Hee, hee! Greetings, my fine fettered friends, and welcome to another foul feast in the Haunt of Fear. This is your shriekchef, your delirium dietician, ready with my bubbling cauldron, filled with my latest reeking recipe. So relax on that marble settee there and I’ll begin by feeding you the…
Melissa likes girls. Now can we please move on? Five years ago Melissa Etheridge told New Times readers that she had no idea what ingredients go into the recipe for rock stardom. That was back in the spring of 1989, on the high heels of her startling first album. She…
“I had a job but I got laid off,” Buddy belted, answering his vocals with a stinging Strat riff. “I had a heart but it got too soft,” the crowd shouted back, filling in the next line of the John Hiatt tune from Buddy Guy’s breakthrough album, Damn Right I’ve…
On a weekday afternoon Churchill’s Hideaway is not crowded. Elbowing the bar are two older men in dress suits, and a younger man in similar garb. There’s a talkative woman, a couple of average looking guys in jeans, and a truck driver who looks like an actor playing the role…
Taj Mahal Dancing the Blues (Private Music) By Bob Weinberg “Blues ain’t nothin’ but a good man feelin’ bad.” It’s a common misperception. In fact, an old blues album I picked up even has an ad inside the jacket for an antidepressant drug. But if you’re listening right, you won’t…
It hit him hard, the passing of a good friend. “I’m dead on my feet right now,” says blues guitarist-singer-songwriter Bob Margolin in a weary drawl. Just the other day saxophonist Fats Jackson, best known for his work with Elmore James and Little Walter, had gone on to his final…
The rock of South Florida’s Sixties is about to be born again, thanks to a reunion of some of the era’s stars. Exactly 28 years ago, the WFUN-AM Boss Survey had the Kinks at number one with “A Well-Respected Man.” Also hitting the charts that week: Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones,…
As the demand for new and innovative music increases, some bands are becoming tougher to peg. Their music contorts, manipulates, stretches to create new variations within a genre. Rap borrowing from rock and jazz, jazz from rap and rock, and rock from everything. There are even degrees of rock ranging…
Traditionally, thanks to an embargo between two sovereign nations, Cuban music floated across the Florida Straits by way of bootleg copies or, in the case of internationally recognized bands such as Irakere, through a third country. In the latter case, the act tours abroad, a performance is recorded, licensed, and…
Do these things really happen? Johnny Clyde swears it’s true. He was about fifteen, gawking at an electric guitar in the window of a music shop in Houston’s Third Ward district, when a man approached him and asked if he had a band. Turns out the guy owned a local…
Most musicians resent categorization, hate being compared to other musicians. Critics, on the other hand, rely on comparison to give consumers some idea of the band’s sound — oh, dude, it’s like if Deborah Harry fronted the Beatles (or whatever). The musicians are right, really — it’s pretty much an…
“You Better Get It in Your Soul.” Bassman Charlie Mingus’s song title could be considered the watchword of jazz in the Sixties, especially for African-American jazz musicians. Young piano virtuoso Herbie Hancock created the greasy R&B monster jam “Watermelon Man.” Established piano man Horace Silver rolled out brass-fueled fandangos such…
Koko Taylor Force of Nature (Alligator) By Bob Weinberg If any singer can be considered a force of nature, it’s Koko Taylor. Howlin’ Wolf knew it the first time he heard her in a Chicago nightclub; before Koko’s mike had been turned off, she was signed by the erstwhile Mr…
Eddy the Baptist. It’s not what most South Floridians think of when they hear the name Eddy Grant. As the artist himself readily admits, the knee-jerk response to that moniker is “Electric Avenue.” Boosted by exposure on MTV back when that moribund institution was still a scrappy, eclectic upstart, the…
While Eddy Grant’s endeavor to socafy the world through his Ice label is a fresh twist, he’s hardly the first pop star to turn up his own imprint. Long before he traded in his name for a psychosexual doodle, “retired” from studio recording, and announced his intention to concentrate on…
It couldn’t be more fitting that the sweltering city of Phoenix is haven to one of metal’s high priests. From the ashes of Judas Priest rises Fight, with former J.P. frontman Rob Halford spreading his wings, or at least pumping his ironclad lungs, over the metal airwaves with War of…
It was my first rock concert. Ozzy Osbourne had canceled one date and then rescheduled, so my anticipation was reaching a second climax. I entered the heavily trodden worshipping grounds of the now demolished Hollywood Sportatorium, knee-high to a swarm of security guards armed with flashlights and harsh glares. I…
Two years ago, in the pages of this newspaper, I wrote an open letter to the Mavericks nominating myself as a replacement for founding guitarist Ben Peeler, who had just been dropped from the band. They chose to go with a Texan, David Lee Holt, instead. They’ll tell you it…
The Watchmen McLarenFurnaceRoom (MCA) By Steven Almond Just because the world’s two best bands were born and reared in Canada doesn’t mean Americans should have to remove their heads from their asses long enough to hail a terrific new Canadian band. After all, the removal of the national head from…
I’m just a guy who watches life go by and sometimes writes songs about it. — Frank Zappa, 1985 A simple statement from a complicated man. I first met Frank Zappa in March 1968, backstage at Thee Image, a Sunny Isles bowling alley converted into a “psychedelic dungeon,” to borrow…
Rooster Head Tasting Your Molester (Swelter/Style) By Greg Baker Is this a musical recording about child sexual abuse? The repercussions of a violent society reflected in its art? Does this represent a change in sound direction from their three earlier albums? Do we really have to say goodbye? Just remember,…
Had Patrick Codenys been present when Edison first demonstrated the light bulb, his reaction would most likely have been, “That’s cool. But what else can it do?” Front 242 (Codenys plus Jean-Luc de Meyer, Richard Jonckheere, and Daniel Bressanutti) has devoted the past decade to taking the same juice that…
