Not the same old blues Just Like You Keb’ Mo’ Okeh/Epic Can you have sunny blues? There’s no denying that on his second album, Keb’ Mo’ (Kevin Moore) assumes a decidedly upbeat tone, reminding the listener of Giant Step-era Taj Mahal, marrying the basic optimism of the folkie to traditional…
The divine Miss B A myriad of identities? Sure, that’s something we allow our big-time artists–talents like Peter Gabriel or David Bowie–but a blues player? Har, you say, it is to laugh, especially when considering a blues bass player, and a gal at that. Nonetheless, Sarah Brown has had musical…
It’s boom times and heady days for Dallas’ favorite insurgent honky-tonk combo, the Old 97’s; the band has just returned from a quick fortnight in Europe, where it met with continental acclaim, and now is hashing things out with a veritable Greek chorus of major record labels, including Elektra, MCA,…
Same as it ever was Stand By Tellus Tellurian Records With a surreal cover whose artistry would be right at home with any of Hipgnosis Studio’s bizarre illustrations for ’70s acts like Yes, Tellus announces that it shares the ambitions (and yes, the pretensions) of prog-rock standard-bearers. Of course, the…
One of the loudest pop bands to come out of Dallas is back; Hagfish, Dallas’ beloved band of dorks-in-suits, is returning to Deep Ellum after a year that has seen the band do everything from working with its musical idols on its first major-label album to rubbing elbows on the…
Such a Deal The heartland of America grows its rockers big and brawny, so it’s no surprise that the Deal sisters–Kelley and Kim–hail from Ohio. They’ve both made names for themselves–Kim as a founding Pixie, the pair as the Breeders–but it was Kelley who stood out as the woman who…
Shaken, not stirred It’s Martini Time Reverend Horton Heat Interscope Records From the cover alone–a woman passed out on a barstool in the dark–you know that It’s Martini Time is no “have fun responsibly” bulletin, but another collection of chrome-plated tales from a ducktailed world of indulgence and excess: the…
The past is revered–well, referenced–to an unprecedented degree by pop culture today; roots and history are important in a way that would’ve been unthinkable a decade ago. Chalk it up to pop’s voracious need for product–ideas for which have to come from somewhere–and it’s particularly true in music. That’s often…
“Hey, remember me? We met 10 years ago at CBGB’s,” Syd Straw sings on War and Peace, her new album. In the seven long years between her first and second album, Straw has somehow managed not to be forgotten by the music world. That hardly surprises me; I can never…
The heart’s inner currents Gone Again Patti Smith Arista Peace at Last The Blue Nile Warner Brothers With Gone Again, Patti Smith comes out of more than 15 years of semiretirement; the poet who for years was associated with the start of something–New York art-punk, basically–now contemplates the end of…
Drummer’s choice Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box Rykodisc Former Grateful Dead drummer/percussionist Mickey Hart does good with the first post-Garcia release from a member of the Grateful Dead, turning in an effort that is surprisingly accessible and avoids both cloning the Dead and the sometimes-relentless ethnomania that…
Up on stage, sliding coolly in a juke joint pas de deux, Elvis T. Busboy is decidedly not your average R&B crooner. With his linebacker’s physique, slicked-back Bobby Darin hair and a Mephistophelean goatee that predates slacker fashion, Busboy looks like some boyish union of Wolfman Jack and a pro…
Two women Rivers Elizabeth Wills Crystal Clear Sound Cult of Odd Hairstick Twitch Music With her new album Rivers, Elizabeth Wills builds on her first album, Going Home, working from a pure folk blueprint that recalls “Chelsea Morning”-era Joni Mitchell crossed with Shawn Colvin. Acoustic guitars set the tone, supported…
The sound is as flowing and wide-open as the tail of a comet, whooshing through a pastiche of found sounds and percussion–some electronic, some organic–sounding for all the world like elevator music from a lift somewhere past Pluto. It’s hard to tell who’s making the music on the darkened stage,…
The roar of grease paint Like voting for Reagan, disliking KISS in its heyday is now something to which no one will will ‘fess. Saved by a wave of retro-chic, the KISS kabuki rock clowns–no doubt fueled by relentless, adoring demand–sometimes act as if they invented rock rather than simply…
Looking at Jim Suhler, it’s hard not to be reminded of renegades from high school: the stoners and gearheads had his long brown hair and aquiline nose, their slender frames no guarantee that they wouldn’t slap the crap outta you if you crossed them. In fact, Suhler pretty much was…
The five members of Transona Five sit comfortably in the living room of the Lower Greenville house that bass player Greg Morgan and drummer G.P. Cole share. Although still in their early 20s, the two have spent the last 10 years playing together in punk bands. They’re quite a contrast…
John Raitt never wore roller skates on stage; he never wore a cat suit or a silly half-face mask, but then again, he was a star on Broadway when Broadway stars were people, not productions. A leading man who’s survived to see an age in which there are no leading…
Before and after Beheaded Bedhead Trance Syndicate Tie You Up/Who is Brad? Stranger Than Fiction Hub City Productions Post-punk, post-rock, hell–Bedhead is nearly post-apocalyptic in the open, isolated vibe it conjures up on Beheaded, an album of mood music for a Twilight Zone episode set in the desert, all long…
In the media-intensive, market-savvy world we live in today, the growth cycle of pop bands has been steadily accelerated in the name of commercial return: Like the foresters who oversee the genetically altered pulpwood trees of East Texas, music execs want to grow ’em fast and move ’em out. Few…
Echo of the past You have to give some credit to Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant: In the year when even the Sex Pistols reform to flog the dead horse of punk, they could come back as Echo and the Bunnymen and travel with the nostalgia circus, hammering their past…
The quick and the dead Hammer Zoe RCA Records Dedicated to the One I Love Linda Ronstadt Elektra Records London-born Zoe Pollock rediscovers the amazing fit enjoyed by a certain sort of English female vocal with the hybrid framework of rock and blues. Like Maggie Bell before her, Zoe has…
