Unplugged and unburdened
“When my first record bombed, I chose not to look at anything,” says Tori Amos. “I thought I was making a statement having 12-feet-high hair. I didn’t look beyond the outside and had a hard time looking in.”
Axl Rose a fugitive after show canceled
Rowdy heavy metal rocker Axl Rose cancelled a concert at the Rosemont Horizon and skipped town to escape the long arms of persecuting prosecutors, a representative for the singer says. Leaving thousands of fans waiting outside the Rosemont Horizon, Rose’s band, Guns N’ Roses, canceled a Friday night show half an hour before doors were to open so that Rose could avoid being served with misdemeanor arrest warrants for his alleged role in a Missouri riot last year.
Notorious Guns N’ Roses never claimed to be angels
In the four years it took to go from being an anonymous L.A. club band to America’s reigning hard rock kings, members of Guns N’ Roses have created more controversy and publicity by being themselves than most musicians could conjure with an army of PR flacks thinking things up.
In concert, Bloom is in blossom
There is such strength and purity to Luka Bloom’s music that a band could only diminish the conviction of his songs. Standing alone on a barren stage at the Park West Friday night with just his electro-acoustic guitar for accompaniment, Bloom gave a sly but powerful performance that ended all too soon.
Irishman does a mean folk-rap
“Yeah, I guess my next step is making a disgusting sexist video for MTV,” Luka Bloom said, laughing. “But my treatment would have to be very different. For an Irish rap song, we’d have to get green babes. No, I go for the pretty soft videos, which I hope aren’t too schmaltzy. But as long as it doesn’t get mistaken for one of Michael Bolton’s, I’m fine.”
Witty `Elvis’ touches the soul, baby
It’s Christmas Eve and Trudy Davis is alone. Not a big surprise, considering she’s a xenophobic bulimic who views food as “unmasticated vomit,” duct tapes her microwave shut and stocks her fridge only with Evian water. Trudy is a woman who needs a little fun in her life, and when she puts Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” on her stereo, the King’s apparition answers her self-pitying call.
Matthew Sweet’s songs skillfully blend hot and sour
There is a heartache in Matthew Sweet’s voice that pegs him as a romantic who knows both the euphoria of being in love and the pain of breaking up. On his first Chicago gig as a headliner, Sweet performed a tantalizing midnight show Saturday at the Cabaret Metro where he and his tight backup band channeled his wisely ambiguous lyrics with playful abandon, letting the audience know that though he may have been beaten up emotionally, he’s not a whiner.
James
It is a rare band that can make the kind of musical impact the British band James did Friday night at the Cabaret Metro. Starting off a little shaky, the seven-man group eased its way into a spectacular 90-minute concert that made it clear why the buzz is so strong about this unpretentious band. The buzz has been a long time in the making, at least over here.
Are you ready to mock? – Wonder Stuff vocalist slams the big stars
Miles Hunt ticks off a lot of people. He thinks the majority of record buyers are lazy, that Elvis is little more than a joke and that the media play right into the hands of bands that have next to nothing to offer artistically. There are a lot of people who think Hunt is full of it, including Hunt himself, but the British vocalist for the Wonder Stuff doesn’t care. He’s just got to be him.
Teenage Fanclub cranks out sweet harmony
If they had to, the musicians in Teenage Fanclub could cloak many weaknesses with their sweet melodies and delicious harmonies. But when the vocals are as perfect as they were at the band’s Chicago debut Friday night at the Cabaret Metro, it really doesn’t matter how profound or inane the lyrics are. At their sold-out show, the group dished up the same savory vocals that are featured on its current LP “Bandwagonesque,” but with the added bonus of cranked-up instrumentation.