John Wesley Hall believes justice is a myth taught in classrooms, a fable found in law books, as imaginary as the unicorn and the mermaid. The Arkansas attorney mentions case after case in which he represented an innocent who wound up imprisoned or, worse, executed; in the course of a...
Whether it's the result of a karmic quirk or of nostalgic indulgence on the part of rock fans, there's no denying that Ian Astbury's career suddenly and almost inexplicably has more legs than a Catholic girls' school. A founding member of the Cult, a group whose blend of old-school swagger...
764-HERO, while still at peace in the relative obscurity of the underground, is no longer the sort of new phenomenon that can be judged one release at a time. After two full-length albums (Salt Sinks, Sugar Floats and Get Here and Stay), an EP (We're Solids) and a brilliantly conceived...
Read Hortt No More 2 Early this year the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale hosted "Do It," a traveling exhibition based on instructions from an artists' collective. To create one piece, the staff was directed to issue a call for works illustrating a crime. One submission took curator Ginger...
The kids grow up so fast these days. Back in 1967, those nice Beatle boys had taken five years and about a dozen albums to reach the stage of enlightenment and evolution where they could confidently create their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It's taken Courtney Taylor the same...
"I entered the music business when it was much more of a cottage industry and now it is a corporate industry. There are advantages to corporate industry.... That's just the way it is. It's not going back." -- Sting, America OnLine chat, December 7, 1999 Sting has benefited greatly. He...
As lightning flashed across a purple sky on the evening of September 5, about 70 supporters of Broward County commission hopeful and current Fort Lauderdale city commissioner Carlton Moore cranked up the music at his West Oakland Park Boulevard campaign headquarters. Just call my name, and I'll be there... poured...
In 1994, back when the Sub Pop imprint still meant something, Sunny Day Real Estate released a remarkably dull album titled Diary. That's not quite the oxymoron it seems. All the components of a great album were there -- a talent for lurching guitar-driven songcraft, a cycle of detailed and...
Whereas most drum 'n' bass acts are identifiable by a signature sound (Goldie, LTJ Bukem, and the like), Spring Heel Jack doesn't really have one, which makes its music all the more interesting. The duo's inventiveness may be a result of pedigree: When he's not with Spring Heel Jack, John...
It stands to reason that if you have a craving for barbecued ribs, you should seek out a joint that specializes in rib preparation. If you have a yen for some really fresh shrimp, stop in at a seafood shack. If you seek a high-quality steak, going to a steak...
It's a pleasure to say that Clint Eastwood reverses his recent downward slide -- A Perfect World (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Absolute Power (1997), and True Crime (1999), each of which has seemed less satisfying than its predecessor -- with Space Cowboys, his latest. It isn't an...
Depending upon how you count, Rock 'N' Roll Singer is the second or third solo outing by Mark Kozelek, the songwriting arm of Red House Painters. Although RHP's Ocean Beach (1995) and Songs For a Blue Guitar (1996) were dominated by him (the latter completely, in fact), this is the...
The personality of a postmodern pop group is not so much split as it is severed. There are tons of musical styles from which to pick and choose, so all that a clever and imaginative musician needs to do is to figure out how to piece them all together with...
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...
Where to place Austin Willacy? Somewhere in the great open plains between Stevie Wonder and Kurt Cobain. Willacy, formerly of the House Jacks, has the voice of a classic soul singer and the songwriting sensibility of a grunge disciple. The result is a fascinating, if prickly, solo debut, American Pi...
The Entrada Resort & Motel opens its first sleepy eye at dawn. Though the lounge's doors shut only three hours earlier, the horseshoe bar is serving again at 7 a.m. Its small double-sided cooler brims with beer, ice froths in an aluminum bucket, and mute television sets flash the weather...
Dimitris Karavokiris doesn't know how long he can hang on to the Shell station he leases on Sample Road in Coral Springs. When he bought the business from another dealer seven years ago, his monthly rent ranged from $3000 to $4000 after a sales-based rebate. When Shell eliminated the rebate...
Humans and their stories, my oh my. Somehow the familiar themes just keep coming around ad infinitum. Of course most of them have already been captured and processed by Shakespeare. From the bitter young man to the crazy old king, from the flirty young thing to the malicious old crone,...
Irish charm and British eccentricity are hot properties on this side of the pond -- especially among U.S. moviegoers. Witness the phenomenal success here of The Secret of Roan Inish, in which a ten-year-old Irish girl finds her lost brother living among seals off her country's rugged western coast, or...
As any Klump family member can tell you, this has been a hot summer for black comedians. New movies starring Martin Lawrence, the Wayans brothers, and Eddie Murphy have already pulled down more than $300 million at the box office, and by the time Chris Rock's remake of Heaven Can...
In 1999 Tony! Toni! Toné! cofounder Raphael Saadiq tapped former En Voguer Dawn Robinson and A Tribe Called Quest's beatmeister Ali Shaheed Muhammad to form the neosoul collective Lucy Pearl. With these credentials you'd expect something life-changing -- the possibilities from this talent pool seem endless. Lucy Pearl's debut is...
A month ago, R.J. Cutler thought he found a home for his child, one that would coddle and nurture his baby until it was ready to stand on its own two legs without wobbling or falling. A month ago, it all seemed so simple to the Oscar-nominated producer-director, who was...
