December 29th, 2022
By: Michael Fremer
Other than Donald Fagen, the boys hanging in the studio control room in the back jacket photo look either pissed (Denny Dias), mildly bemused and/or disgusted (Walter Becker), or completely stoned and/or exhausted (Jeff "Skunk" Baxter). Drummer Jim Hodder, too far from the camera to read and noticeably isolated physically from the others, would soon exit the band after being pushed out of the drummer seat by Jim Gordon and Jeff Porcaro on the third album... Read More
December 13th, 2022
By: Mark Dawes
Kyoto’s four-piece, all-female, Japanese punk sensation Otoboke Beaver are probably the most talented live band I have witnessed in years. My favourite rhythm section in punk rock? No doubt about it, with Hiro-Chan’s bass effortlessly interlocking with the incredible drumming of Kahokiss. Is Kahokiss the best drummer I have ever seen? No question - she can stop and start on a pinhead and hammer out multiple time-signatures in one song at a tempo and force that... Read More
December 7th, 2022
By: Michael Fremer
Fed up with tight set lists and arena tour tedium, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers pitched its musical tent January, 1997 at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium for a two week residency. The Fillmore put 10 shows on sale—box office sale and pickup only— not sure how it would do. It was an immediate sell-out. More show dates followed until there were 20 sell-out shows between January 10 and February 7.
Read MoreDecember 6th, 2022
By: Tracking Angle
(This review, written by Carl E. Baugher, originally appeared in Issue 7, Spring 1996.)P is Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers), Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhand), Bill Carter and Sal Jenco. Also, as it says on the back of the LP jacket, “P is a land, not a liquid or a fruit.” Uh, ok. Not by any means the discordant thrash you might expect from this Gibby-led bunch, this quirky, curious album is consistently engaging, with a wide range of musical variety and coarse, crude... Read More
December 1st, 2022
By: Michael Johnson
In 1966 The Beatles came to Japan, playing the 15,000-seat Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, firmly planting the flag of western rock and roll in the island nation. What followed were a series of Beatles and Rolling Stones-esq copycat bands, often assembled by various record labels, playing everything from covers of American blues hits, to sparkly pop ballads written by in-house composers supplied by the record label. As the Japanese had difficulty pronouncing the term ‘Rock... Read More
November 28th, 2022
By: Mark Dawes
The mythology that has been purposefully built up around Goat is sparse but compelling. An anonymous masked voodoo collective playing psychedelic afrobeat-tinged rock, from a village called Korpilombolo in northern Sweden? It’s a nice yarn, and whether it is true or not seems irrelevant when the potency of the music itself blows away the need for a good origin story. (It turns out they actually are from northern Sweden.) If you have seen Goat perform live, you will... Read More