Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
“I saw Jellyfish on David Letterman’s show and they were really, really good,” said Claire Massey, vocalist for TAMI Show, the Chicago-based pop-rock group. “(Their) being so good made me feel a little estranged from playing live and writing music because we’ve done so many things for radio and promotion that have been more of presentations than concerts. It has to be done, but it also gets a little frustrating sometimes.”
Music today looks better than ever, thanks to videos that airbrush ordinary-looking folks to pinup perfection and catapult so-so singers to superstar status. If looks can thrill, then MTV delivers the goods. The network has made music fair game for artists who sometimes control their visually enticing pecs better than their voices.
When the hard rock group Extreme boarded the Trinidad for an hourlong cruise along the Chicago River last week, several hundred fans, waiting on deck, were surprised that the band had four members. “Who’re those two guys?” one young woman said to no one in particular. “Are they roadies?”
Anyone who buys Extreme’s album solely on the strength of the Boston-based group’s No. 1 hit ballad “More Than Words” is going to be in for a big, loud surprise. The majority of the songs on “Extreme II Pornograffitti” are fast, raucous and hard-rocking.
“I”m Marshall Crenshaw – power pop guru!” the musician jokingly announced after his first encore at the Vic Theatre Saturday night. As far as the packed house was concerned, Crenshaw couldn’t have been more correct. When he released his debut album in 1982, critics hailed Crenshaw as pop music’s proverbial next big thing. Looking out at the enthusiastic fans at the Vic, the bespectacled musician, who got his start in show business portraying John Lennon in “Beatlemania,” gave them a knowing smile.
Intelligent heavy metal is an oxymoron in today’s rock world. Too many bands rely on videos featuring nubile models rather than honest musicianship to sell their songs. The member of Queensrÿche stand out in this world, not because they are the prettiest, loudest or raunchiest, but because they treat their music as art rather than product.
The La’s have made it no secret that they hate their critically acclaimed eponymous debut album, which they believe dulled their sound. Compared with their energetic live show Thursday night at Cabaret Metro, it’s understandable why the musicians were upset. The La’s hourlong concert, in their Chicago debut, was a throwback to the ’60s when brevity counted for something in rock ‘n’ roll. Virtually all of their songs were under three minutes (with the notable exception of their lush eight-minute opus “Looking Glass”).
There’s a scene in Spike Lee’s new film, “Jungle Fever,” that hit a little too close to home for Wesley Snipes. The lovers portrayed by him and co-star Annabella Sciorra are engaged in a playful embrace that a police officer mistakes as a black man raping a white woman. Snipes’ character gets a gun put to his head.
Jonathon Brandmeier’s concert Saturday evening at Tinley Park’s World Music Theatre started off with a bang as the popular WLUP radio personality crashed through a video screen, wearing a Superman-style costume. Quickly stripped of that outfit to reveal a slightly less flamboyant combination of a colorful flowered shirt, casual black pants and jacket, Brandmeier and his band, the Leisure Suits, launched the World’s summer season with a two-hour show that included satirical music, glib comedy, a little mooning and a marriage proposal.
Guns N’ Roses, kicking off its first-ever headlining tour Friday night at Alpine Valley, negated the oft-repeated and seemingly true tale that today’s musicians have forgotten what rock ‘n’ roll is all about. Three years after its debut LP “Appetite for Destruction” clawed its way to the top of the album charts, the controversial Los Angeles band gave an aggressive, testosterone-laced performance before an almost sold-out crowd of 40,000 fans, showing that while its members’ tumultuous private lives and business idiosyncrasies are the stuff that keeps gossip columnists in business, their music contains all the elements that make rock ‘n’ roll vital.