Music | Thursday, August 19,2004

sound patrol 8-19-04

Time for a comfort cat

The Naysayer Kitten Time (Red Panda Records) As anyone who has ever sobbed into soft, forgiving feline fur can tell you, there's nothing like a cat when it comes to free therapy. Take it from An

Music | Thursday, August 12,2004

sound patrol 8-12-04

Resurrections and second chances

By René Spencer Saller

Jolie Holland Escondida (Anti) With her languid drawl, her vintage guitars, and her penchant for ancient parlor tunes, Jolie Holland traffics in what rock scribe Greil Marcus once called "the

Music | Thursday, August 12,2004

Lovett or leave it

By Terry Hupp

Perhaps he is best known by the masses as half of the beauty-and-the-beast story that played weekly in the tabloids during his brief marriage to actress Julia Roberts. Fortunately, Texas-based

Music | Thursday, August 5,2004

sound patrol 8-5-04

Tipping ever so slightly to the center

By René Spencer Saller

The Roots are, among other things, exhibit A when earnest white National Public Radio members try to argue that not all contemporary rap is crass consumerist crap: "They rail against the system! They

Music | Thursday, July 22,2004

Sound patrol 7-22-04

Redefining ‘pop’ as brain invasion

By René Spencer Saller

A.C. Newman The Slow Wonder (Matador) The problem with the "pop" tag is that it's essentially meaningless: J.Lo is pop. Elvis Costello is pop. OutKast is pop. Bing Crosby is pop. And A.C. Newma

Music | Thursday, July 15,2004

The more things change. . .

Louden Up Now (Touch and Go) & Eleni Mandell Afternoon (Zedtone)

By René Spencer Saller

Getting old sure can blow sometimes. You feel kinda smart and all, telling the shiny-eyed kid that her favorite new band (a) isn't reinventing music as we know it, (b) isn't even inventing a new hybri

Music | Thursday, July 8,2004

Haunted by high expectations, Wilco produces a minor Ghost

By René Spencer Saller

Wilco A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch) Listen closely to A Ghost Is Born, and you'll discern a faint whooshing noise, the teensiest hiss of concentrated air, silence made sibilant. No, it's not th

Music | Thursday, July 1,2004

Remain the same, or reinvent

By René Spencer Saller

Patti Smith TrampinÕ (Columbia) Most artists survive by reinventing themselves. The media, always angling for the snappy lead, demand of their subjects new storylines, and the subjects (who

Music | Thursday, June 24,2004

Flashback to iconic Ike

By René Spencer Saller

Ike Turner His Woman, Her Man (Funky Delicacies) It was Ike Turner's curse and blessing that he hooked up with Anna Mae Bullock, a teenage girl from Nutbush, Tenn. The same might be said of he

Music | Thursday, June 24,2004

Make way for the queen of rockabilly

By Tom Irwin

When Wanda Jackson began singing country music in the '50s on an Oklahoma City radio station, her voice had that certain something that caught the ear of Hank Thompson, a popular singing star o