GOLDEN SMOG 12/11, METRO Like its obvious role models the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, this country-rock supergroup–whose core is the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Run Westy Run’s Kraig Johnson, and Big Star’s Jody Stephens–is on a crusade to reclaim the airwaves with a vision of timelessness. But on the band’s second full-length, Weird Tales (Rykodisc), its Exile of the Rodeo shuck and twang–which isn’t above pinching licks from the R.E.M. back catalog as well–is oddly dressed in 90s digital, and the dour songs (the best of which are Tweedy’s) sometimes stretch to the snapping point. Live, though, this is reportedly the best bar band since Crazy Horse.
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HELLACOPTERS 12/11, EMPTY BOTTLE From the sounds of their Supershitty to the Max (Man’s Ruin), I’d guess these leather-clad Swedes will be decorating the motel rooms on their first U.S. tour with dead whiskey bottles and lovingly worn copies of Fun House and Ace of Spades. Guests on the record include members of perpetual garage machine the Nomads and one “Peder Criss” on harmonica. Kiss was nice enough to let these guys humiliate them on the European leg of their reunion tour, but tonight’s headliners, the New Bomb Turks, won’t lie down so easily.
PULSARS 12/17, DOUBLE DOOR Dave Trumfio has never been one to hide the Cure records when company comes over: no matter how much indie machismo gets splattered on the walls at his Kingsize studios, he and his brother Harry have kept their roots in the fey futuristic pop of the recent past. They’re no empty-headed revivalists, though–live they can make it sound as if this stuff never went away…oh, that’s right, it didn’t. They share the bill with Rick Rizzo and Gaza Strippers, among others. This is a benefit for the Quaker Goes Deaf record store, which lost its computer system and three quarters of its stock in a man-made flood at the Flat Iron Building in September.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Hellacopters uncredited photo.
