Stretched out on his couch at his home in Swindon, England, Andy Partridge, the garrulous singer, guitarist, and songwriter for XTC, casually catalogs what he’s been up to for the last seven years. And that doesn’t include much lying on the couch. “Being on strike, getting divorced, raising my kids,…
Ani DiFranco Up Up Up Up Up Up (Righteous Babe) After nearly a decade and an even dozen releases, Ani DiFranco is not about to start sucking up to the recording industry for approval or legitimacy. By the same token, she’s not prone to begin pandering to her fans by…
Country singer Brian Eckert doesn’t have a hard time finding gigs these days, mostly because he’s part-owner of one of the more popular country and western bars in Broward County. Eckert and his wife, Nancy, bought into Desperado’s in Fort Lauderdale in 1997. A regular act there since the club…
Elinor Blake wants to meet at the library. She’s a frequent visitor there. Not necessarily for the books, though she’s an avid reader; it’s the music. Rows of used CDs await. Fine recordings of the European masters — Debussy, Chopin, and the like. So here she stands, out on Santa…
Sam Prekop Sam Prekop (Thrill Jockey) Even on his first solo record Sam Prekop (ex-Shrimp Boat frontman) can’t stay away from the postrock supergroup that he leads, the Sea and Cake of Chicago; two Cakers, percussionist John McEntire (also of Tortoise) and guitarist Archer Prewitt (late of the Coctails), assist…
Various Artists The Moment of Truth: The Emo Diaries, Chapter Three (Deep Elm Records) Now on its third installment, Deep Elm Records continues to document the ill-defined posthardcore genre known as emo. The term itself comes heavily loaded — most bands that fit the description won’t cop to being an…
Groovy baby… outta sight! That’s what the hip kids are saying about DJ Geronimo as he spins them back in time to the days when polyester and platforms were king. Named by his parents after the patron saint of Cephalonia, Greece, not the famous Apache Indian, Geronimo sits high above…
Oddly enough, former House of Pain (HoP) member and current hip-hop troubadour Everlast is proving himself to be a crossbreed of b-boy and Johnny Cash. In his current incarnation — as guitar-wielding Whitey Ford — he sports a streetwise, middle-finger-in-the-air attitude matched with songs that aren’t afraid to cross genre…
Peter Himmelman Love Thinketh No Evil (Six Degrees/Koch) In the five years since Peter Himmelman’s last studio effort, he’s obviously had a chance to carefully study his Elvis Costello collection. Not that he’s copping EC’s wave by any stretch of the imagination — Himmelman has always had a well-defined sense…
DJ Danny Bled is standing in the corner of West Palm Beach’s Respectable Street Cafe, headphones half on, penlight in mouth, slowly nodding his head, tracking beats. As he slides the crossfader, the Revolting Cocks’ grinding, pounding “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” with its overslicked, pseudosuave vocals, begins to thump;…
Number One Cup People People Why Are We Fighting? (Flydaddy Records) Chicago’s Number One Cup is emphatically indie. Its latest CD — People People Why Are We Fighting? — is replete with the discordant guitars, nonchalant vocals, and quirky noises that have become indie rock’s standard currency. It’s hard not…
Ever hear of a musician who doesn’t mind people in the audience shouting things at her and interrupting songs? Well, Elizabeth De Bolt encourages it. Audience participation is what her one-woman show is all about. Think Joan Baez meets Name That Tune, and you start to get the picture. De…
Despite tremendous SoundScan sales numbers, something is missing from today’s hip-hop. Humor, a rap music staple during the ’80s in the hands of Biz Markie and others, has all but disappeared as the music’s popularity has increased; instead of hitting with punch lines, current top-selling rappers are more likely to…
The Black Crowes By Your Side (Columbia) Like any small group of world-class, highly paid performers — from sports teams to rock ‘n’ roll bands — when things take a downward turn, an individual or two pays the price. For the Black Crowes, after two subpar-selling records, the heads that…
Four years ago I briefly met Peter Guralnick at a book-signing in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time Guralnick — one of the few great chroniclers of American music — was basking in considerable acclaim for Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, the first volume of his Elvis…
When James Kraut was a teenager, his parents confiscated his guitar, banishing it to the basement until he paid their ransom: better grades. Undaunted, he sneaked around Rochester, New York, with friends’ instruments, improving his musicianship but not his scholarship. In his late twenties, he dropped out of the reggae…
Various Artists Fit For Kings: A Compilation of Peripheral New Zealand Music (Drunken Fish) Birchville Cat Motel Siberian Earth Curve (Drunken Fish) Like the weirdest, wildest practitioners of ’60s free-jazz, the avatars of the busy New Zealand noise scene have spent the better part of a decade deconstructing music until,…
Big Head Todd and The Monsters Live Monsters (Reprise) The live album is inherently problematic. Some bands that are good in the studio are great on stage, but, when the fire of a stage performance is translated back into the recorded medium, the results rarely satisfy. In all of contemporary…
“God Save the Kinks!” That was the rallying cry for years among diehard fans of the seminal British Invasion band that has hovered somewhere between the musical mainstream and the margins for some 35 years. It would make a perfect title for a boxed set, but alas — or then…
I am dreaming as I write this. Forgive me if it goes astray. The artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and currently known as simply the Artist, has been baffling critics and fans for the better part of the decade. Ever since his 1993 decision to…
XTC Transistor Blast (TVT) In the rarified world of brainy alterna-folk-pop, no absence has been more sharply felt than that of XTC. Six years have passed since the band failed to make a significant impact on American audiences, much to Geffen’s consternation. Still, the label forged ahead with an excellent…
Whenever Gregg Allman performs, three plastic cups sit atop his Hammond B-3 organ. For a long time, they contained vodka and cranberry juice; before that, Chivas Regal and Coke. But nowadays, hearing the blond, blue-eyed singer-songwriter rattle off the cups’ contents is like getting a lesson in holistic medicine: “One…
