Linda Smith Preference: Selected Songs, 19871991 (Harriet) Spare, honest, perceptive, and passionate in a peculiarly subdued way, singer-songwriter Linda Smith’s deceptively simple songs seem to have been beamed in from a parallel universe. No fake earnestness. No calculatedly naive idealism. No artifice whatsoever. These nineteen tracks, recorded at Smith’s Baltimore…
The first thing we did in the back room of Desperado’s last Thursday was to obey the instructions of our fun-loving emcee: “All right, everybody’s got to hold up their beers and say, ‘God bless America for sensuous mechanical-bull riding!'” Who was the first bar-owner to eye his bucking, pumping…
Some of Rick Miller’s first sexual fantasies came to him while assembling mobile homes in his dad’s factory in Henderson, North Carolina. A group of cleaning women worked in the factory, and one particularly piqued Miller’s pubescent fancy. “She was about 45 years old,” Miller recalls fondly, “and she wore…
Various Artists Star Rise (Real World) In 1990 Michael Brook, a New-Age guitarist and producer, collaborated with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a Pakistani singer of Sufi devotional hymns, to create the album Mustt Mustt, an early example of ancient-meets-ambient hybridism. Khan was already a major celebrity in many Eastern countries…
Peggy’s Place is a concert venue hidden in a quiet residential neighborhood just south of Davie Boulevard near I-95 in Fort Lauderdale. Actually, Peggy’s Place is Peggy Tibke’s house — 2232 SW 15th St., to be exact. It’s a modest affair with a spacious back yard that can accommodate about…
Teenage hipster wannabes, their faces pierced with silver hoops, their cups filled with steaming cappuccino, ambled around the Red Room in Boca Raton a couple of Saturday nights ago, as folkster Michael Stewart strummed his glossy, black Yamaha guitar and talked about Juliana Hatfield, the inspiration for one of the…
Ben Folds Five Naked Baby Photos (Caroline) This is the proverbial “contractual obligation” album: When Ben Folds Five signed to Sony, the band still owed its first label, Caroline Records, one more full-length album. This kind of circumstance usually results in a hastily assembled collection of “rare” tracks (a euphemism…
People say Crease sound like Offspring. Others claim they mimic Bad Religion. A few listeners hear Foo Fighters-esque tones. Hell, even drummer Eric Dorigo has a hard time labeling the sound. “I would call our sound…. Well, its not really punk or metal,” he says. “It’s kind of a mixture.”…
Toward the end of this week, more than a dozen singers-songwriters will begin making their way to Broward County to compete in the South Florida Folk Festival. Al Scortino will drive two hours from Sebastian, just north of Vero Beach, in his Mazda pickup truck. Bernice Lewis, from Williamstown, Massachusetts,…
To pinpoint the eclectic sound of Hashbrown, one needs to examine the musical tastes and influences of members Clarence Spencer (vocals), Duncan Cameron (guitar), and Wayne “DJ Crash” Walters (drummer). “We can’t help but be a hybrid sound,” Walters notes over the faint static of his portable phone. “I come…
On a recent Tuesday night at O’Hara’s Pub and Jazz Cafe in Fort Lauderdale, Dale Powers, leader of the five-piece band Jump n’ Jive, glowers as he stands over his electric keyboard. A lanky 43-year-old with pointed features and slicked-back black hair, Powers cuts a dapper figure in a red…
Supersonic Wall to Wall Moustache (Sire) “Welcome to the fucked-up chemical beats of Supersonic,” announces this band’s press kit, which means there’s now more weight on the electronica bandwagon that was initially steered by the Chemical Brothers. Unlike that pioneering duo, however, Darren Pickles and Slapper Dave of Supersonic are…
At the start of the year, it looked as though 1997 would be, like 1996, the year of the Macarena. In January the hackles-raising dance track racked up its 70th week — 70th! — on the Billboard singles chart. Mercifully the the song faded away sometime in February, but don’t…
America’s recent burst of creative energy — grunge — is definitely over, yet in 1997 the music industry continued to feed us a string of false Pearl Jams: Tonic, Matchbox 20, Better Than Ezra, Live, the Verve Pipe, et cetera. It’s no wonder the best music of 1997 came from…
Various Artists In Tha Beginning…There Was Rap (Priority Records) Say what you will about rap — it’s sexist, it promotes violence, it gave Vanilla Ice his fifteen minutes of fame — but it changed popular music as we know it. First heard in the late Seventies and early Eighties, rap…
Affectionately named after a nickname for young Rossella Annati (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), the alternative-pop trio China Doll came to life six years ago. Rounded out by sister Renata Annati (keyboards, backing vocals) and brother Matthew Annati (bass), the Fort Lauderdale band has since perfected their Beatles, U2, Carly Simon,…
There comes a point in every rock fan’s listening career when he or she feels obligated to “try” jazz. It’s tricky musical territory for the novitiate, full of snobs and geniuses and difficult theories. There’s much talk about “tone” and “phrasing” and other things that don’t necessarily matter much in…
While other high-school teens are worrying about zits and agonizing over getting their driver’s licenses, Pembroke Pines blues guitarist and vocalist Josh Smith is recording CDs — three so far. “Age doesn’t matter,” says the eighteen-year-old Smith. “I just play all kinds of blues music, so people of any age…
If you’ve ever danced your ass off at the Chili Pepper, Bermuda Bar, or the Button South, chances are it was DJ Rick Von Halle who got you moving. In addition to serving as musical director at the Chili Pepper for the past five years, Von Halle is currently the…
In the radio business, it’s known as the New Adult Contemporary format, or NAC, though more descriptive terms might be “smooth jazz,” “New Age,” “easy listening,” or simply “background music.” Or as one L.A. Times writer described it, “instrumental wallpaper.” Its most famous practitioners are the pianists Jim Brickman (who…
Kacy Crowley Anchorless (Atlantic) This talented singer-songwriter was born in Connecticut and grew up listening to the heartland rock and roll of John Cougar Mellencamp. She did a brief stint as a Grateful Dead groupie then devoted herself to playing music in the coffeehouses of Los Angeles. She played with…
Roni Size and Reprazent Newforms (Mercury) Mainstream America got its first real taste of electronica from Prodigy, the British group that took a rather obscure form of electronic dance music and made it accessible by adding familiar rap/punk vocals (and a familiar rap/punk image). The result was this past summer’s…
