icons in…
If 1991 was the year punk broke, then 1996 was the year punk died–killed by both the Sex Pistols and the weight of its own success. Of course, the Pistols always exploited the whole concept of “punk,” but this year they mocked it as well, rising up like the corpse…
Dr. Dre’s decision to bounce from Suge Knight’s enclave and renounce gangsta rap gets my nod for story of the year. Whether he was motivated by moral revelation, simple business acumen, artistic instinct or merely a desire to keep breathing doesn’t really matter. Bottom line: Kids in Ahwatukee may still…
1. Warrant, Belly to Belly (CMC/BMG) Duh. 2. Great White, Let It Rock (Imago) Long since abandoned by fans and glory, these bloated, balding bozos are still searching for that lost Mott/Bad Company riff and any stripper who still cares. 3. KISS, Unplugged (Mercury) Weren’t the lunchboxes, TV shows, comic…
Of the few musicians who can challenge R.L. Burnside’s stature as prime evangelist of dark, Southern blues, one, his neighbor Junior Kimbrough, will play with Burnside New Year’s Day at the Rhythm Room, making this appearance of the Fat Possum Mississippi Juke Joint Revue easily one of the most important…
“Cut! Take nine!” The black Dodge Ram lumbers across the desert floor and stutters to a stop. Inside, the four members of Crushed are laughing so hard, tears cut trails through the dust and makeup caked on their faces. Filming for the hard-rock outfit’s forthcoming CD-ROM has been under way…
The Grinch says Hell is other people’s music. Anyone who’s ever worked in a mall at Christmas understands: That sugary choir doing “Winter Wonderland” could make Santa reach for a revolver. And a small Central American country used to employ “Jingle Bell Rock” during rebel interrogations (it often worked). But…
Inertia chain-smokes when he spins. He buys Marlboro reds, the sharpest of coffin nails, and furiously drives them into his lungs whenever he’s behind a pair of turntables at a rave. It’s the only stress fracture in a facade that’s otherwise solid ice. Unlike a lot of deejays, Inertia doesn’t…
Trunk Federation front man Jim Andreas says he should have known the deal his band got on its tour van–an ’88 Ford Econoline–was a little too sweet to be true. Low mileage, room for a crash mattress and gear, no serious mechanical problems, and some really bitchin,’ glass-encased running lights…
