[Full disclosure: I worked on Cheap Trick’s box set and instigated the band’s Steve Albini-produced single on Sub Pop in 1997.–Ira Robbins] At a time when heavy metal had lost its menace and was fading into side-show stupidity, Cheap Trick — a powerhouse that had long been dominating Midwest clubs and bars — blew out…
The obsessions and ingredients that make Helen Love a mad scientist’s (and my) dream of giddy pop perfection may seem utterly random — punk rock, glam rock, bubblegum, disco, Joey Ramone, Debbie Harry, synthesizers, robotic vocal processors, ABBA, the Sweet, the Shangri-La’s, Wings, the Pooh Sticks, Talulah Gosh, “Planet Rock,” the Queers, Primitives, Rezillos, Freshies,…
Since the end of the Elvis Brothers, Brad Elvis (Steakley) has led a couple of great Chicago-based bands with singer-guitarist-saxophonist-spouse Chloe F. Orwell. (He has also done a long hitch as the drummer in the Romantics, which just shows to go you how skinny-tie nostalgia has taken on the never-say-die attributes of classic rock.) The…
A Louisiana native based in San Francisco, Hudson Bell began putting his music out on homemade cassettes just before grunge blew the doors off indie rock at the start of the ’90s. His prolific catalog — a meandering, maturing evolution from earnest acoustic music to laconic, extended rock — varies in style and achievement but…
When the Fat Boys fell out of the picture, Jamaican-born Heavy D. (Dwight Myers) became the reigning champ of heavyweight lighthearted rappers. Based in a northern suburb of New York City, he and a three-man crew made friendly goodtime party records of easy appeal and no great depth. Produced by Teddy Riley, Living Large offers…
Following a four-song 12-inch and a self-released longplayer, Mitch Easter produced a confident-sounding 1988 album for this Lexington, Kentucky quartet, corralling their pleasing harmonies (all four sing) and crisp, accomplished musicianship into extremely attractive country-edged pop-rock (that thankfully never resembles R.E.M.). The mix of drummer Sherri McGee’s tangy harmonies and the Petty/Dylan-influenced lead vocals by…
The Suicide Commandos were the first Minneapolis punk band to release an album (1978), but there were a lot of other strong local groups active in the two years before the Replacements, Hüsker Dü and Soul Asylum finally summoned an indie rock spotlight on the city. Also in ’78, Twin/Tone Records, Minneapolis’s first important local…
Naïveté (willful and otherwise) has provided a gentle alternative to macho rock at least back to the late-’60s Shaggs. But childlike innocence made by adults isn’t the innocence of children—a dichotomy underscored by New York’s Moldy Peaches. The sweet melodies Adam Green and Kimya Dawson apply to breakfast cereal characters, Duran Duran and cartoons also…
Innocuous, dignified rock from Boston. Mild lyrics, conservative synthesizer and sax make this unobnoxious lounge music for the undiscriminating ’80s humanoid. While there’s nothing horrible going on here, there is simply nothing going on here.
This quartet from Hertfordshire, formed in the class of ’77, produced top-notch British punk-core, rippling with strength and clarity. But it took them a long while to get an album out. Played at reasonable speed with a generally high level of comprehensibility, Chronic Generation (originally distributed with a live maxi-single) offers songs about the usual…
With a colorful Keith Haring graphic on the cover, the interracial Peech Boys (starring singer/guitarist Bernard Fowler, who’s since sung with Philip Glass, the Rolling Stones and others, and keyboardist Michael de Benedictus, co-producer with Larry Levan) emerged from the downtown club scene, cross-cultural loyalties obvious. A funk band with rock instincts, or a rock…
An album containing songs with titles like “Sylvia Plath” and “The Affirmation” doesn’t look promising, but this Philadelphia trio’s record, nicely co-produced by Glenn Morrow (Rage to Live) and John Wicks (Records), easily allays such fears with winning harmony-vocal guitar rock that is disarmingly unpretentious. As it turns out, “Sylvia Plath” is an offbeat fan…
“Nowhere Girl” got these British synth-poppers enough new wave notice in America to warrant a full MTV-era album in 1985, but they really needn’t have bothered. Their one “hit” is a percolating OMD soundalike brought low by the deep and unmusical voice of singer/bassist Steve Hovington. The rest of Forever Running attempts a collection of…
New Jersey’s Redhead Kingpin (David Guppy) is a new jack rapper, delivering his positive/party rhymes over easygoing modern R&B with modest beats and lots of booty-moving instrumentation. Produced by Teddy Riley and Gene Griffin, A Shade of Red walks a polite line between Guy and the hip-hop nation; the Kingpin’s friendly, unchallenging style suits the equally…
One of the leading lights in the ’80s folk revival, Christine Lavin applies an incisive, self-aware wit and a confidently absurdist view of modern relationships and life in the big city (New York) to acoustic music. Sung in a clear, sweet voice (think of early Joni Mitchell), her songs address microcosmic issues more than matters…
Purveyors of the hip-house hybrid, this Manhattan duo combines the pumping sounds and rhythms of high-energy dance music with rap and other funky elements. Rapper Rafael Vargas and mixer Roger Pauletta scored a surprise ’90 hit with the casual chants and inveigling high-energy hooks of the utterly inane “Wiggle It.” With more than a few…
Best known now as the host of a long-running music show on British television, the flamboyant pianist — a cigar-chomping hustler able to energize even the most blasé audience — provided much of the zest on Squeeze’s first three albums. For his solo debut, Jools adopted a less contemporary stance, playing old-fashioned bar-room romps with…
Like most jangle-pop with roots in ’60s folk-rock, this New York quartet pins its hopes on enticing vocal harmonies. While the group’s original songs are sturdy and charming, production on The Children (by Bob Rupe of the Silos) is mediocre: while the male and female voices come through with reasonable clarity, the simply arranged guitars…
A batch of rowdy tunes about drinkin’, lovin’, gamblin’ and losin’, The Lost Weekend was a one-off studio bender by the cream of LA’s cowpunk society. The cast: Dan Stuart and Chris Cacavas of Green on Red, Steve Wynn and Dennis Duck of Dream Syndicate and most of the Long Ryders. Produced by Paul Cutler, The Lost Weekend offers…
That Vernon Lynch Jr. of the K-9 Posse has an elder sibling named Eddie Murphy (a fact of life he addresses on “Somebody’s Brother”) might have helped his group get a record deal and hook up serious talent to play (including Nile Rodgers and Richie Fliegler) on its competently routine album, but Lynch’s writing and…
