It’s hard not getting nostalgic when talking to Buddy Guy. He’s like Chicago’s guru, he was there with Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon when they were changing the world (and not getting a penny for it). There isn’t a period of his life that hasn’t been arduously discussed and dissected, though one in particular sticks out in his mind on a late August morning.
Hi, Ny Name Is Jeff
Catching up with a Chicago punk icon
IE: What’s an old punk doing with a new record?
Jeff Pezzati: When you’ve got some songs and your brain keeps spittin’ ‘em out, you gotta let other people be subjected to them one way or another [laughs]. I felt like I had some good tunes worth listening to, so I got together a band and recorded a couple discs and we’re still goin’.
George Costanza once announced it was the “Summer Of George,” well, this is the summer (and fall) of Kanye. You can’t escape the guy. His much-anticipated sophomore album, Late Registration (Roc-a-fella), entered the Billboard charts at number one, selling more than 860,000 copies its first week. He also won an MTV Video Award for Best Male Video and even landed on the August 29th cover of Time.
If you are like us, you’re pissed you don’t have Showtime and can’t watch the 13-episode “Masters Of Horror” anthology, featuring one-hour films by 13 big-name horror directors, including John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, and Dario Argento. The soundtrack, though, is available to all and includes new and previously unreleased material from an impressive lineup of rock, metal, and punk acts: Buckethead featuring Serj Tankian, Shadows Fall, Mudvayne, and Thursday among them. Visit www.mastersofhorrormusic.com for details.
Mr. T recently announced he won’t be wearing his signature gold jewelry anymore. Tony Brummel, founder and head of Victory Records, surely liked that move. Brummel has launched a campaign to block one of Victory’s former bands, Taking Back Sunday, from receiving a gold record for selling more than 500,000 copies of Where You Want To Be. That record was recorded while TBS was still with Victory; the curveball is that the emo group is now with Warner Bros., and its new record company is the one trying to obtain the certification for the band. Brummel not only questions the legalities of the process — because Warner did not produce the album — but apparently despises the whole principle of the industry award system in the first place.
By Timothy Hiatt
I understand that there are some people out there, walking among us right now, that take the sports a little too seriously. With blind allegiance and a bit of misguided hope, they are convinced that their team will overcome the odds, the obstacles, and even historical curses, to win it all — giving not only validation to their faith in the team, but to their very lives themselves.
The four members of Chicago’s Sybris are driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, headed to La Jolla, California to play their fifth show in the state in as many days. Halfway through a month-long tour to support its self-titled debut, this young band is learning to adapt to life on the road, from eating strange food concoctions like “Mexi-dogs” to maintaining sanity while cooped up in a van for hours. Still, Sybris is not complaining. The band tends to, as one of the its songs go, “blame it on the baseball.”
By Mike O’Cull
The proposed ban on smoking in public places in Chicago, championed by Alderman Ed Smith (28th Ward) is one of the most hotly debated and controversial issues in the city’s entertainment and nightclub communities. The ordinance would prohibit all smoking in public places, including bars and restaurants, as well as within 25 feet of the entrance to any building in which smoking was banned. As one might imagine, emotions run high on both sides of the fence. Opponents of the ban claim the ordinance will adversely affect the bar/nightclub/entertainment business in the city by driving customers out of the bars onto residential streets to indulge their habit or, in the worst-case scenario, to the suburbs, which are still mostly smoke-friendly.
A seminal force in American indie rock since the 1993 Drag City releases Dime Map Of The Reef and The Arizona Record, the Silver Jews (otherwise known as the prolific David Berman (above) and whomever he feels like recording with at the moment) had never gone much longer than a year — two at most — without providing their loyal following at least an EP to sate their musical appetites. In the four years that followed 2001’s Bright Flight, their last proper record, fans began to wonder if they had heard the last of the band that left an irrefutable imprint on rock ‘n’ roll with their brand of quirky, literate, and country-inspired music.
“I was readin’ this philosopher, Epictetus, and the core of his philosophical bent was ‘what people think of me is none of my business.’ And that’s about as good as it gets.”
– Rodney Crowell
Rodney Crowell knows good. He’s won a Grammy, an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement award, and been inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall Of Fame. He’s written songs that have become country standards and produced seminal albums for himself and others (principally Roseanne Cash). He was on the forefront of the New Traditionalist movement in the ’80s (wittingly and not) and was claimed by alt-country as an icon in the ’90s. But more than any of that, Rodney Crowell is one of a rare set: a serious artist. That his primary canvas is songwriting — something done by any Tom, Dick, and Stefani with a guitar or a computer — means that other songwriters are often more aware of the breadth and depth of Crowell’s skill than listeners (or even, for that matter, many critics).
Just another fuckin’ hippie — that’s the backlash against Devendra Banhart, the alleged freeloading, futureless utopian wannabe who’s currently the press-appointed leader of the “Freak Folk” movement. He’s none of the above, although you could knock him for being the only person ever who cherishes Marc Bolan’s early T. Rex work, ’scuse me, Tyrannosaurus Rex work, above Electric Warrior.
Max Cavalera admits writing music is his obsession. Unlike some artists who start constructing songs in preparation for a trip to the studio, the creative force behind Soulfly never stops writing. In fact, when we call him at his Phoenix home, the interview is delayed a few minutes while he finishes four more bars of drums.
Dropsonic
Insects With Angel Wings
(Rowdy)
An unholy blend of The Black Crowes with Paloalto.
Swords
Metropolis
(Arena Rock)
If you ever proposed to listen to R.E.M. if “they ever get balls,” it’s time to ante up.
General Elektriks
Cliquety Kliqk
(Quannum)
There’s at least one other Beastie Boys fan who digs Check Your Head more than Licensed To Ill, and his name is General Elektriks.
