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Dennis Pernu
Soundgarden
If Mudhoney mined the irreverent punk yang of the “grunge” sound that began seeping from the Pacific Northwest in the late ’80s, Soundgarden dredged its sludgy proto-metal yin – through a somewhat inauspicious start. Unhappy with the production of their 1988 debut LP Ultramega OK, Soundgarden sought corrective measures but soon were waylaid by their…
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Dennis Pernu
The Dean Ween Group
The Dean Ween Group’s debut showcases all the genre-hopping shenanigans that became the stock in trade of Ween’s first band – the prolific and eponymously named indie weirdos Ween. While it’s busy serving up Dean Ween’s eclectic songwriting, The Deaner Album is also pushing his guitar chops to the fore. After all, there’s a pair…
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Dennis Pernu
Mike Watt
In 1995, Minutemen and Firehose co-founder/bassist Mike Watt unfurled his solo debut, Ball-Hog or Tugboat? Testament to Watt’s influence (and legendary affability), the credits were an honor roll of indie/alt whizzes; Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, J Mascis, Flea, Dave Grohl, and Frank Black, for starters (and check it – Watt, Mascis, and Bernie Worrell taking…
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Dennis Pernu
The Band, Robbie Robertson
The Waltz Goes On
By now the story of the Band’s epic Thanksgiving 1976 swan song is as well-known as the music itself – how the final show by the group formerly known as the Hawks snowballed to include a cavalcade of rock stars, a complicated full-blown film shoot… and turkey dinner for 5,000 concertgoers. Unless you were at…
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Dennis Pernu
The National, Wilco, and Others
The Grateful Dead have always had a street-cred problem in some rock quarters. Dave Marsh infamously called them “the worst band in creation.” Kurt Cobain was photographed with a “Kill the Grateful Dead” T-shirt (his wife, ironically, is Phil Lesh’s goddaughter). Perhaps most damning of all, critic Jim DeRogatis blamed the Dead for giving us…
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Dennis Pernu
The Minus 5 and the Monkees
Monkee Business
The 1960s – that halcyon decade which Americans today are most inclined to reconsider with dewy eyes – is in the midst of a retrospective heyday. Assuming the Stones’ ill-fated NorCal bacchanalia in December ’69 represents the final nail in the coffin for this parade of 50th-anniversary observations, we have another three years of Aquarian…
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Dennis Pernu
Eric Ambel
Eric “Roscoe” Ambel is accomplished guitarist (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Steve Earle) and go-to “roots rock” producer (Bottle Rockets, Nils Lofgren, Ryan Adams, and many more). In 2012, he added “erstwhile tavern owner” to his CV. Worse, when Ambel’s Lakeside Lounge fell victim to gentrification, New York City lost what many swore was the…
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Dennis Pernu
The Jayhawks
Power Pop With Twang And Thunder
Those with only a casual ear to the pavement will likely file the Jayhawks under murky signifiers such as “Americana” and “Alt Country.” While those tags were once perfectly apt, the truth is they’ve been thoroughly inadequate since the second Clinton administration. In 1995, Jayhawks co-frontman Mark Olson bailed abruptly, though amicably, leaving guitarist Gary…
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Dennis Pernu
Freakwater
That title – copped from the name of the storytelling gal in Arabian Nights – begs some pithy comparison between Scheherazade’s beguiling tales and the manner in which Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean continue to beguile fans more than a decade after their last LP. Freakwater’s stock-in-trade (bassist David Wayne Gay is the collective’s…
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Dennis Pernu
Jonny Wickersham
Social D Guitarist Does ’70s Cali Rock
Best known as the Les Paul Junior-slinging guitarist stage left of Mike Ness in Social Distortion, Jonny “Two Bags” Wickersham speaks with a laid-back SoCal drawl and peppers his conversation with modest asides. The uninitiated would never suspect he has just dropped his first solo record, Salvation Town, gorgeously layered Americana abetted by California rock…
