Reviews
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A decade ago, a new breed of psychedelic musicians rediscovered Michael Yonkers, a 1970s-era Midwestern lo-fi psych-rocker who had self-released a handful of obscure but highly sought-after albums of grizzly, lo-fi, rough music that defies easy description. The good people at Drag City, in a continued effort to document the lost works of artists you didn’t know you Read more
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Mark Lanegan came to prominence in the Nineties with his band Screaming Trees, a group that melded metal, rock, and the blues in a loud and truly innovative way. Sadly, like many bands of the era, personality conflicts and substance abuse problems would eventually destroy the band. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Lanegan’s Read more
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To many people’s great surprise, Lambchop’s fifth album, Nixon, was a surprise European hit. In many ways it was a grand departure from the band’s previous work; lush and supple, much less “country” and much more R&B in nature, the album seamlessly flows from start to finish in one continuous groove. This was a newer, Read more
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The Nineties were a very prolific time for musicians; the sudden popularity of DIY culture and underground, independent music, tempered with the easy access to affordable recording equipment and physical reproduction–these factors all led to small but fertile scenes. For me, I was quite fond of the indie-pop/indie-rock scene; though both terms are now meaningless Read more
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Hindsight being what it is, it’s not very hard to hear what major label executives were hearing when they signed Murfreesboro, Tennessee’s Self. Twas the era of “alternative rock,” after all, and in 1995 that meant poppy guitar rock with clever, intelligent, and sometimes irreverent lyrics. In listening to debut album Subliminal Plastic Motives‘ opening Read more
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One could look at the history of Ghost Dance as a cautionary tale, even as their fate proves to be somewhat typical. Formed in the mid-1980s from former members of Skeletal Family, Sisters of Mercy, and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, they signed to Chrysalis Records. Unfortunately, the relationship between band and label quickly started to Read more
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The Fourmyula was a Beatles-inspired pop band from the tiny nation of New Zealand, and it’s easy to understand why they had a brief, fleeting taste of fame and success–they had excellent songwriting chops, and with their songs led by vocalist Carl Evenson, the band possessed a quality that was never hampered by the obscurity Read more
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It would be extremely easy to call Tiny Tim a one-off, but that doesn’t begin to do justice to just exactly how unique Herbert Khaury was. A large, imposing man with a voice that seemed unsuited for a man of his stature, Tiny Tim would become a fixture on talk shows for his singing and Read more
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If one were feeling sarcastic, one might suggest that Honky, progressive keyboardist Keith Emerson‘s solo album from 1981, should have been titled Prog-Rockers in Paradise. While Honky is far from a Jimmy Buffett-style affair, it most certainly isn’t the austere, almost solemn affair of Emerson’s work with Emerson, Lake & Palmer; if anything, the record Read more
The Recoup 