When Dirty Walt Kibby helped to assemble the funk/punk/ska unit known as Fishbone back in the mid-’80s, he unleashed a bottled musical genie that has run rampant in the decade and a half since the cork popped. Fishbone has moved through nearly every conceivable contemporary genre with a gritty passion…
Note to Mojave 3: For the love of all that’s holy, free Rachel Goswell! Let her sing! And while we’re at it, how about plugging in those guitars for a few numbers? The amps may not go to 11, but they must go past 4, people. Anyone who enjoyed this…
How to explain this staggeringly dull compendium of ancient folk and blues standards done up by one of altcountry’s founding fathers? Dave Alvin does it for you, in the liner notes to this loving nod to his record collection: “They are in the public domain,” he writes of the material…
The Full Moon Project had to happen. Bobby Thomas Jr., says he owed it to Jaco Pastorius. In 1982, Thomas, a drummer who had just begun to play professionally, wound up with about the best gig imaginable: touring Japan with storied fusion combo Weather Report. Sweet as it was, the…
The metaphorical fallout following Fort Lauderdale’s declaration of war against kids who just want to have fun has all the characteristics of the real thing: It’s lingering, radioactive, and cancerous. It immediately infected the town’s nightlife, surprising club owners who were led to believe the law wouldn’t be enforced for…
David Bowie is the Peter Sellers of rock ‘n’ roll: He’s all blank slate, the chameleon who adapts to his surroundings without actually adopting an identity. He commits only to schlock, tailoring the disguise — mod rocker, dickless space man, fashion faux pas — to fit the delivery, which is…
Given that Ray of Light, Madonna’s prior studio release, was both a big seller and the best-reviewed album of her career (its quality briefly forced all but the most obtuse critics to consider her an artist first and a cultural icon second, rather than the other way around), it’s no…
With the rise of punk in the early ’80s, one of the most potent scenes for the genre was spawned in the repressive post-Reagan cultural soup of Southern California. Although the area belched out a number of worthy bands, a select few rose above the din of the others to…
It’s only 9 a.m., but Al Sparhawk is wide awake. Such is life when you’re the father of a six-month-old. As young Hollis Mae Sparhawk lets out an exuberant squawk and her dad gushes on and on about the joys of fatherhood, it’s clear the elder Sparhawk is no ordinary…
Thanks to Fort Lauderdale’s Procrustean city commissioners (Cindi Hutchinson not included), it’s a bad time to be 18, 19, or 20 years old in the fair city. This group of politicians is a bunch of mamas who do not dance and daddies who most certainly will never deign to rock…
Not only was Shel Silverstein a bona fide pop-culture renaissance man, but he operated between enormous extremes while he was doing it. From lascivious Playboy cartoonist to gentle children’s-book author and illustrator, from the sensitive songwriter who created “Sylvia’s Mother” to the raucous provocateur who raised hackles and unit sales…
This heartfelt tribute to the man known as the father of bluegrass is at its best when its performers infuse Monroe’s material with new vitality without trampling the compositions’ stark and subtle charms. The best example of this balancing act is Dwight Yoakam’s rendition of “Rocky Road Blues,” on which…
You have to admire Marshall Crenshaw for his durability if nothing else. He’s been cranking out radio-ready pop for two decades and has managed to score exactly zero commercial hits. This fact is a continuing affront to a large band of rock critics, who have hailed him as the second…
As singer-songwriter for Raleigh, North Carolina’s Whiskeytown, Ryan Adams puts his own turmoil front and center, imbued with large doses of torrid introspection and drunken musings that belie his young life. As a band Whiskeytown mirrors the stark, broken soul turf of which Adams sings, combining the pained, pining pathos…
After a decade knocking around in relative anonymity with the indie in-crowd, Stephin Merritt has lately joined the ranks of pop music’s Who’s Who. The superlatives garnered by his band the Magnetic Fields’ one-of-a-kind, three-CD musical revue, 69 Love Songs, have turned him into something of an alternacelebrity. For his…
Brian Wilson is easily confused. Ask him something that’s even slightly ambiguous, and he’ll respond with the verbal equivalent of a blank stare. “What?” “Again, please?” “What, now?” “I’m sorry, what?” “What do you mean?” It’s not that Wilson, a singer, songwriter, producer, and visionary whose work with the Beach…
Every other month or so, bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment haul tons of local CDs to Bandwidth’s basement bunker. We sift through the rubble and pluck out a handful of platters for review. As a public service, we present our findings to you. Caution: Your results may vary. Prophets of…
Following up on the release of two wildly successful records — the most recent of which, Devil Without a Cause, sold many millions of units — Kid Rock has released what has to be considered an educational disc. Cynics might deride History of Rock as a crass retread; after all,…
I see dumb people: A lot of dumb people. They packed the September 19 Fort Lauderdale City Commission meeting and spilled out onto the streets. First there was the Boy Scout Bigotry Brigade, featuring 14-year-olds holding signs that read, “Stop the radical gay and lesbian agenda!!” Bandwidth was hanging around…
Laika is the black-clad goth girl you sat next to in high school geometry. She scribbles poetry on the soles of her concert-worn combat boots. Black nail polish is never absent from her unkempt, nibbled nails. She wears a nose ring on the weekends. She’s slightly pretentious, almost sincere in…
British-born bassist Sara Lee has compiled a pretty nifty résumé. She’s worked with the likes of the B-52’s, Gang of Four, Robert Fripp, Fiona Apple, Indigo Girls, and, most famously, Ani DiFranco. After two decades of keeping the low end locked, Lee has launched a solo career with the release…
When NYPD Blue supercop actor Dennis Franz appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and “performed” a song called “The Vatican Rag,” with dancers in Catholic clergy garb, the show was able to pass off the number as something new. Never mind that the tune was penned 35 years…
