Search Results for "Gary Graff"

Just as the trio was hitting its stride with its best album, 1990’s Sunburn, the Blake Babies greeted the new decade by breaking up. Singer/bassist Juliana Hatfield lit out for the big time, picking up a guitar and staking out turf as the Sassy-generation spokeswoman for adolescent angst — a niche particularly well-suited to the…

Early in 1995, Denver native Jill Sobule emerged as a fresh new voice on the pop scene, singing about kissing a girl. Provocative, sure, but then Sobule was no newcomer. She had kicked around the club and coffeehouse circuit for years, and had already put out one album. But few heard the Todd Rundgren-produced Things…

Jerry Garcia’s death may have been rock’s most discussed passing of 1995, but the tale of For Squirrels was surely the most tragic. On September 8, the group was headed home from New York City to Gainesville, Florida, after playing a triumphant showcase. In Georgia, a van tire blew out, singer Jack Vigliatura, who was…

Led by guitarist and chief composer Vernon Reid (also a music critic and co-founder of the Black Rock Coalition, a New York organization of African-American bands), Living Colour promises more than it delivers on Vivid. Because the quartet doesn’t match stupid preconceptions about the kind of music people of color should and shouldn’t play, the…

Lumping Toni Childs in with other confessional singer-songwriters is too simple — and an injustice. Childs brings an international tableau of sounds and experiences to her three albums. The Southern California native has lived all over the western United States and in England; her early musical experiences including playing with future members of the Red…

The Motor City Speedball makes motor music — it’s as simple as that. The quartet’s debut is filled with auto imagery, from the gearshift map printed on the CD itself to lyrics like “Live fast/Die young/Live fast/Get on your hog and ri-yi-yid” (“Hog”). Frontman and chief songwriter Chuck Burns, who began his musical life in…

Talk about a change-up… Anybody who bought into the muscular popcraft of Sponge would probably blanch at an earful of its predecessor. Loudhouse was a short-lived Detroit band that tried to patch together the city’s vibrant techno scene and the hard-rock heritage established in nearby Ann Arbor by the MC5 and the Stooges. The quartet’s…

Bassist John Power left the La’s at the end of 1991, picked up a guitar and spent the next three years assembling Cast, a four-piece that lit up London beginning in 1995 and even had Oasis’ truculent Noel Gallagher singing its praises. All Change, which followed a couple of singles, shows what all the fuss…

Like Lunachicks and Babes in Toyland, L7 emerged from rock’s pre-riot grrrl wing, seeking not to steamroller or dismantle the male mosh society but rather to join it. Girls just wanna bang heads, as it were. That’s a feminist stance in its own right, but in time L7’s four members would show they had plenty…

When Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995, the smart money in the New Dead lottery was on Phish — but then it had already been so for those aware of the band. Formed in 1983 at the University of Vermont, the quartet was among the first-born children of the Dead, heavy on improvisation and eclecticism…

The Verve Pipe formed in East Lansing, Michigan in 1992 when members of two popular area groups decided to work together. The sum was indeed greater than its parts, and the group quickly garnered a regional following for its textured rock sound, marked by inventive arrangements, frontman Brian Vander Ark’s soul-searching lyrics and layered vocals.…

On her debut album, Sophie Ballantine Hawkins commands “Let’s fill the world with desire.” On her second, she proclaims herself “the wild woman at your door.” Consider her a kind of boho Madonna; Hawkins was raised in a sophisticated Manhattan household and began pursuing music in earnest as an adolescent. She studied jazz, as well…

The Dave Matthews Band stands apart from the myriad neo-hippie jamsters populating rock’n’roll’s H.O.R.D.E. wing. Unlike most of its spiritual compatriots, the DMB doesn’t center its sound on blues licks or electric guitar workouts. Matthews, a South African expatriate who spent time in New York before moving to Charlottesville, Virginia, set out to make acoustic…

Any band that finds its name in a Monty Python sketch deserves a point or two for taste — but that’s about all Toad the Wet Sprocket had going for it early on. The Santa Barbara, California quartet met in high school; singer/guitarist Glen Phillips, three years his bandmates’ junior, took a proficiency exam to…

“Seems like I’ve been here before/Seems so familiar” howls Tool singer Maynard James Keenan howls at the beginning of Opiate, and he’s right. The Los Angeles quartet had to win its success by cutting through a thicket of Metallica, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Rollins Band. While initially part of the pack, Tool’s moshable metal…

A founding member of Metallica, Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine hails from a generation of headbangers unafraid to list the Sex Pistols and the Dead Boys as influences alongside Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. When he was booted out of Metallica — over power struggles and a growing (but since overcome) drug problem — the singer/guitarist…

Atlanta’s Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ (also Drivin-N-Cryin; more recently, drivin n cryin) isn’t an easy band to classify. The group delves into folk and bluegrass as easily as it kicks out gritty guitar rock. Singer/guitarist Kevn Kinney’s thoughtful (if occasionally melodramatic) lyrics contribute a romantic working-class everyman sensibility that rarely seems forced. It’s Lynyrd Skynyrd and…

With a grungey guitar attack and sludgy sonics, Big Chief’s early records sound like prototypical ’90s Seattle — except the band is from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Formed by members of several popular local groups (Laughing Hyenas, Necros, McDonalds, Posse From Hell), Big Chief embraced a wide swath of hard-rock influences, ranging from righteous homeboys the…

Seldom is releasing a live album the best career advice to offer a fledgling band, but Big Head Todd and the Monsters is an exception. A Colorado member of the improvisation-loving H.O.R.D.E. community, this three-piece fully realizes itself only in concert, where its indulgences are actually strengths. Todd Park Mohr is a tasteful guitarist who…