England’s Pale Saints believe that much of today’s music is the aural equivalent of junk food: simple, predictable and with little nutritional value. By comparison, the Saints’ body of work is subtle yet sublime, artsy yet unpretentious–and all but impossible to categorize. “It gives me headaches to try to analyze…
The year was 1988, the group was Public Enemy and the album was It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, as incendiary a blast of politicized bile as had been spewed by any band since the Sex Pistols. Lead rapper Chuck D, whose band had made a…
When singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley talks about his music, he doesn’t mess around. “I’d say my songs fall into of twentieth-century American,” he notes, “because that definition encompasses so much. Pop art. Even the Flintstones. It could be Gershwin. It could be Rodgers and Hart. It could be John Cage. It…
It’s probably not a good idea to take literally singer-songwriter Lisa Germano’s claim, “In the beginning, I was thinking I was going to do a happy record.” After all, her terrific 1993 disc Happiness balanced gallows humor with material that was about as upbeat and chipper as your average funeral…
The members of Denver’s Blue City 5 take a philosophical approach to their work. The performers feel that their music is not going anywhere and doesn’t come from anywhere, either. It simply exists in eternal space and time. This theory might seem hard to swallow, particularly for an act described…
Soul Coughing Ruby Vroom (Slash/Warner Bros.) If you had any doubt that lead vocalist M. Doughty used to review music (for the New York Press), check out “Sugar Free Jazz,” in which he needles acid-jazz trendies with the line “Put your fake goatee on” over a beat that probably wouldn’t…
Right now, most alternative musicians seem to think that it’s hip to be depressed. But according to Nicholas Hexum, the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the funky, danceable group 311, happiness is the best policy. “It seems like you could get caught up in the drama of lamenting about…
For the most part, it looked and sounded like practically any rock concert. The throng at McNichols Arena on a Tuesday night in late October was dominated by teenagers, and if some of them appeared tidier and more clean-cut than the fans at your average Metallica date (one young man…
For those who like music with an edge, “I’ll Make Love to You,” by Boyz II Men (the biggest selling single in the country for over two months now) is not just annoying; it’s an affront. Not only doesn’t “Love” have an edge–it doesn’t have a top, a bottom or…
Sandra Bernhard, Wednesday, November 2, at the Paramount Theatre, delivers a lot of bang for your buck. An entertainer who’s already tried her hand at movies, books, stand-up comedy and television (on Roseanne, she plays the first and only recurring lesbian character to appear on a prime-time sitcom), Bernhard has…
Louis Armstrong Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: 1923-1934 (Columbia/Legacy) Now here’s a guy plenty of contemporary listeners have misinterpreted. The current generation thinks of Armstrong mainly as the grinning, big-eyed, lovable sort whose gravelly crooning of sentimental ditties such as “What a Wonderful World” fills boomers with…
Bootsy Collins and His New Rubber Band, Saturday, October 29, at the Ogden Theatre, with Dread Zeppelin, is back, baby–but he never really went away. A star-eyed superman who brought his otherworldly personality and mastery of the space-bass to the JBs, Parliament/Funkadelic and his own wonderful solo work, Collins hasn’t…
“Sometimes I think that we’re just an alternative band,” says Doug Martsch, the voice and guitar behind Boise, Idaho’s Built to Spill. “We’re more than that, but I can see other people automatically pigeonholing us.” Martsch needn’t worry: Built to Spill isn’t so easily categorized. Unlike many alternative (whatever that…
Several years ago, Cary Morin–a soft-spoken father of three who’s also the songwriter, guitarist and vocalist for the Fort Collins-based trio the Atoll–traded substance and alcohol use for a trip down self-discovery lane. Now this 32-year-old Crow Indian hopes his band, which combines reggae, rock and worldbeat, can exert a…
Musicians whose bands have undergone personnel changes could learn a few lessons from Corrosion of Conformity vocalist/guitarist Pepper Keenan. When asked about the departure of former COC lead singer Karl Agell, Keenan doesn’t fall back on polite euphemisms such as “We had creative differences,” or “It was an amicable decision,”…
Cornetist Ruby Braff knows exactly how to describe himself. “I’m a performer,” he asserts. “I’m not like some other musicians. Back when I was very young and just beginning to play, the musicians all felt wonderful until the people started coming in. Then they’d say, `They’re coming!’ with such contempt–like,…
Spell Mississippi (Island) For those of you who think Westword can’t be objective about this Denver-based band, let’s start with a few negatives about Spell’s major-label debut. First of all, the title leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not all that funny (“Spell Mississippi”–get it?), and it implies that…
“We all grew up on bad heavy metal,” says Ron Heathman, guitarist for the hardcore pranksters the Supersuckers. “Then we discovered `cool’ music and started playing that. But we still have a little bit of the heavy-metal influence in us, too.” No kidding. While most punk acts have a metallic…
“I think Charles Manson had a lot of positive things to say and could have been a real cultural leader,” says Mr. Manson, the singer and conceptualist behind the shock-rock/industrial band dubbed Marilyn Manson. “But what he did wasn’t popular with the masses, and so he went to jail. He…
In the press materials that accompanied the 1992 EP Broken, Nine Inch Nails’s Trent Reznor wrote, “Nine Inch Nails is still not a real band with real people playing real instruments.” Today, drummer Chris Vrenna insists that’s all changed. Sort of. “We’re much more of a band now than we…
In an age when rock and roll strikes some observers as increasingly passe, the members of Denver’s Boss 302 still believe it’s worthy of praise. Lead singer Rich Groskopf takes every available opportunity to call rock “the premier music genre.” Later, when Groskopf and the other Bosses (guitarists Garrett Brittenham…
R.E.M. Monster (Warner Bros.) Anyone who assumed, after perusing the ink already spilled over this, that Monster would sound like a less accessible version of Metal Machine Music can be forgiven for being somewhat underwhelmed by the reputed noisiness of the twelve ditties contained herein. “Star 69,” five numbers into…
