Alice Donut - Madonna's Bombing Sarajevo

 #Alice Donut #punk rock #psychedelic punk rock #hard rock #alternative/indie rock #1980s #1990s

Alice Donut is a psychedelic punk rock band originally from New York City. Formed in 1986, the band spent the next ten years touring relentlessly throughout North America, Europe and Japan, building a perversely loyal following. Creem Magazine described Alice Donut shows as “the most decadent punk rock-fueled all-out orgies I ever witnessed.” Between 1987 and 1996, Alice Donut released seven full-length albums and 15 EPs, singles, and other releases on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label and various other labels. 2004’s Three Sisters, their first record after their hiatus, was recorded as a four-piece with Tom Antona on vocals, Michael Jung on guitar, Stephen Moses on drums and Sissi Schulmeister on bass. Original guitarist Dave Giffen rejoined the group for Fuzz, which was recorded in Brooklyn’s BC Studio with longtime co-producer Martin Bisi and released in 2006. Both Three Sisters and Fuzz were released by Howler Records.
The band’s style and lyrics are eclectic. Their music is a mixture of hard rock, punk, and post-punk and typically features melodic, guitar-heavy, odd-metered, and rhythm based pieces and is often punctuated with brass instrumentation. Many of the members are traditionally - or classically -trained musicians, though rarely on the same instruments they play in the band. Alice Donut’s lyrics take on what they view as the perversities, odd details, and petty humiliations of life. Their lyrical subject matter focuses on topics including depravity, domestic violence, sexuality and eggs.  From: https://alternativetentacles.com/artists/alice-donut/

Alice Donut was one of the core bands of Alternative Tentacles back in the late '80s and early '90s. Their first album catches them at their rawest, but also their most fun. Musically, Donut's style has much in common with the psychedelic punk style of the Butthole Surfers, but I regard Donut as being the more straight-up fun-to-listen-to of the two. The Surfers are great, but in a different way. Alice Donut's work is better informed by a sense of humor and a lively attitude than the Surfers, who usually come off as being much darker and more serious. However, this does not mean that Alice Donut does not pack some weight - in keeping with many Alternative Tentacles bands, Alice Donut follows in the footsteps of the Dead Kennedys with their lyrics - heavy sarcasm, but always socially and politically relevant.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Bucketfulls-Sickness-Horror-Otherwise-Meaningless/dp/B00005YELH 

Suddenly, Tammy - Hard Lesson

 #Suddenly, Tammy #alternative rock #indie rock #alternative pop rock #piano rock #1990s

Siblings Beth and Jay Sorrentino began making music from about the age of five. In their Lancaster, Pennsylvania home, Jay would play drums while Beth sat at the piano. Bassist Ken Heitmuller also began playing early on. In 1989, the trio formed Suddenly, Tammy! and recorded two EPs in their basement studio. With the absence of a guitar player, the band provided a fresh sound in indie pop. Both Spokesmodel and El Presidente were well-received, especially in the College Music Journal. Indie label spinArt's first release was the group's own full-length debut. The self-titled album did well and earned Suddenly, Tammy! a spot supporting Suede. Signed to Warner Bros. in 1994, the band recorded throughout the summer and released We Get There When We Do in 1995.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/suddenly-tammy%21-mn0000489735/biography

HEARSAY: We love the way your music seems to allow a lot of improvisation within a certain structure. Do you have a method when it comes to songwriting? Is it primarily a three-way collaborative affair or do you each work on separate parts and bring them to the rest of the band? Are the lyrics exclusively Beth's department?

Beth: Usually we get together and play and many songs grow out of listening; sometimes I bring some ideas I've sketched out on the piano and sometimes with lyrics - many times an idea will grow out of having all of the instruments together and the music just 'clicks' together.

Ken: I'd say that the lyrics are exclusively Beth's department. Her words are always somewhat autobiographical and I'd never presume to put words into her mouth.

Two other notable bands who manage pretty well without guitars - Morphine and Ben Folds Five - seem heavily jazz-influenced. Has jazz been a big influence on ST? Do you all listen to similar things? And do you have any current recommendations for us?

Beth: Personally, I've developed a taste for jazz over the last few years, although I grew up with jazz records (Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck) mixed up with the Doobie Brothers, Chicago, Carole King, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Billy Joel - all kinds of stuff. Our band seems to reflect some of all of that from time to time, including more current music - I listened to a lot of Kate Bush in the 80s. Right now I recommend Young Chet Baker and I'm listening to Elton John's Greatest Hits (with Rocket Man, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road...); the best.

Ken: Have you noticed how Beth over-uses hyphens and semicolons and I over-use all-caps and exclamation points? (We both overuse parentheses (well maybe a little (JUST a little!))). Personally, I claim little from jazz. Although I own more jazz recordings than the average jazz fan, I know so little about the genre. I know enough to claim that it's probably the most difficult music to be good at - yes, even more than classical music. To be a good classical musician requires mostly athletic dedication. Rock requires mostly that you really mean what you're doing, even if you suck. Jazz requires music knowledge, innate or schooled, skilled playing with finesse, and style. I'm very flattered when people make jazz references to Suddenly, Tammy!

Your self-titled debut album was tightly packed and highly chromatic. The follow-up seems more tranquil somehow and perhaps more structured. Was this deliberate? Was it anything to do with the move to a major label or the introduction of an outside producer? Or perhaps working in a concentrated burst in a professional studio rather than working at home over a long period?

Beth: Probably all of that is true. I don't really hear the album as 'tranquil', but that's probably lack of objectivity! River, Run is certainly quiet, but Hard Lesson always makes me a little hyper. Working at Bearsville was a departure from home; I think the sound of the album reflects the whole experience.

Why did you choose Warne Livesey as producer and what was he able to bring to the project? Was his role to 'realise' your ideas or did he add something new to the creative process?

Beth: Mostly because of his enthusiasm for the music – he was concerned about keeping the band 'organic' – keeping the three-piece sound clean; using acoustic pianos; more of a 'live' sound. We worked very closely with him, but his influence does come across on the album.

Suddenly Tammy's lyrics always seem alluringly oblique and more about specific imagery and particular moods rather than telling a straightfor­ward story with concrete meaning. Do you find things in everyday life which inspire you to write songs or do you prefer to tackle more abstract themes and ideas through specific angles? The theme of uneven relationships or power seems to appear fairly frequently. Is this a theme that particularly interests you or are we clutching at straws here?

Beth: Things in everyday life became abstract themes for me. Something that seems to be so 'normal' (a ride in the car, a talk with my mom) can turn into very strange mixed imagery in my mind – relationships and the problems within are always being sorted out in my lyrics.

Ken: Knowing Beth, I clearly see what many of her lyrics are about. Sometimes the meaning is very clear. She is not too literal, however, with her words. The things she sings about often seem to have a multilayered meaning. This allows for many interpretations and people often apply her words to their own situations.

And there's a kind of dream-like, hallucinatory – sometimes even vaguely unsettling – quality to lots of the songs (Mt Rushmore, Bound Together, Beautiful Dream etc). Do dreams and/or nightmares influence you? Do you feel lost when you're asleep and found when you're awake, or is it vice versa?

Beth: For me, many dreams are clues, sometimes, to things that bother me during my waking hours sometimes (I guess) I suppress thoughts about disturbing issues, and a lot of my 'bad' dreams leave me with many questions and images, which seem to unfold sometimes only when I play music, accounting for the lyrics, possibly.

Ken: Sometimes Beth drives when she sleeps – a sleepdriver.

What images unfolded on the Cine film you sat down to watch In the middle of your first album? Do you have any favourite films or directors and do they influence your writing?

Beth: I don't remember what movie that was; Ken had his projector running. He shows movies in his yard over the summer. I have many favorite films – 2001 is a great movie to watch outside in the dark on Ken's lawn! I also love Hitchcock films and Searching for Bobby Fischer is one of my favorites.

Ken: I think it was The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss. It's the Lancaster Public library's copy and is now half splicing tape. Every few seconds the action jumps ahead like a skipping record. I recorded the sound from that film, with that first tape recorder, as a child. It was splicey then. When I borrowed that same print fifteen years later, I recognized the locations where the music skips from the 15-year-old splices – and noticed it to be much more dashed up since then. I don't think people realize that a print of a half-hour 16mm film costs about $500 to replace. Soon, that Seuss will be only 15 minutes long! It makes me sad that kids today won't know that SOUND! That lovely purring of the Bell and Howell Filmosound in the back of a darkened classroom. It puts our Beth right to sleep.

From: http://www.hearsaymagazine.co.uk/suddenly_tammy/

XTC - Dear God

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop rock #1980s #1990s

Andy: “This was the B-side to ‘Grass’, but radio stations started to flip it over. The lyrics really got up some people's noses, and it became a big radio hit. Whoever first flipped it probably saved us.”

Andy (on the band demo): “A lot has been written and wrangled over with this song, and, you know, it hasn't deserved it. I just tried to wrestle with the paradox of God and the last dying doubts of belief that had hung, bat like, in the dark corners of my head since childhood. I'll just say one more time this song failed to crystalize all my thoughts on the subject in under 4 minutes. Human belief is too big a beast to bring to the floor in such a short time.

“This tune had a few incarnations. It started as a kind of skiffle rag with a much bluesier melody but after several blacksmith like bending and bashing sessions (oddly, in my kitchen) it gradually morphed into its well known shape.

“On the run up to the Skylarking sessions with Todd Rundgren, we congregated at Dave's tiny terraced house, in Swindon's Stanier Street, to record a few band demos on his four track reel to reel. So, awash with much tea and ginger biscuits, we tackled this and ‘Summer's Cauldron’, trying to get something presentable for Todd. Dave found a very ‘House of the Rising Sun’ arpeggio guitar figure to ornament my rather pedestrian acoustic strumming, while Colin anchored away with the Linn drum pretending to be a future Prairie Prince. The Mellotron had been living at Dave's for a few months (where he would tend lovingly its Heath Robinsonesque guts) so we decided this would supply the strings, I'd asked for something a bit Gershwin in the middle, a pinch of ‘Summertime’, a soupçon of ‘It Ain't Necessarily So’. You know, ‘Dat Ol' Debbil Be A Coming Missy’, orchestral blues bend. I remember that Dave's front room floral wallpaper seemed to gaze down at us with almost temperance meeting scorn, as we stirred up our sinful sounds that afternoon.

“Surely, for this tune, we will burn in Hull.”

Andy (on the skiffle version): “Found this a while back laying cowering in a corner of a cassette. It's pretty much me feeling-out the tune with blah blah type lyrics. Little did I know that this piece of brain blurt would be the tip of the iceberg to so much more acceptance for XTC in the U.S. Thank you God.”

From: https://xtc.fandom.com/wiki/Dear_God

Andy is a militant atheist. It's amazing how people see what they want want to, no matter how clear the message is. The idea that he must believe in god because it's addressed to god is just silly. It's a lyrical device...take a literature course. For those who refuse to see the song for what it is and how it was meant, here is a quote from Andy about the song: "it [Dear God] failed in part, because it wasn't as caustic as I would've liked it to be. It should've been a nail in throat of the public, but instead some took it as a declaration of faith when I wanted to make it clear that I don't believe in God - and that even if there is a He or a She they have nothing to do with organized religion." Just watch the video for Dear God. Andy is attacking the massive twisted tree (religion) that people are desperately clinging to, which is exactly what he is doing in the lyrics. I really don't see how he could be any clearer.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/103714/ 

Kula Shaker - Govinda

 #Kula Shaker #psychedelic rock #neo-psychedelia #raga rock #post-Britpop #psychedelic revival #world music #1990s

By reviving the swirling, guitar-heavy sounds of late-'60s psychedelia and infusing it with George Harrison's Indian mysticism and spirituality, Kula Shaker became one of the most popular British bands of the immediate post-Brit-pop era. More musically adept and experimental than many of their contemporaries, Kula Shaker brought the overpowering rush of Oasis to psychedelia. Led by vocalist/guitarist Crispian Mills (born January 18, 1973; the son of '60s actress Hayley Mills and film director Roy Boulting), Kula Shaker were initially a psychedelic quartet called the Kays, which formed in 1993. In addition to Mills, the Kays featured his teenage friend Alonza Bevan. The two had previously played together in a band named Objects of Desire; during that time they also ran a psychedelic nightclub in the back of an ice rink. Following the dissolution of Objects of Desire, Mills made a spiritual pilgrimage to India, and upon returning he formed the Kays with bassist Bevan, drummer Paul Winter-Hart, and vocalist Saul Dimont. Within a year, Dimont had left and organist Jay Darlington had joined the band; prior to joining the group, Darlington had played in several mod revival bands. After spending two years touring and recording, releasing two EPs on Gut Reaction Records, the group had not made any headway. According to Mills, the band changed its name and direction in the spring of 1995, when he had an epiphany that the group should be called Kula Shaker after a ninth century emperor and pursue a more spiritual direction. For the next three months, they performed as Kula Shaker, and they quickly received a record contract with Columbia, which was eager to sign another band that had the multi-platinum crossover appeal of Oasis.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/kula-shaker-mn0000776408/biography

Kula Shaker’s Crispian Mills, now 27, is the son of actress Hayley Mills, so he met a lot of artists (including David Gilmour) when he was growing up in the '70s and '80s. Some of those artists introduced him to Indian music and philosophy when he was only 10, and by the time he was 16 an interest had grown into an obsession. "I finally got on a plane to India when I was 20," he says. "When I got there, I was very lucky to meet people who understood the best aspects of India, especially the older devotional traditions. I was lucky because India is sinking more and more under the weight of the industrial world we live in. A lot of the time they don't notice the treasures they've got because they want to stock up on Coca-Cola and get a satellite TV. I don't know how long it will last, but it's still there." Mills didn't become a classical Indian musician, however. Instead he tried to integrate elements of Indian culture into the rock'n'roll he had grown up with. He found that the droning guitar tones and repeating rhythms of psychedelic-rock were especially easy to blend with Indian music. "Because psychedelia in its purest sense, putting aside all the drug associations, is about mind expansion, it fits in nicely with the Indian concept of transcendence. Both want to take us beyond what we already know into fresh territory, fresh experience, a fresh outlook. They complement each other.” "The world has shrunk to the size of an orange," he adds, "so we're rediscovering our planet and all these interesting people in different places. In the West, we have a monopoly on technology, but we have a lot to learn in other areas. And we should learn it before it disappears forever."  From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1999/07/09/kula-shaker-what-a-concept/1baea3a4-0d82-4b3f-b7dc-b923da508b7e/

Eve's Plum - Cherry Alive

 #Eve's Plum #Colleen Fitzpatrick #alternative rock #power pop #grunge #1990s

Eve's Plum was a rock band that originated in 1991 in New York City. They released two albums and various singles in the mid-1990s, before disbanding in 1998. Michael Kotch and his twin brother Ben Kotch had been looking to start a band and needed a singer and bassist. After Colleen Fitzpatrick met Michael while both were in school at New York University, she eventually became the group's singer; Fitzpatrick, who had studied dance previously, had recently had some success with a leading role in John Waters' 1988 film, Hairspray, which went on to become a cult classic. The band went through several bass players. The name "Eve's Plum" was derived from Eve Plumb, the actress who most notably portrayed Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch.
The group was signed to Sony Records in 1992, and in 1993, their debut album, "Envy", was released. Its first single (arguably its most popular) was "Blue", which had the good fortune to have its music video appear in an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head. Two additional singles were released from Envy, "Die Like Someone" and "I Want It All". After some difficulty locating the right bass player, Theo Mack joined the group. Another single, "Eye", appeared on the soundtrack to "Higher Learning".
The band's second album, "Cherry Alive", was released in 1995. While developing the album, the band recorded a cover version of "If I Can't Have You" which found its way onto a compilation album, "Spirit Of 73 Rock for Choice". Two singles were promoted from Cherry Alive, though not very well: "Wishing the Day Away" and "Jesus Loves You". Not successful commercially, the band did not receive further support from their label and were subsequently dropped. They performed for some time thereafter, but this was the beginning of the end. They recorded "Save a Prayer" for a Duran Duran tribute album in 1998, but the band was not really viable. Its members moved on to other projects. Fitzpatrick has had some success with solo albums under the name Vitamin C, as well as acting parts in several films.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Eve%27s+Plum/+wiki

Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out

 #Sleater-Kinney #Carrie Brownstein #indie rock #punk rock #riot grrrl #alternative rock #1990s

Listening to Dig Me Out on its 25th anniversary feels a little like finding an old Polaroid of our younger selves that used to hang on our bedroom wall. There we were, all wide-eyed in that ready-made frame, but we longed for someone to peel back the film to expose the layers underneath. Sleater-Kinney peeled back the layers for us, and then they stayed to tear the whole damn wall down.
Sleater-Kinney, which started as a side-project of Olympian singer-guitarists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, became the only project. In 1997, with then-new drummer Janet Weiss, they were carving themselves out of the Pacific Northwest’s Riot Grrrl movement. They had already released two LPs: 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s Call the Doctor. Both albums had gotten attention, but Dig Me Out (Kill Rock Stars, 1997) was about to change the trajectory of Sleater-Kinney forever. A month after Dig Me Out arrived, Sleater-Kinney went from performing in coffee houses and record shops to packed houses across the country, including CBGB in NYC.
In the YouTube video of Sleater-Kinney at CBGB in 1997, Brownstein approaches the mic with her signature red Epiphone strapped over her shoulder, having not upgraded to a Gibson yet. Across from her, Tucker plucks her guitar to help Brownstein finish tuning. Finally, they tune down to C#, which Brownstein admits gives them an intentional “sourness”. Weiss on her throne at the center, behind them, with her hair in quintessential late ’90s pigtails. The stage lights dim, and their set begins with the album’s title track in near darkness. Brownstein is explosive. Tucker wails. Weiss is a force. By the time the lights come up, halfway through the first verse, the audience is awe-struck. Best of all, no one in the crowd has a cell phone yet.
Coming from the DIY punk/Riot Grrrl movement, Sleater-Kinney had more creative control than more mainstream bands. I imagine they chose “Dig Me Out” as the first track because it’s the title track and because the sound exemplifies exactly who they are as a band. It’s real, it’s raw, and it’s ready for anything. In an interview with Sound Opinions, Brownstein described Tucker’s voice as “unapologetic” and able to “say more in a note or series of notes than most people need a whole song to say”. Tucker’s voice literally digs down in each verse, creating a word painting to reflect the text she’s singing. “Dig Me Out”, and almost all of the tracks on the album, are even better when listened to with headphones. Tucker’s guitar is in one ear, Brownstein’s guitar is in the other, and Tucker’s voice and Weiss’ percussion are everywhere all at once. Weiss has a series of snappy drum rolls throughout, and there is almost no better collision of sound than when she hits the crash as Tucker roars in the chorus.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/sleater-kinney-dig-me-out-atr25 

October Project - Live at The TLA Philadelphia 1996

Part 1

Part 2

 #October Project #Mary Fahl #folk rock #alternative rock #alternative folk rock #adult alternative #classical rock #progressive pop #1990s #music video

October Project's music is dominated by distinctive and powerful female lead vocals (nothing to do with waif-like, breathy whisperings). Indeed, Mary Fahl's deep voice has an earthy sensuality that looms larger than life on the band's two albums, both filled with superb chorus hooks and haunting melodies. October Project also features keyboardist/vocalist Marina Belica, guitarist David Sabatino, keyboardist Emil Adler (piano, keyboards and harmonium) as well as his wife Julie Flanders who, although not a musician per se, writes the band's lyrics. They released two fine albums in the mid '90's before getting dumped by their record company in 1996, at which point they simply broke off. Like an afterthought, some of the band members later resurfaced as the November Project but reverted back to their former name and released a self-produced E.P. in 2003. Deemed more pop than prog, the music of October Project is perhaps best described as 'vocal-dominated symphonic prog', something akin to Renaissance for the orchestral textures, although Mary Fahl does not sound at all like Annie Haslam. The band's first two albums, which focus primarily on her rich, sultry vocals, feature intense melancholy ballads that ride on a combination of lush keyboards, strings and guitars. Keyboards and acoustic guitar are emphasized on the eponymous "October Project" whereas on "Falling Farther In", an album of slightly more linear compositions with pared-down arrangements, the electric guitar is more prominent. The E.P. "Different Eyes", which features the late reunion of some of the band members (sans Mary Fahl), showcases some reworked material from the band's early days.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2190

Mary Fahl’s parents weren’t musicians, but they liked listening to music at home in Stony Point, New York. And with one record player upstairs in the boys room, it was the music blaring from the big family console downstairs that seeped into Fahl’s skin and bones. That meant a lot of show tunes from Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza in South Pacific to My Fair Lady, with an original Broadway cast that included Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. “Mary Martin had that big alto voice,” Fahl said. “Even the men that sang on that record, Ezio Pinza … I liked their voices. People in Broadway now don’t even sound like that. I miss those kinds of voices. They sounded like real people back then. Everybody sounds the same to me now. And I used to sing along with those things. And I think it built up my voice.”
Eventually, though, she was turned on to British folk by an older brother, and her tastes shifted from Joni Mitchell and Carole King to Sandy Denny (“There’s something so pure in that voice; it’s so emotional”), Richard and Linda Thompson, and June Tabor. Soul and R&B weren’t played either upstairs or downstairs so, for better or worse, those voices didn’t influence Fahl. “So many modern voices are so gospel-inflected,” Fahl said with a touch of disapproval. “There’s a lot of white girls out there that, they sound like they’re singing in church because those gospel-inflected singers are so great. And the black singers are fantastic.” But one hip and powerful American white chick named Grace Slick did get Fahl’s attention. “Everybody had ‘White Rabbit,’ ” she said. “Everybody had Jefferson Airplane. So I loved her, I loved those powerful alto voices. It’s funny, ’cause I really, I have to admit I don’t recognize a lot of people that are on Top 40 radio right now. To me, I can’t pick one out from the other. I just can’t. And then there’s sort of another branch that has gone off. It’s sort of Feist made a left turn and everybody followed her. And I like her. I think she’s great. But I didn’t grow up with that. That ain’t my voice.”
Raised in a Catholic family with more siblings than expendable outcome, Fahl was fortunate to be a natural-born singer. While never taking a voice lesson, she watched her cousins develop into “great instrumentalists. … Like prodigies. I was not that. I just sang all the time.” If she wanted to pursue a musical career, Fahl was on her own. Laughing at the memory, she remembered her mother saying, “Well, if you were really good, you would be like your cousin Alice. You wouldn’t need lessons. You could just pick it up and play it.” Instead, Fahl performed at holiday shows and plays in the Catholic schools she attended, entered an acting program at NYU for a year with the hope of going into musical theater, then left because “I felt like I was wasting my parents’ money. It was a big stretch for them.” Transferring to McGill University (with $800 a year tuition) in Montreal, she occasionally sang in little coffee houses or rock groups that weren’t much bigger.
Upon graduation, “I didn’t know what I was going to do, really,” she said. “I sort of floundered around and went to Europe and sang a little bit there.” Eventually returning to New York, destiny introduced her to Julie Flanders. “She was not happy and not working and not doing anything creative,” Fahl remembered. And she said, ‘You know, I really want to be a songwriter,’ and I said, ‘That’s funny, I want to be a singer.’ And then she introduced me to her boyfriend, who was working as a clerk at HBO or something like that.”
Flanders’ boyfriend (and future husband) was Emil Adler. And the three of them witnessed the birth of October Project. “We were all sort of that stage where we wanted to do something and we were old enough and serious enough that we just said, ‘Well, this is it. We’re gonna make this happen no matter what,’ ” Fahl recalled. “We really worked so hard and just left no stone unturned. You know, took it very, very seriously.” Within two years, they had a deal with Epic Records, then toured with the likes of Sarah McLachlan and Crash Test Dummies. In 1995, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed, “Mary Fahl is the voice that launched a single promising rock band, October Project.” Taking an artsy, classical approach to the rock genre, the band that also included Marina Belica and David Sabatino seemed like a perfect fit for Fahl’s golden pipes. But perhaps they were too serious for AM or FM radio, especially during the growing grunge era.  From: https://www.nodepression.com/after-becoming-pen-pals-musician-mary-fahl-and-author-anne-rice-form-an-everlasting-bond/

The Verve Pipe - Photograph

 #The Verve Pipe #alternative rock #post-grunge #indie rock #pop rock #1990s #music video

When Brian Vander Ark was a kid growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he and his brothers often played a perverse game of “church,” with Brian as Jesus and his brothers as the congregation. Once, his brothers crucified him mid-sermon by strapping him to the backyard deck with belts and rope. Alone to atone, Brian wept as his brothers partied on. “After hours of screaming, they finally took me down,” recalls the Verve Pipe singer. “My brothers were relentlessly sadistic Christians.” Along with crucifixion anxiety, Vander Ark says his religious upbringing left him “ridden with guilt,” a subject that figures prominently on the Verve Pipe’s major-label debut album, Villains. Set to a hummable brand of workingman’s grunge, Vander Ark’s painfully earnest tales of regret have made the group this year’s dorm-room poster boys. Either their ascendancy is a sign that for every year there must be a grunge giant, or the scholastic set is more wary of irony than anyone could have imagined. “We appreciate the dynamics of grunge,” says drummer Donny Brown, brushing off charges that the Verve Pipe’s music can sound plainly derivative. “If the song feels heavy and it sounds better driving it, then we drive it. Make it grunge. Who cares?”
Brown and Vander Ark met in the early ’90s when they were both painting a Lee’s Famous Chicken Shack restaurant in Kalamazoo. Along with Vander Ark’s younger brother Brad on bass, the trio enlisted guitarist A.J. Dunning and keyboard player Doug Corella from Michigan-area alternative bands. The band soon found a home on the fertile fraternity circuit, where, says Vander Ark, “they’d still pay us, even after the cops pulled the plug.” Now, six years later, they’re in New York on “the biggest day of our lives,” taping Letterman and VH1 appearances, with the proud Vander Ark parents in tow. After a day of minimal hijinks—the Verve Pipe behave like scrupulous Midwesterners—Vander Ark kisses his parents goodbye and gets ready to head north for another gig. Still, he seems more like a frustrated choirboy than someone living out his rock’n’roll dreams. “I still believe in blasphemy,” Vander Ark admits. “Like that scene in The Exorcist where Linda Blair is masturbating with the cross. That absolutely bothers me. For the sake of the movie, it’s a fabulous scene. But it makes me squirm.”  From: https://www.spin.com/2017/04/the-verve-pipe-interview/ 

Grant Lee Buffalo - Seconds

 #Grant Lee Buffalo #Grant Lee Phillips #alternative rock #folk rock #Americana #psychedelic folk rock #1990s

The first three Grant Lee Buffalo albums were insular affairs. Together, singer/guitarist Grant Lee Phillips, drummer/percussionist Joey Peters and bassist/keyboardist/producer Paul Kimble fashioned a self-sufficient musical workshop as impervious to pop fashion as a sharecropper is to the vicissitudes of life in the big city.
On Fuzzy (1993) and Mighty Joe Moon (1994), the trio rummaged through the antique art-junk of America’s attic, dressing up their garage-folk with vintage instruments and rediscovering the ancient wisdom of The Band, the Byrds, Big Star and R.E.M. along the way. It all worked to wondrous effect. But by Copperopolis (1996) — a gorgeous but unrelentingly somber song cycle — GLB sounded as if those attic walls, once valued for their windowless integrity, were beginning to close in on them. Kimble was dismissed from the band shortly thereafter.
On Jubilee, Phillips and Peters treat Kimble’s absence as a license to cut loose. The maelstrom of crunchy guitars and brisk tempos that comprise “APB”, “Change Your Tune” and “My, My, My” indicate a newfound will to rock out with raucous abandon. (Previously, rock was something GLB’s music implied more than manifested.) Even those tunes emitting the dusky pastoralism of early GLB — “SuperSloMotion”, “8 Mile Road”, “The Shallow End” — show a bit more tooth. Producer Paul Fox sometimes equates tooth with splashy, pumped-up choruses (“APB”, Truly, Truly”), and after three critically acclaimed but commercially ignored albums, the band seems bent on casting a wider net. But Fox deserves credit for bathing the band in prismatic light, thereby revealing a heretofore obscured aspect of the band. (Indeed, Fox’s production is luminous precisely where Kimble’s was tenebrous.) And, for their part, Grant Lee Buffalo never sound compromised, even when enlisting the services of such outside guests as Michael Stipe, Robyn Hitchcock and the Wallflowers’ Rami Jaffee. No, they just sound like they’re finally okay with windows — open windows — in their attic walls.  From: https://www.nodepression.com/album-reviews/grant-lee-buffalo-jubilee/

Mary's Danish - Hoof

 #Mary's Danish #alternative rock #power pop #indie rock #funk rock #pop punk #1980s #1990s

“I’m caught between hideous and forgotten,” bemoan Mary’s Danish in one of the finer tunes from the lamentably forgotten band’s far-from-hideous and impossibly eclectic catalog — a catalog whose eclecticism is especially notable considering its relatively small volume. Mary’s Danish, which came together in Los Angeles in the late ’80s, was itself a diverse lot — in personality and background — that served up funk, pop, punk and country. The blending of the last two genres clearly betrays the influence of X, from whom lead singers Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter also inherited intricately woven harmony vocals. They were joined in Mary’s Danish by bassist Chris “Wag” Wagner, drummer James Bradley Jr., guitarist David A. King and second guitarist Louis Gutierrez, who had played in the Three O’Clock. All were accomplished musicians with an uncanny pliability, but their secret weapon was frequent sax sideman Michael Barbera, who added jazz and R&B flavor to the mix. Mary’s Danish were as varied thematically as they were sonically, with religion, domestic violence, social criticism and biting self-analysis all receiving narrative attention.
'There Goes the Wondertruck' ably introduces the band’s offbeat stylistic fusion. The bizarre narrative of “Mary Had a Bar” does not seem to be a band theme song, and “What to Do” is not a Stones cover. It’s not revealed what “BVD” stands for, but “It’ll Probably Make Me Cry” does just that. The catchy college rock favorite “Don’t Crash the Car Tonight” impressed some in the West Coast music biz, including Peter Asher, who became the band’s manager.
Five of the six live tracks on 'Experience' are more fully realized versions of songs from There Goes the Wondertruck, particularly a frenzied, beefier “Blue Stockings” and the high lonesome croon of “It’ll Probably Make Me Cry.” The disc’s studio track, a riotous take on Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady,” slyly recasts the classic rock staple with a letter-perfect Led Zeppelin quote inserted into the bridge.
With funding from pseudo-indie Morgan’s Creek, Mary’s Danish beefed up the production values to adequately match their expanded palette of musical ideas. A veritable omnibus of musical styles, 'Circa' encircles just about every genre imaginable. The metallic crunch of “Mr. Floosack” leads into the introspective back-porch southern rock of “Hoof.” The folky instrumental jam “Down” begets the Devo dada of “These Are All the Shapes Nevada Could Have Been.” It’s easy to get lost within the stylistic shifts of Circa, where “Julie’s Blanket (pigsheadsnakeface)” is the only straight-ahead rocker. As few of the 17 tunes exceed three minutes, the five-minute “7 Deadly Sins” seems positively epic. Despite its attention deficit, the presence of songs as clever as “Beat Me Up” and “Cover Your Face” helped make this label debut a promise of big things to come.  From: https://trouserpress.com/reviews/marys-danish/

XTC - Then She Appeared

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop #1980s #1990s

XTC are one of those odd bands that defied convention and actually got better as time went on. Usually a band makes a big splash at the start of their career and continue to make continually less impressive albums as their career progresses. XTC did it the other way round: they started off as a reasonably good power-pop act and actually steadily improved over time. True, there was a slight stumble with Mummer and The Big Express, but they had reached incredible creative heights with Skylarking and by the time of Nonsuch they had reached a point where they had outlasted almost all of their peers and were still making music at least as good as what had been released before. Andy Partridge was still at his height as a songwriter, Colin Moulding was gaining confidence and penning gems like “Bungalow” and Dave Gregory’s guitar and keyboard work was giving the whole band a musical maturity which marked them as a band of rare quality.
Despite it equaling Oranges & Lemons’ chart success, Nonsuch has become increasingly overlooked as a key album in XTC’s career, as it wasn’t cited as an influence on the second wave of Brit-pop that reached its crescendo in the middle of the last decade, not was it hailed by the more heavyweight music press in the same way that Skylarking, and to a lesser extent Oranges & Lemons were. For years the only copies of Nonsuch available in the UK were as a part of a substantial remaster and reissue programme by their former record label.
While Nonsuch has never enjoyed the sycophantic praise smothered over it by lesser acts as their early albums have, or enjoyed the press recognition of being a lost classic in the same way that Skylarking has, it remains one of XTC’s most well-rounded and broad albums. Over two decades on from its original release Nonsuch finally seems to be getting the recognition it deserves for being not only a great XTC album, but one of the finest British pop albums of the 90s. Oddly enough there seems to be a major reissue of it due in the not too distant future, as apparently Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame has been following his success of doing similar work for the likes of prog rock acts like King Crimson and Yes, by working on a full bells and whistles version of Nonsuch.
From: https://www.backseatmafia.com/not-forgotten-xtc-nonsuch/

Tracy Bonham - Jumping Bean

 #Tracy Bonham #alternative rock #post-grunge #singer-songwriter #1990s

Woman to Woman: Erin Harkes chats with Tracy Bonham
When offered the opportunity to interview Tracy Bonham, I jumped at the chance. As I struggled to teach myself how to play guitar in my college dorm room back in the 90s, this powerhouse musician of the Lilith Fair era was an inspiration to me. Thankfully, and not surprisingly, she was an absolute delight to talk with. She was also super patient with the technical difficulties and all the times throughout the discussion where I made it about me.
Me: Obviously you’re best known for “Mother, Mother,” a song I love. The first time I heard it I was in the car with my mother, so it was just perfect. She was like, “Oh, this is a nice song” with a hint of passive aggression. And then you started screaming at her and I thought, “Tracy and I are best friends now.”
Tracy: That’s an awesome story—really cool. No one has ever told me that.
Me: I’m sure you know how moms can be. They’re like, “Oh, maybe you should write a song like this for me.” Then it got to the chorus and I thought, Maybe I will…
Tracy:  That’s great. That’s awesome.
Me: But beyond that, which work would you say you’re most proud of?
Tracy: It’s gonna sound so stupid, but I’m really proud of my body of work. I can’t choose one song because they’re all a timestamp of who I was at that moment. When I look back, I see it as a kaleidoscope or a tapestry of who I am. And I like knowing that I have many albums out there—not as many as I should have in my almost 30 years of doing this—but at least I have a nice handful.
Me: I’m sure it’s hard to choose just one. I know that when you’re known for one particular thing, sometimes people tend to overlook your other labors of love.
Tracy: Yeah, that happens all the time.
Me: But I’m glad to hear that you’re proud of all your work because that’s not very common. Sometimes you have a couple of stinkers that you’d rather nobody ever heard.
Tracy: Oh, I went through that. I thought my second album, “Down Here,” was a stinker for a long time. Then it happened to come up on my playlist or my iTunes while I was driving and I forced myself to listen to the whole thing. I was like, Wait a minute. I actually LIKE this. I had to come around. I needed time away from that one.
Me: That makes sense. I also have a song I didn’t like that much, but then my friends would tell me “That’s my favorite song on the album!” Maybe that would be somebody else’s favorite, too.
Tracy: Yes, exactly. You have to give it up at some point. It’s like letting your kids go off to college. You have to let them go.
Me: And I do think of songs as my children, so it’s funny that you said that. When somebody asks me my favorite song, I ask them, “Do you have kids? Which one is your favorite?” Then they get it. Except once in a while, somebody says, “Kyle’s my favorite,” and I’m like, “Okay, you ruined the question.”
Tracy: That’s hilarious.
From: https://nippertown.com/2022/06/28/woman-to-woman-erin-harkes-interviews-tracy-bonham/

22 Brides - Demolition Day

 #22 Brides #Libby & Carrie Johnson #folk rock #alternative folk #alternative rock #indie rock #folk pop #blues folk #1990s

In 1992, Libby and Carrie Johnson formed the indie folk duo 22 Brides, and in 1993 they put out the self-released eight-song CD Selling Fruit in Cairo. The band name 22 Brides comes from an Indian folk tale they heard when they were younger. After being spotted during one of their monthly gigs at CBGBs in New York, the duo signed with indie label Zero Hour Records. In June 1994 they released their self-titled debut, consisting of remixed songs from their self-released effort plus four new songs. The album was produced by Daniel Wise and features Jonathan Mover on drums and Mark Bosch on guitar.
On the year-long tour for 22 Brides, and in advance of their second album, Beaker, 22 Brides expanded into a four-member band with John Skehan (guitar, bass) and Ned Stroh (drums) joining Libby (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Carrie (guitar, vocals). The album had a more highly produced feel than the folk influences of the band's debut. Following a Zero Hour distribution deal with Universal Records, Beaker was released on Zero Hour/Universal. In September 1997, Zero Hour released the 22 Brides EP Blazes of Light, which was a sampler of sorts, with songs from their first two albums, "Purified" from their upcoming third album, and a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
The band's third LP, Demolition Day, was released in 1998, with a return to the more intimate sound of 22 Brides. In an effort to get back to their folk-pop harmonizing roots, the band worked again with Daniel Wise and recorded their vocal tracks live and switched to a trio formation, with Libby on bass and vocals, Carrie on guitar and vocals, and Bill Dobrow on drums. In October 1995, 22 Brides toured with Dick Dale. They played at the 1998 Lilith Fair, and also opened for Ani DiFranco and Freedy Johnston. In 1996, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti introduced characters based on Libby and Carrie Johnson in their comic book series Ash. They then created a four-book miniseries, 22 Brides, published by Event Comics, revolving around the characters based on the sisters.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby_Johnson
 

Imperial Drag - Boy Or A Girl

 #Imperial Drag #power pop #glam rock #alternative rock #pop rock #retro-1970s #ex-Jellyfish #1990s

Just like 2 Live Crew before them, Imperial Drag has experienced problems in Florida. Radio station WXTB in Tampa says they pulled the band's single "Boy or A Girl" after complaints came in from listeners who were uncomfortable with the song's lyrical content. "I didn't think it was such a button pusher," says Imperial Drag singer/guitarist Eric Dover of the banned song he wrote about talk show exploitation and sexual paranoia. "It's about coming to grips with certain tendencies. I guess some people got upset because it addresses an alternative side of someone's sexuality. But what I think is strange is the way an alternative radio station folded under pressure. How alternative is that? Some might bypass any alternative tag for the band and simply stick Imperial Drag in with the retro-lo-fi-polyester trend that's been around for the past couple years. The band's Beatles-meet-T. Rex glam-pop sound obviously draws plenty from the past. "We get a retro tag because our influences just show up too damn well," says keyboardist Roger Manning, ex-Jellyfish founder and recent Moog Cookbook chef. "I could write an AC/DC or Queen song in five minutes. I guess that's a blessing and a curse. But for the fans of this music the tag is not an issue. Besides, people are always digging up childhood memorabilia. It's always fascinating that anything from the 70s gets a negative tag, but ska and punk were around years ago too and today it's seen as something new. But I guess people are going to like what they like for whatever reasons.  From: https://www.mtv.com/news/5cjntm/dont-call-imperial-drag-retro

Lisa Loeb - Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves

 #Lisa Loeb #alternative rock #pop rock #folk rock #singer-songwriter #1990s #Cher cover

Q: You’ve had some interesting covers, such as Cher’s hit, “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves.” Did you record the song because you like it or did someone bring it to you?

Lisa Loeb: That was one of my favorite songs from when I was growing up. There was a guy named Bob Kulich who puts together a lot of cover albums and he usually calls on heavy metal guitar players to do them.  A long time ago when I was dating Dweezil Zappa, he asked Dweezil to be a part of an Ozzy Osbourne covers album.  We both suggested that I sing “Goodbye To Romance,” which is an Ozzy Osbourne song. After a little bit of a fight Bob thought it was a good idea and I did this song with all these other great musicians playing on the track.  It was a really interesting experience and added variety to the album.  So Bob called on me to do some other covers.  When the Cher covers album came up, “Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves” was always one of my favorites.  It’s so mysterious sounding and dramatic, definitely not something I wouldn’t do myself, I don’t think.  I was so excited to have the opportunity to sing that song.

From: https://news.pollstar.com/2014/04/18/a-few-minutes-with-lisa-loeb/

Portishead - Mourning Air

 #Portishead #trip-hop #alternative rock #electronica #downtempo #acid house #1990s

Portishead may not have invented trip-hop, but they were among the first to popularize it, particularly in America. Taking their cue from the slow, elastic beats that dominated Massive Attack's Blue Lines and adding elements of cool jazz, acid house, and soundtrack music, Portishead created an atmospheric, alluringly dark sound. The group wasn't as avant-garde as Tricky, nor as tied to dance traditions as Massive Attack; instead, it wrote evocative pseudo-cabaret pop songs that subverted their conventional structures with experimental productions and rhythms of trip-hop. As a result, Portishead appealed to a broad audience - not just electronic dance and alternative rock fans, but thirtysomethings who found techno, trip-hop, and dance as exotic as worldbeat. Before Portishead released their debut album, Dummy, in 1994, trip-hop's broad appeal wasn't apparent, but the record became an unexpected success in Britain, topping most year-end critics polls and earning the prestigious Mercury Music Prize; in America, it also became an underground hit. Following the success of Dummy, legions of imitators appeared over the next two years.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/portishead-mn0000301619/biography

Twenty-five years ago, during the summer of Blur’s Parklife and Oasis’s Definitely Maybe, a darker, stranger record was released that would soon become huge. Its title and mood was inspired by a 1970s TV drama of the same name, about a young deaf woman in Yorkshire who becomes a prostitute. The lyrics spoke of emotional extremes, sung in an extraordinary, rural-tinged, English blues by the Devon-born Beth Gibbons, of “the blackness, the darkness, forever” in Wandering Star, or of the feeling that “nobody loves me, it’s true, not like you do” in Sour Times. It’s sound, woven together by Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, helped define what is known today in music as hauntology, the sampling of older, spectral sounds to evoke deeper cultural memories (Boards of Canada’s TV-sampling electronica, Burial’s dubstep, and the Ghost Box label’s folk horror soundworlds would follow their lead). But despite its starkness, Dummy became a triple-platinum seller and a Mercury prizewinner, perhaps because it struck a nerve in what Barrow calls our “sonic unconscious - when sounds can merge with other sounds from somewhere else, and ultimately create emotion”.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/24/portishead-dummy-wasnt-a-chillout-album-25th-anniversary-geoff-barrow-adrian-utley-beth-gibbons

Toadies - Backslider

 #Toadies #alternative rock #punk #post-grunge #hard rock #punk metal #indie rock #1990s

25+ years. That’s a long time to maintain relevance, especially in the music community. But that’s exactly what Rubberneck has done. Released during the height of the grunge era, it’s mistakenly labeled a grunge record. But it’s not, not by a long shot. Described as “the Pixies meets Metallica”, the Toadies had their feet firmly ensconced in indie, alternative, punk and (near) metal to forge a sound truly all their own. 11 songs without a wasted stroke, from the first strum of the instrumental “Mexican Hairless” announcing the arrival of Rubberneck to the heavy, near post-punk feel of the closer “I Burn,” the Toadies wasted nary a note, beat or word, 36 minutes of pure original Texas sonic-boogie bliss, this was an album that could only be forged by Texans, attempting to reclaim the rock world from Seattle’s grungy little fist. Not being grunge, punk or metal, Interscope originally went with the latter, placing the Toadies on hair metal showcases and festivals with the likes of Dokken and Great White. Therefore, their eponymous debut album was not met with the overnight success many people might believe. 2 singles and videos (“Mr. Love,” “Backslider”) had already come and gone in the time between late August and Christmas, and it certainly wasn’t a hit. Small tours with Samiam, The Goats, and Big Chief had done little to dent the band in the public eye, all the while turning them into a four-headed rock machine. 4 months of constant touring will do that to an already tight band, and they roared into 1995 as a juggernaut. With only a few thousand copies sold, they had one last chance to impress, and that came in the form of a ghost story centered on a North Texas lake called “Possum Kingdom.” One creepy video and a slot opening for British upstarts Bush later, people were finally taking notice and Rubberneck started picking up steam. Of all places to break first for them, Florida jumped right on board. Subsequent tours with All and a very young Sugar Ray only tightened the band as it headed into summer, with one of the most endearing singles of the year on their hands. “Possum Kingdom” was inescapable during that summer, and neither were the Toadies.   From: https://thetoadies.com/bio/

Disappear Fear - Is There Anybody Here

 #Disappear Fear #folk rock #folk pop #alternative folk #indie folk #power pop #worldbeat #singer-songwriter #1980s #1990s

Beneath Disappear Fear’s veneer of catchy tunes, poppish folk rhythms, and the sophisticated harmonies of blood sisters Sonia Rutstein and Cindy Frank, beats a heart of hardcore social feminist consciousness. Born and raised in Baltimore, the sisters formed Disappear Fear in 1987. As the name implies, they call for unity and an end to injustice, and seek to break down the prejudicial barriers that keep people apart. Rutstein composes most of the songs and her compositions have been compared to those of Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan. Their harmonies and approach are reminiscent of the Indigo Girls. After three critically acclaimed self-released albums and an EP, the duo signed to Philo Records. In 1995, their self-titled album for Philo Records received a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for Outstanding Album. In June 1996, they released Seed in the Sahara. That same year, Sonia also began pursuing a solo career, returning to Disappear Fear only for occasional guest appearances for almost a decade.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/disappear-fear-mn0000154744/biography

Dada - Bob, The Drummer

 #Dada #alternative rock #psychedelic rock #power pop #pop rock #1990s

Dada is no one-hit wonder. It had four solid albums in the 1990s and several great songs, one of which attained worldwide acclaim. The band broke with a unique sound at the time with Joie Calio (bass/co-lead vocals) and Michael Gurley (guitar/co-lead vocals) singing harmonies over catchy hooks boosted by Gurley’s supreme guitar playing. Calio calls it Jimi Hendrix meets Simon & Garfunkel. As a rock band in the early 1990s, dada was painted in the broad swath called alternative rock. “That meant you didn’t sound like Guns 'N' Roses or heavy metal of the ‘80s,” Calio said. Dada took a cerebral path to success. “It was never just a garage band,” Calio said. “It was serious. It was a life change when we made the move to start Dada.” Calio and Gurley were friends in high school and separately they landed in Los Angeles where they played in various bands. Coincidentally, they lived within walking distance of each other. “It was so easy,” Calio said. “We just got together every day or night after work or whatever and worked on music. Only a few weeks into it, we started realizing this was a really good idea. Before we’d maybe write 10 songs in a year and one of them was OK. Now we’re starting to write 10 songs every two weeks.” The epiphany was to stop working on being in bands and just work on songwriting. After about a year, a musical peer, Louis Gutierrez of Mary’s Danish, listened to one of their sessions and told them they needed to perform. The duo argued that they didn’t have a band, but Gutierrez insisted, “You guys are going to open for us” at an upcoming show. The duo played about a half-dozen songs before receiving a standing ovation. “I will never forget that moment because as we walked offstage, I said, ‘Maybe Louis was right. We don’t need a band for right now.’ Then Louis comes over and said, ‘Hey, you guys. Just stay on the tour.’ And so we went up the coast with them and it was it was great.” Calio had a most appropriate day job, working in the mail room at Geffen Records. “It was like going to college,” he said. “I learned the ins and outs of the music business, and after we made demos, I knew who to take them to rather than blanket the entire industry.” The band broke out right away after it added drummer Phil Leavitt. Dada was boosted by a dream.
In the early 1990s, television viewers saw exuberant Super Bowl and World Series winners exclaim they were going to Disneyland and then news reports of the Gulf War and the L.A. Riots. The juxtaposition weaved into Calio’s subconscious. “I woke up about 5:00 in the morning,” Calio said. “All I remember about the dream right now is a big bus went in front of me that had the word Disneyland on it and I heard the melody.” Before going back to sleep, Calio jotted down about 20 verses, such as, “I shot my gun into the night, now I’m going to Dizz Knee Land. I just flipped off President George, I’m going to Dizz Knee Land.” At noon he called Gurley, the two met and put the song together. “I had the peanut butter, he had the chocolate,” Calio said.  From: https://www.tahoeonstage.com/reviews/dada/

K's Choice - Not An Addict

 #K's Choice #Gert Bettens #alternative rock #folk rock #hard rock #post-grunge #indie rock #1990s #Belgian

K's Choice is a Belgian rock band from Antwerp. The band centers on siblings Sam Bettens (formerly known as Sarah Bettens) (lead vocals, guitar) and Gert Bettens (guitar, keyboard, vocals). They are joined by Eric Grossman (bass), Jan van Sichem Jr. (guitar) and Koen Liekens (drums). Their music can be described as guitar-based singer-songwriter rock or folk-rock. It ranges from very delicate and intimate singer-songwriter songs to songs that are stronger, more active and louder. Sarah's smoky, enigmatic voice is the band's best known characteristic. In the seven years between The Great Subconscious Club and Almost Happy the music changed from raw and guitar-based to a more subtle and delicate sound. Sarah and Gert write most of the music and lyrics. Most of it is written separately. Sarah mainly tries to express ideas in her songs, and has a hand in writing silly and tongue-in-cheek songs. Gert has one big theme: losing the one you love. While most of the songs are easily accessible and open, some others are strange and incomprehensible. This led Sarah to comment: "Listening to the lyrics for the first time, you may find it hard to understand their meaning. When you listen to them a second time you may sense a basic truth in these cryptic words. If you do so, please let me know." This band appeared in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Doppelgangland) with the song Virgin State of Mind, leading to a boost in popularity.Their most popular song 'Not an addict' can be heard in the movie 'Wild things'.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/K%27s+Choice/+wiki

It’s too easy to assume, as so many already have, that the ’90s classic anthem “Not An Addict” by Belgian rock band K’s Choice from the album Paradise in Me, is simply about the denial of drug addiction. However, according to an interview with Billboard magazine, the song’s meaning takes on a more nuanced perspective of (formerly known as Sarah), transgender lead singer Sam Bettens’ view of controlled substance dependence, and the criminality of what he considered “soft drugs” like cannabis at the time.
Even though most ’90s rock bands proudly wore their ‘sex-drugs-rock-and-roll’ personas unapologetically on their sleeves, Bettens was fairly open about having made a valiant effort to avoid “hard drugs.” He was nonetheless still forthcoming about using cannabis and experimenting with psychedelics. In his interview, Bettens fully acknowledges, “I was addicted to cigarettes really bad,” also admitting, “I’ll smoke a joint once in a while and I might try acid or mushrooms, but I’ve never done any hard drugs, and I don’t think I want to.” The reason he explained was, “I like being in control of myself, and doing certain drugs makes you lose touch. That’s what scares me.”
Bettens was also adamant about clarifying that “Not An Addict” is neither anti, nor pro-drug use, and that the song’s meaning is by no means black or white, much like competing opinions about cannabis dependence. Bettens’ perspective, and song lyrics if anything, reflect modern-day cannabis use debates, captured in the form of a hauntingly melodic internal conflict.
From: https://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/2022/08/not-an-addict/