As preachers go, piano-basher Rev. Billy C. Wirtz is like no other. While some men of the cloth may pound Bibles, preaching fire and brimstone, the Reverend Wirtz ministers to his flock with a different kind of salvation. The Gospel according to Wirtz includes sanctifying, side-splitting musical tales that herald…
Do you have your Free the West Memphis Three T-shirt yet? No, it’s not a promo item for a Blair Witch Project sequel but a spinoff of a true tale based on the 1993 Robin Hood Hill murders in West Memphis, Arkansas. Three eight-year-old boys were found slain, and three…
“I’m sick of people who see my hair color and see that I sing pop music and think that I’m automatically a clone of Britney or Christina!” complains rising teen star Mandy Moore. “Not that that’s a bad thing, but I’m not another Britney and I’m not another Christina. I’m…
New Jersey’s Yo La Tengo regularly sends reviewers into enthusiastic fits. Over the course of the band’s 14-year career, the critical darlings began to attract followers who weren’t necessarily rock writers. Now, with their tenth release, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Yo La Tengo has scaled a new peak…
Ever since she emerged in the early ’90s, Jill Sobule has symbolized all that is abhorrent about modern girl-pop. Like far too many female folkies, Sobule apparently believes that songs about feminine quirks are empowering. Her irksome approach reached its nadir on the 1995 single, “I Kissed a Girl.” An…
Spring fashions include lots of pastels, of course. But the real key is that they’re casual, yet oh-so-sporty. Did you think our mid-May batch of local CD releases would be any different? Sure, these new ones have less chiffon than in previous years, but let’s try a couple on and…
From the biting electric chords of “Fightin’ Hard,” which launches guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart’s latest funky epistle, Start With the Soul, it’s clear that the acoustic heart and soul of the Bay Area is up to something new — namely, the wall socket. Hart has long been a champion of…
They say girls mature faster than boys. Shannon Curfman, however, is maturing faster than everyone. At age 14 she’s doing her schoolwork on the road while touring behind her major-label debut, Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions. Her turns in the spotlight haven’t come in the school auditorium but on The Late…
Slow and low, that is the tempo, but San Francisco’s Timonium doesn’t exactly fit the soft-core parameters established by sleepytimers Idaho, Low, or Codeine. Instead of remaining pretty and complacent, Timonium isn’t afraid to pump up the volume. On Suspende Animation, the band takes four long songs and spins them…
Todd Snider’s talent as a songwriter has never been much in doubt. Unfortunately the same can’t be said of his ability to find an audience for his cheeky blend of country and folk-rock. Snider released two albums on Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Records in the mid-’90s before dropping from view. Now…
Back in 1995 Fort Lauderdale hardcore act Puya was mixing blazing speed metal, Latin rhythms, and Spanish-language lyrics into a powerfully potent concoction. That formula won the band fans throughout the state, a slew of local awards, and by 1998, a major-label deal with MCA. Now Nonpoint, a West Palm…
Speedy J (Jochem Paap) is one of those rare electronic artists who redefines sound itself. Having gotten his start (and his nickname) from throwing together the quickest mixes of rave and early techno at the turn of the ’90s, Paap learned that his talents lie in producing sound. He set…
A youth crisis is upon us. Our children are in peril, their minds atrophying like lunchmeat in the sun. Only one man has the solution. “The sad state of the fuckin’ nation, dude,” observes ex-Skid Row screamer Sebastian Bach, “is that the kids have never seen bands like Mötley Crüe…
The stateside release of 1998’s Moon Safari generated an instant buzz for Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel, the French tandem known as Air . No one had ever heard quite the sort of music they played — a canny blend of pop melodies and ambient arrangements, spiced by the occasional…
Any discussion of James Brown’s incredible talent and career will inevitably lead to headshaking disbelief at his longevity and success. But one element that is often overlooked by those who subscribe to the King James version is that JB has always stood in front of the hardest working band in…
Lambchop, Kurt Wagner’s ten-man Nashville clique, backed Vic Chesnutt on last year’s The Salesman and Bernadette, a truly strange album featuring country, white soul, and electronic droning played for emotional unreadability. For Nixon the band has expanded by several members for some solid tuneage. On its own, though, Lambchop is…
We wanted to report that the response to the first Bandwidth column — asking readers to suggest a new name for the Winter Music Conference — was off the hook. However, we cannot. Our office slang-slinger has determined that catch phrase is past its expiration date. He’s found a replacement…
MDFMK MDFMK (Republic/Universal) Suppose for a moment that, on the occasion of the first departure of David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen had announced that he was reforming the band under the new appellation Nav Nelah and that its sound and attitude and execution would be completely different. Would you…
Ice Cube War & Peace Volume 2 (The Peace Disc) (Priority Records) It’s been a long time since Ice Cube declared War. With the 1998 release of War & Peace Volume 1 (The War Disc), Cube promised its flip side, slated to be released a year later. It’s been two…
Glenn Danzig is a cartoon character. No, really: Just take a look at the cover of the new Danzig album, which pictures the singer emerging from a bog like DC/Marvel’s Swamp Thing. Inch-deep third-degree burns scar his massive biceps. “Yeah, I’ve got 666 burned into my arm,” he deadpans, in…
“Battle of the bands” competitions remind us of high school or, worse, movies starring Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox about high-school “battle of the bands” competitions. The nationwide Bandemonium contest visited our state last month, and three South Florida groups nearly rose to the top. In fact the town…
Dirty Three Whatever You Love, You Are (Touch and Go) Post-post-rock, rigorous musicality, and all-instrumental composition no longer seem the indie-scene idiosyncrasies they once were. Now considered neither an artsy-fartsy anomaly nor a novelty act, the violin/guitar/drums trio Dirty Three can be appreciated on their own terms as the leading…
