Anyone who’s had a drink at the Elbo Room on a Monday evening has seen the blond-haired dude with a guitar and a keyboard standing on the makeshift stage in the corner. He can do “Brown Eyed Girl” just like Van, “Jammin'” just like Bob, and “Danny’s Song” just like…
Her vocal arsenal is made up of jazzy phrasings, titillating coos, and scat-speak. She knows her way ’round a guitar and has a little-kid way of delivering biting punch lines about people in the “Bible belt buckle” and men on motorcycles. Miami-based singer-songwriter Magda Hiller is a breath of fresh…
Jono Manson Little Big Man (Paradigm Records) If you’ve never heard of Jono Manson before, it’s understandable. Though he’s been playing the club circuit for two decades, Little Big Man is only his second album on a major label (following 1995’s soulful Almost Home). Manson, who’s collaborated with Blues Traveler,…
In November 1996, New York Times reporter and rock critic Neil Strauss crawled into the hot tub at a Holiday Inn in Fort Lauderdale with desperate-to-shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Strauss was there to write an article for Rolling Stone, and Manson was ready to take full advantage of the opportunity…
When she’s not fronting the Boca Raton-based rock band Blonde Enuff, Cassandra Eubank is busy snagging interviews with megahot rockers like Matchbox 20 and Collective Soul when they pass through South Florida. The interviews are aired on her local music-video show, Home Grown Music. Eubank also hosts local battle-of-the-bands contests,…
Pulp This Is Hardcore (Island) Jarvis Cocker’s songs are much like Martin Amis’ novels: The characters are distasteful, the situations sordid, the sex unsavory, and the humor cruel. It’s an ugly picture of mankind stripped to the skivvies, its immorality dangling in the wind. Amis hides his obvious titillation at…
Original rock bands are hard to come by in Fort Lauderdale. They’re out there (somewhere), but cover bands, Top 40 dance bands, and standard R&B bands dominate local clubs almost every night of the week. It’s as if venue owners fear that an unfamiliar chord progression might cause patrons to…
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Crystal Ball (NPG Records) “I’ve got grooves and grooves on the shelf,” a cocky Prince boasted on 1990’s best-selling Batman soundtrack. He wasn’t kidding. Never a minimalist, His Royal Badness rarely seemed to lack inspiration or the means to capture it on tape. Following…
Dunstan Bruce, a member of the eight-person anarchist collective and pop group known as Chumbawamba, is pressing the flesh with various music-industry types at a sports bar in Milwaukee on a recent Thursday afternoon. Though Chumbawamba has been on a world tour since last October, Bruce is still not quite…
With beads of sweat glimmering atop his clean-shaven head and his maniacal eyes simmering, Endo vocalist Gil Bitton halted an explosive set halfway through an appearance at the now-defunct Prop Room to ask this question: “Has anybody seen a gun? Somebody just told me they lost one. Everybody back up…
Last week marked Austin’s twelfth annual South by Southwest music conference. Some 3000 music-biz types listened to some 850 bands from around the world play at 35 clubs over five nights. In other words, most of the music we’ll be listening to over the next year was previewed last week…
Dave Mustaine claims to be mulling over new career possibilities. “I enjoy teaching,” says the singer and guitarist for one of America’s most aggressive speed-metal bands, Megadeth. In fact, Mustaine played a schoolteacher in Evolver, a feature-length video released in 1995. “It was the end of the last shot, and…
Kristin Hersh Strange Angels (Rykodisc) Throwing Muses didn’t officially break up until last April, but as early as 1994 the band’s uncompromising lead singer and songwriter, Kristin Hersh, was already going her own way. That year she cultivated a haunting, hollow sound on her solo debut, Hips & Makers; four…
Watching the robust guitarist and vocalist Darrell House get the twentysomething crowd at Durty Nellie’s collectively to chant “Bullshit,” or the older beach and biker crowds at Cafe Blue Fish to sing along to “The Man From Nantucket,” you’d never guess that, aside from singing dirty limericks, House writes message-oriented…
It’s easy to dismiss electronica as a passing fad. Radio stations almost never play it. Record stores consign it to a small section of its own. The media haven’t quite grasped it. What’s all the fuss about? Come on — this bleeping, squawking stuff will never replace rock ‘n’ roll…
Michael Bianco, a 42-year-old guitarist with a distinct Boston accent, sits in an alcove in his musical home, the Now Art Cafe in Hollywood. With his longish black hair, casual sweatshirt, black jeans, and white sneakers, Bianco looks more like a second baseman for the neighborhood softball team than a…
Regulars at O’Hara’s on East Las Olas Boulevard may have noticed that when Danny Burger does a drum solo, he doesn’t sound quite like anyone else. It’s not merely that he’s good — after all, he’s played with some of the biggest names in jazz music, from Dizzy Gillespie to…
The High Llamas Cold and Bouncy (V2) Most bands work within established genres, such as rock, folk, or blues. Some mine more specific veins, like fusion or psychedelia. A few bands fall into minicategories; acid-jazz or chamber-pop come to mind. The High Llamas, however, model their work on a single…
The disappearance of “real” music is a slow, daily process, barely even noticeable. CDs are purchased on the Internet, and much of the music on those CDs is sampled from old records, relics from the years when people actually played instruments. Just as often, the sounds come from computers. “Live”…
Strolling the Strip in Fort Lauderdale the other night, I almost walked by Evangeline, until I heard the faint yet feverish intensity of a violin. Stepping inside, I spotted the white instrument, which was tucked under Kimberly Jaffar’s chin. She wasn’t alone. Right next to her was Jonathan Panks, singing…
Mark Eitzel Caught in a Trap and I Can’t Back Out ‘Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby (Matador) It’s hard to imagine a better title for an album by Mark Eitzel, the verbose and despondent singer-songwriter who once led San Francisco’s much-heralded band American Music Club. This solo CD…
Kelly Mason, age 16, recalls with glee a recent Christian-rock concert she attended. “It was the first time I’ve been to a Presbyterian church with a mosh pit,” she says, “and you’d step out of the pit, and there’s blood on the floor. And I’m like, ‘Yes! This rocks!'” Until…
