Author: David Menconi
Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #60 Nov-Dec 2005
Stillhouse – Still on the side
In the dog days of January 2004, Tift Merritt’s backup band was at loose ends — hanging around Raleigh, North Carolina, while Merritt was out in Los Angeles making her Tambourine album with George Drakoulias. But before they’d become Merritt’s country-rock Carbines, they’d been a rock band called Stillhouse. So guitarist Dave Wilson, drummer Zeke [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #59 Sept-Oct 2005
Bob Mould – Body Of Song
The longer an artist sticks around, the more pronounced the struggle becomes between two conflicting impulses: the desire to indulge in weird tangents vs. the desire to please an audience by sticking to one’s strengths. Too much of the latter can put you in a serious rut. But too much of the former can result [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #58 July-Aug 2005
Stephen Malkmus – Face The Truth
You only get to surprise people once. Stephen Malkmus did that back in 1992 with Pavement’s Slanted And Enchanted, a signpost of ’90s alt-rock and a record of intense, startling originality. Through another four Pavement albums and as a solo act, Malkmus has honed his combination of push-pull melodies and angular rhythms to the point [...]
Farther Along - Obituary from Issue #57 May-June 2005
George Scott: 1929 to 2005
It seems odd to say that a singer as powerful as George Scott was quiet. But Scott, who died in his sleep on March 9 at age 75 in Durham, North Carolina, was the quiet Blind Boy Of Alabama. Clarence Fountain has always been the long-lived gospel group’s gregarious frontman, and Jimmy Carter the guy [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #57 May-June 2005
Anders Parker – The Wounded Astronaut
“I know that some say rock is dead,” Anders Parker declares on the penultimate song of his new EP. “But I never heard a word they said/’Cause my guitar was set on fire/As I destroyed my amplifier.” Then Parker proceeds to do just that, launching into a frantic double-time outro that sounds like he’s trying [...]
The Long Way Around - Feature from Issue #56 March-April 2005
Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion – Gathering stones together
Eyes closed, Johnny Irion stands at the microphone with his hands in his pockets and croons the same line over and over: “Always…Lookin’ out…Got your back…Always lookin’ out for you.” He’s the only one in the studio who can hear the accompanying music, which is being played through his headphones. So it’s only natural that [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #56 March-April 2005
Marianne Faithfull – Before The Poison
When last heard from, Marianne Faithfull was playing the devil in Robert Wilson’s stage version of The Black Rider, making Faustian bargains with unsuspecting mortals. You could call that typecasting, given Faithfull’s image of wizened decadence. On the other hand, you can imagine Faithfull herself making a perverse deal with some nameless underworld figure to [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #55 Jan-Feb 2005
Moaners – Dark Snack
The first sound on Dark Snack is a screeching electric guitar, which would be Melissa Swingle’s way of declaring her intentions right up-front: After five albums of gothic alt-country with Trailer Bride, Swingle is ready to let the feedback fly. Not that she has completely forsaken her former band’s eccentricities. Dark Snack sounds southern, rural [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #54 Nov-Dec 2004
Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown – Timeless
The first time I saw Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown play live some years back, I was amused to see him puffing away on the same kind of pipe as my dad. The joke got even better when I went back to interview Brown between sets, and discovered the tobacco he’d been stuffing into that pipe wasn’t [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #53 Sept-Oct 2004
Paul Westerberg – Folker
Paul Westerberg really should just go ahead and make an album called Hamlet and get it over with. Going all the way back to the Replacements, Westerberg has spent his career obsessing over commitment issues involving loyalty, romance and fame. He rarely makes a declaration without some sort of qualifier, usually leaving himself a back-door [...]
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