Recent Articles

Recent Articles By Randall Roberts

  • Rebuilt to Suit
    SLU won't say what it has in store for the Locust Business District.
  • I Want My MP3
    Digital music just gets better. See ya later, major labels.
  • Horse's Kick
    Monarch, 7401 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-644-3995.
  • Lemp Lager
    The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-727-4444.
  • Hendrick's Martini
    Lester's Sports Bar & Grill, 9906 Clayton Road, Ladue; 314-994-0055.

Recent Articles By Daniel Durchholz

Recent Articles By Roy Kasten

  • The Campbell Brothers
    8 p.m. Friday, February 15 and 11 a.m. Saturday, February 16. Edison Theatre, 6445 Forsyth Boulevard
  • Nina Nastasia
    8:30 p.m. Saturday, February 9. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.
  • Richard Thompson
    8 p.m. Monday, February 11. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard
  • Parachute Musical
    9 p.m. Friday, February 1. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.
  • Giant Bear
    9 p.m. Wednesday, February 6. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

Recent Articles By Terry Perkins

Recent Articles By Jordan Oakes

Recent Articles By René Spencer Saller

  • So Long, Saller!
    Radar Station prepares for a regime change
  • Dott Com
    Meet Ahdedott, who just might be St. Louis' next hip-hop superstar
  • Expat Alert!
    The exodus of the creative class continues apace
  • Mix Masters
    These days anyone can make a mix CD, and everyone does. Two local standouts manage to challenge as well as entertain.
  • Public Enema
    For the noble souls of Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, relieving social constipation has become a real pain in the ass

Recent Articles By Steve Pick

Recent Articles By Jason Toon

Recent Articles By Paul Friswold

National Features

  • Phoenix New Times
    Canine Crusaders

    That drug-sniffing dog up ahead? He may not be your best friend.

    By Ray Stern
  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times
    The Muscle Men

    Thanks to a string of Florida "anti-aging clinics," baseball's steroid scandal isn't limited to superstars.

    By Michael J. Mooney
  • Miami New Times
    Picked On

    Farm workers earn nada in America's green-bean capital.

    By Janine Zeitlin
  • Village Voice
    "Why I'm No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal"

    An election-season essay from one of America's greatest playwrights.

    By David Mamet

No one could match the power and intensity of Rage Against the Machine's The Battle of Los Angeles, my fave of the year by a large margin. Coming the closest, though, were the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin and Moby's Play. Equally great in a far different direction were Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band's The Mountain and George Jones' Cold Hard Truth. On the dance tip, Basement Jaxx led the way with the ridiculously catchy Remedy. Rounding out my Top 10 are Fountains of Wayne's Utopia Parkway, Wilco's Summerteeth, Tom Waits' Mule Variations, and Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate's Kulanjan, a beautiful journey of American blues back to its African roots. (DD)

Matthew Smith was in an underrated country-rock band called the Volebeats. This year his own group, Outrageous Cherry, pushed the pop envelope with Out There in the Dark. Murky, feedback-laced and catchy, the album filters White Light/White Heat through Rubber Soul. It's not a masterpiece, but it is good cutting-edge pop. So is Matthew Sweet's In Reverse, though it will do little to make people forget Girlfriend, an album with which Sweet has been unable to break up, artistically or critically. (JO)

Best teenage-sex songs: local phenom Sullen's "Cracked Code" and hussy-of-the-moment Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle." Interesting fact: Both these songs are performed by very blond young women barely out of their teens. Aguilera is a former Mouseketeer with a lot of smoky charcoal eyeliner and a winning way of jerking her pudendum as she sings lines such as "Oh! My body's sayin' let's go, go ... but my heart's sayin' no, no." She grunts and undulates, bosses and exclaims. I don't blame 11-year-old girls for worshiping her. Who wouldn't? Shanna Kiel of Sullen plays great filthy, fuzzed-out guitar on the Breeders-meets-Nirvana confection "Cracked Code," all the while squealing adorably about the many orgasms she plans to have: "I'm fueled on sex and Vaseline!" Swagger on, sisters! (RSS)

Most appalling record of the year, if not the decade: Andre Williams and the Sadies' Red Dirt (Bloodshot). When your most memorable hook is "She's all that and a bag of potato chips," you know you're in trouble. And country and funk should never be played by a barely competent instrumental surf band. (RK)

The tired old punk and ska scenes rallied to produce a few records of lasting merit. The Strike delivered a solid, moving hard-pop LP with Shots Heard 'Round The World, although it doesn't quite match their debut of a few years ago. The addition of horns was a nice touch, though, and the left-wing lyrics are as stirring as the revolutionary cover artwork. Another socialist band, the Adjusters, gave us a cracker of an album called Before the Revolution, ably mixing the best organic dance genres of the past 40 years. They manage to play ska, soul, reggae and Latin without sounding like a crappy cover band. Best of all was Dillinger Four's This Shit Is Genius, a collection of their singles that shows the kids where to go next with the hard-fast-loud blueprint.

So, 1999 -- a year in which the best records were made by socialists. It just goes to show you: When capitalism is killing music and even one revolution per minute would help, turn left. You have nothing to lose but your Spears. (JT)

Best new discovery: Puerto Muerto, who recently relocated from St. Louis to Chicago, leaving our local music scene poorer and sadder as a result. We wish them well with the new CD they're finishing up, but we warn all other good local bands to stay put or face our wrath. (RSS)

The only major negative for jazz this past year was the untimely demise of radio station KZJZ on the AM dial. Led by Maria Keena and a group of music-savvy DJs, the station won the coveted National Association of Broadcasters' 1999 Marconi Radio Award as Best Jazz Station. Unfortunately, Keena had virtually no marketing budget to work with, and as a result, the station had a tough time gaining sponsors. But it was still the most interesting jazz station in town while it was here. (TP)

I'm glad that vinyl survives in the age of digital oppression, but I don't consider 12-inch records musical instruments. Therefore I conclude that 1999's worst trend is the way remix maestros, sampling wizards and, particularly, club DJs are worshiped like (as?) musicians. Sure, some of these cats know how to reheat and stir classic platters -- free samples, anyone? -- but their deification trivializes the importance of songwriters and players. I enjoy its best exemplars, but most programmed trip-hop, spaced-out dance dirges and diluted remixes blur together, making '80s synth-pop sound like Beethoven by comparison. (JO)

Best Sample: Future Pilot A.K.A. is a guy who used to be in Brit Buzzcock ripoff band the Soup Dragons. He's ditched that gig and moved into the computer world, and on his debut double CD as the Future Pilot, he and remixer Suckmonster sneak into the Pharoah Sanders catalog and pull out the glorious "Japan" from Tauhid. The original is a beautiful meditation, and, believe it or not, the Future Pilot makes it more beautiful. The entirety of the Pilot's Vs. A Galaxy of Sound is great: soft and hard trip-hop and subtle electronica for the cerebral and the stoned. (RR)

History Lesson, Part 1: Carl Craig's Planet E label out of Detroit has been churning out techno and house revolutions every year for the past six or seven, and said revolutions are collected on Geology, a nearly perfect snapshot of their sound. (RR)

Best ways to kiss the 20th century goodbye: Freakwater's ragged and radiant, bleak and beautiful End Time and Sally Timms' prettily perverse Cowboy Sally's Twilight Laments for Lost Buckaroos. (RSS)

Most unlikely elegy: "Carter" from Fifty Odd Dollars, Fred J. Eaglesmith. A Canadian singer/songwriter and rocker gets into the head of Ralph Stanley. He imagines what it's like to take the wheel of an Airstream bluegrass-tour bus and carry on for four decades after his brother, best friend and God's own singer, Carter Stanley, drank himself to death. It couldn't work, but it breaks your heart that it does. (RK)

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