American Alternative music reviews

Dave is the best of the best of the pop rock genre, bridging the gap between jazz and rock. That's what makes his songs so awesome. If you're expecting a standard rock group, Dave isn't for you, but if you're at all open to listening to music other than metal or classic rock, this song will turn you into an instant convert.

If you're a skeptic who doesn't understand exactly why Dave is so popular, just listen to this song and you'll understand. This is pop rock at its BEST.

If you're one of those people who've heard alot of Dave and don't think it can get much better, listen to this song. In my opinion it is the best upbeat song he's ever written. After the first half, it gets repetitive, but the first half is AMAZING.

DMB kicks ass in "Stay" just like in any other song on the Before These Crowded Streets CD and all their previous albums. DMB is and always will be my favorite group. They just keep turning out the hits one after another.

This single provides several versions of the best song from BTCS. It has been touted as the liveliest and happiest song ever produced by the band, and rightly so. Combining lyrics which evoke nothing but smiles, Matthews is accompanied by gospel singers and instrumentals that make this song worthy of all five stars!

Another cup of Sunday Morning Coffee, with the same group of composers/musicians who turn out another satisfying collection of music to calm out with.

I especially have become attracted to Smith's "Sunday Sunrise" and Berkey's "Consolation in D-flat." Truly gifted artists, this stuff is serene and mellow and full of good vibes.

Curl up with this, some good hot coffee, maybe your lover and enjoy!

This is an outstanding CD; my wife and I have not been able to find its match in other Chip Davis works. It is not New Age, although that is the category in which you will frequently find it. It is a varied collection of instrumental pieces, but the selection of pieces is probably as important as the delivery. Great for Sunday morning, or any other time you want to relax to good music!

This is an outstanding CD; my wife and I have not been able to find its match in other Chip Davis works. It is not New Age, although that is the category in which you will frequently find it. It is a varied collection of instrumental pieces, but the selection of pieces is probably as important as the delivery. Great for Sunday morning, or any other time you want to relax to good music!

Bon Jovi is instead called upon to lamely replicate Bono's vocal ....I dont think so....

This is absolutely my favorite Christmas CD. Whenever I need a pick-me-up I pop it in and I'm dancing away. My only regret is that it's not available on DVD. I'd love to see the artists performing and President and Hillary Clinton having a great time.
It's the best out of the collection.

I enjoyed every song on this 38 minute CD. I have a pretty good collection of various types of Christmas music and I consider this to be a great addition. I didn't realize this was part of a series and plan to purchase at least one more of this series. I'm not a rap fan but I enjoyed the Run DMC rendition of "Christmas in Hollis". "Christmas Tears" sung by Eric Clapton was spectacular. I see that Eric Clapton sings and/or plays guitar on 5 songs.

I see that they have no song listing, so here it is:
1) Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (Mary J. Blige and Sheryl Crow)
2) Christmas In Hollis (Run DMC)
3) Please Come Home For Christmas (Jon Bon Jovi)
4) Christmas Blues (John Popper with Eric Clapton)
5) What Child Is This? (Vanessa Williams)
6) Christmas Tears (Eric Clapton)
7) O Holy Night (Tracy Chapman)
8) Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman and Eric Clapton)
9) Merry Christmas Baby (Sheryl Crow with Eric Clapton)
10) Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Jon Bon Jovi)
11) Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (All artists listed above)

Missed 'em live about 3 other times. Lemme tell you a story. Maybe not?

However, this album, we can call it that, packed with lots 'o songs but not lasting very long. Yes, they recreated the album in their own form.

This is their second album, came out 1983.

What's their four masterpieces? Punch line 1981, this one, Buzz Howl... 1983 and Double Nickles 2xLP 1984. Feel free to include My First Bells if you like, a compilation tape of their early 7" records and compilation tracks.

Can't really include Politics of Time, 1984 cuz there's too many poorly recorded songs on it. Same reason for Ballot Result. Musically both are brilliant however.

Mersh I wouldn't include cuz they sorta go a different path musically but, heck, it's still the MINUTEMEN.

Thank goodness amazon.com has those 'listen' buttons for most of the records they sell. Just let the music speak for itself man. Nobody made music like this. God took d. boon too soon from us and it was as big a blow as taking Jimi and Belushi too soon. God bless d. boon.

Meanwhile, buy this as is or on one of those 3 Post Mersh CD's released together with other MINUTEMEN records on one CD. You cannot go wrong.

Brief, passionate, bit 'o funky, beautiful voice(s), sharp drumming. That incredible bass playing and together a 3 man unit that sailed through songs and gave us a gift that will stand the ages. Well.

Ok, if you wanna know, I wish I'd seen 'em more times but I saw that Mojave Desert show in the broad flat middle of nowhere salt flats with SAVAGE REPUBLIC. Four bus loads of us. Generators and two passionate bands and us and lots of nowhere. In the afternoon.

And the San Pedro Bay show just on a boat with the MEAT PUPPETS and about 50 other folks who loved either or both bands sitting a few boat lengths away from the dock on a Wednesday night. Outdoors, on a clear night on the water. Lovely.

And when 100 FLOWERS called it quits at Al's Bar in L.A. d. boon and Keith Morris both got on stage to sing with 100 FLOWERS at the end of their set. MINUTEMEN raged.

And with MEAT PUPPETS opening then MINUTEMEN then HUSKER DU in San Diego on El Cajon Blvd. in a place I'd never seen a gig be at before nor since, like a place with a stage and it said it was a recording studio but no equipment around. You can imagine, the three together made for a very memorable show.

They played with an SST line up all of whom I loathed (musically) like DINASOUR JR. so I stupidly listened to the MINUTEMEN's set from the back alley. Yup. Big dope.

I forget if I saw 'em an actual fourth time.

Missed 'em in Tijuana. Giant 12 band show in a movie theatre. SOLUCION MORTAL opened at 3pm. Only Mexican band. Then some incredible Tucson acid rockabilly band. And like more bands just kept getting added. Excene and John Doe did a set maybe a stripped down KNITTERS. CICRLE JERKS and the MINUTMEN were both there hangin' out. But midnight came along and the cops simply shut the show down even though I didn't see any trouble anywhere. Everyone simply went home without the two headliners ever playing.

Me and my second BCT (Bad Compilation Tapes/Borderless Countries Tapes) partner, Chris, were visiting Bruce Licher of SAVAGE REPUBLIC in L.A. and he told us the MINUTEMEN were playing down the way. Chris had a girlfriend who he said would frown on him getting back to San Diego late. Yup. Lost chance.

Thanks MINUTEMEN. chrisbct@hotmail.com

This is a very scratchy and dark album by minutemen. Double nickels is everyone quoted favorite, but this is their best. Mersh is energetic and sweet, double nickels is them having fun. This is very dark, angry and jazz inflected, by far their most original.

So short, so brilliant, so totally unique. Has anyone made music quite like this since? Many have tried.

I saw minutemen in high school about 3 months before D Boon died, 1985. They opened up for REM, when REM were so incredible, but my memory is fuzzy of early high school, so many soon-to-be legendary shows every month.

How lucky that one of the early bands I was into, would turn out to be one of the best of all time. Kind of like enjoying the work of a few local painters that pretty much you and your friends are the only ones that even have heard of them, and later they turn out to be Monet and Renoir.

"What Makes a Man Start Fires" seems to be a demarcation point: for the Minutemen at least. And, unlike a previous reviewer, I wouldn't use the imagery of an "extended nightmare," as much as a "blissed-out daydream." D. Boone, Mike Watt and George Hurley were talented enough to realize early that hardcore punk had serious limitations. In many senses, this album branches out into territory that "Double Nickels" never touched. I am not sure where this place is, but I can guess that it involves driving old cars down the Pacific Coastline, dreaming about things other than the plight of the working man.

I've followed Will Marley's music career for several years, as front man for Lustre and now with the Nickel Slots and he keep producing excellent music. This is a band that's on the verge of breaking it to the "big time". you can't help singing along... Keep up the great work Will. Look forward to catching a live show soon..

Former front man of Lustre has formed a new great band. Although there are hints of Lustre's sound on this disc, the Nickel Slots have formed a sound all their own with a southern twist and it is awesome. Songs like "Louise" and "She Said" have me listening over and over again. It amazes me why bands like this don't get more promotion. It seems that the big record companies and most of America's pop culture taste is all in their mouth. Do yourself a favor and buy this disc!

You will be missing out on some of the best songs to be written in this century if you do not buy this CD

I love this album!

It's probably the only album in my record collection that finds it's place wether I'm in a Pop, Punk, No-wave, Electronic, or Urban mood or when I'm just sick and overloaded with American society.

This album is an exorcism of American culture in the 1980s and is still relevant to todays times. The destructive force of George W. Bush and the brainless celebrities we're bombarded with daily, who eat away our brains as G.W.B. eats away our lives and our civil liberties, all the while we witness the worst disasters in history, are akin to Ronald Reagan and America's obsession with Dynasty and Dallas while nearly an entire population of creative people die of AIDS and the worst plague of world hunger in history wipes out 35,000 people a day.

The contrasts that people point out, "the darkness and Pop irony" make this album such a great document of the underground. Never forget that Madonna started out in a Punk/New Wave band (The Breakfast Club) and was a part of the early Hip-Hop and Club scenes that many NY Punks were going to. The underground in the 80s was a melting pot of styles and scenes all effecting each other through music, performance, art and fashion.

Instead of being phony purists of Avant-Garde taste, like most NYC Hipsters were and are, stepping in line to the same definition of "Cool", Ciccone (Sonic) Youth are honest about their appreciation and disgust with pop culture and express what it feels like to be an informed, creative and individualist person finding that you actually do like Madonna and in a cold, minimalist way the Robert Palmer girls are actually quite bizarre, like something from a Kraftwerk or Klaus Nomi performance.

So, to sum this up. If you find your sick of the monotonous goose-step of indi./alt./underground music these days, crank this up, turn up the bass and excorscise your Mtv induced/social crisis/media disease demons.

Michael Martarano

This collaboration between Sonic Youth and Mike Watt was really something when it came out. The covers of very very commercial songs by Robert Palmer and MAdonna are found beside some quite weird experimental Sonic Youth fare. However it worked at the time and the CD stands up quite well.

Sonic Youth was busy making their grandest masterpiece, Daydream Nation, while working with Mike Watt on the side project Ciccone Youth for The Whitey Album, and though the two couldn't be more different, the conceptual focus of Daydream clearly spilled over into Whitey. It's moments range from complete jokes (Mike Watt's only-occasionally-emphatic vocals for Madonna's "Burnin Up"), to avant garde ("Me and Jill"), to both at once (Kim's brilliant karaoke take on "Addicted to Love"), resulting in an album of cathartic weirdness. It's a relevant, fascinating throw-away ringing with as much artistic savvy as it does humor, all in an attempt to make something like a white hip hop record, and something like the deconstruction of a white hip hop record.

The last effort from the band that personified NYHC and Straight Edge in the late 80's, this EP has a lot in common with the swan song released by their forefathers (and personification of HC and SE in the early 80's), Minor Threat.

Where MT's "Salad Days" was a disappointed and embittered last look at the end of an era in hardcore punk, so too is YOT's final EP a bittersweet final serving.

At the time this was recorded, Ray and Porcell were getting further and further into the Hare Krsna religion, and Ray especially was wanting to devote himself to Krsna entirely. The three songs on this disc reflect this new point of view more explicitly than any YOT tracks had, heretofore. "Modern Love Story" and "Envy" are indictments of our culture's fascination with materialism and shallowness, while "Disengage" is a tacit kiss-off to American society as Ray slipped into being a full-time Krsna devotee.

Where the themes of this disc have more in common with Ray's (and, later, Porcell's) next band Shelter, so too does the music shift. This is a much more tuneful and melodic outing for YOT, and the band proves itself capable of mastering this growth as they did their roots.

I've never heard a bad YOT song (well, maybe the "Anarchy in the UK" cover...), and these three songs are a must to any fan of hardcore.

Different from the totally gritty "Can't Close My Eyes" record, but still hardcore the way it was meant to be.

More fast-paced stuff. Ray writes his most sophisicated lyrics, while still keeping them exciting and worthy of YOT anthems. Mucially the band comes up with something that comes off as better than their other records as well.

Ultimately this record is different from the other three. While it is a step away from classic sing along anthems, it is as good as the other records.

ray cappo smashes thru the walls again with the strait edge morality, too bad there aren't more songs & guess he has traded in his diamonds for broken glass, tell us more ray

Essential stuff, totally hilarious. Man Vs. Nature rules. Psychopunk tested, Psychogirlfriend approved.

Think you've heard it all? Grown jaded at cheap shock-rock? Well, bubba, this one's for you, if you can find a copy. Just put on Killdozer's dread masterpiece "The Rub" from "Little Baby Buntin'" (the vastly superior half of this two-album cd). I don't know what I love more about it--the biting irony or the "I LIKE COFFEE" coda at the end. I've recently tracked down a copy of this disc (to replace one I lost), and it's a sweet balm to my soul.

Make no mistake, no ifs, ands, or buts, this ain't easy listening. (Many of Killdozer's songs, however, despite their violently loud presentation, are surprisingly sweet-natured.) It's not music your spouse is going to let you play inside when they're around. But it's good stuff. Great stuff, in fact. "12 Point Buck," the first half, is a good album, with songs about disaster movies, customer service, and Flannery O'Connor. "Little Baby Buntin'" is a great album, and the pinnacle of Killdozer's output. "The Rub" is a breathtaking epic, "The Ballad of My Old Man" is a tender expression of filial devotion, "Cyst" is an oddly sympathetic look at an alien parasite, and, as another reviewer has pointed out, the cover of "I Am, I Said" does, in fact, highlight the existential beauty of the lyrics. If you're tired of wimps and poseurs, these are your boys.

I was working at a warehouse in Berkeley in the late '80s when I was first indoctrinated into the cult of Killdozer. Anne from the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 put a pair of headphones on my head and told me to listen. What I heard was the opening vocal salvo of "Hamburger Martyr" from the brilliant "Burl" EP. Nobody can say "... you!" and mean it quite like Michael Gerald. Well, that was enough; I was hooked.
This pair of CDs (Little Baby Buntin' and 12 Point Buck) captures Killdozer at what I consider the peak of their career. The original lineup intact, they were perfecting their midwest, white ..., tongue-in-cheek, grain elevator disaster humor that had so vividly developed over their first few records. While some may prefer the more polished sound of Paul Zagoras' guitar work on the later albums, I'm a Hobson man. If it's possible for bombastic, distorted guitar noise to be "funny"...well, this is it. Brilliantly produced by a pre-Nevermind Butch Vig, both of these albums feature Killdozer's trademark wall of sound and growling, spitting (yet hilarious) vocals. This is music for drinking cheap liquor on the porch and shouting at cars.
If you buy these for no reason other than the recipes from the Killdozer Bake-off (try the watermelon pie!), you won't be disappointed. Enjoy!

This disc is an absolute must-have for Screaming Trees fans who can't get their hands on earlier albums (Clairvoyance, Even if and Especially When, Invisible Lantern, and Buzz Factory). While the Screaming Trees' best efforts were their final three discs (Uncle Anesthesia, Sweet Oblivion, and Dust), Anthology:SST Years provides an excellent overview of the band prior to changing labels. This disc is chock full of excellent tunes - all which perfectly blend '60s psychedelia, '70s rock, and '80s punk.

While the list of solid songs on here is too long to mention, I can say with confidence that it's worth the price just for "Cold Rain" and "Black Morning Sun". Everything else is icing...

On much of this compilation, Mark Lanegan sounds like he is about 18 years old. Despite the truth in that, in no way does it detract from the likeability of the songs. In fact, there are only a few tunes here that I don't care for. It's a solid collection and admittedly, I find myself really grooving with the earlier material. The guys may not have perfected their fluidity like in "Sweet Oblivion" and "Dust", but you can definitely get a feel for why the Trees eventually went "famous". Catchy and genuinely fun, not unlike the Monkees on LSD. It's also not difficult to associate this music with a small but personal venue, where it would be appropriately played and appreciated.

If you're thinking of exploring earlier Trees material, this is probably the best place to start.

thank god. all the old s.trees hits compiled. 'transfiguration', 'walk through to this side' and the wah wah overload is just too much! by the time the screaming trees novice gets to the 'buzz factory' stuff on this cd they won't believe that it's the same guy singing (reminds me of the difference 'tween "closing time" and "small change" from good ol' uncle tom when i listen to the cd start to finish {does mark lanegan smoke camel unfiltered?}). that said, i sure can't think of a better way to spend bucks.

Another reviewer here says that they got more serious about their music on this album. If that's what it was, they should have just kept playing unserious music. Their other three albums are outstanding. 5 stars for both the studio releases. But the change here was just not good for them. The talented slap of Wag is totally absent. There is a lack of the jazzing sounding guitar tracks found in their previous work. Also, these songs are way to polished. Their other albums offered much more diverse and raw sound. As a hugh fan, it greatly disappointed me and still years later, I can't find myself enjoying more than bits and pieces of this one. The fun found in the other albums is just missing.

I did a double take when I saw that release date, wow, no wonder I miss Mary's Danish so much. I have all three of their releases on cassette, and who listens to cassettes anymore? I've tried to find their music on the internet to no avail, and may have to consider purchasing the CDs here on Amazon. They're such a superb band (were, anyway) that it would be worth it for sure.

If I weren't a surfer I probably never would have heard of Mary's Danish. A surf filmmaker named Jack McCoy put a couple of their songs - off their debut 'There Goes the Wonderstruck - in a video he put out 15 years ago or so. The music just jumped out of the film, as original as it was catchy and addictive. After buying and loving that album I got Circa, their second release, which I think is a brilliant album. It has the feel of a concept album, large in scope, but it's just a great listen all around with many great tracks. And finally, there came what would prove to be their final release, American Standard.

With American Standard, Mary's Danish got seemingly more serious about their music. The album has a stronger, more intense feel than the previous two. Songs like Underwater - an adrenaline pumping song if there ever was one - are perfect examples. Right from the opening track, Killjoy, you get a sense of Mary's Danish's style of songcraft. Edgy, hooky, powerful, and raw. One of the most unique facets of the band is its pair of female lead singers, and what singers they are. Two beautiful screeching (roaring, perhaps) women fronted this band very handily for the years that they were around. How many bands can boast that?

I remember back when this album came out they actually got a shot on Letterman, who was then on NBC, and funny. If memory serves me they played Killjoy, and rocked it. In retrospect I suppose it looked like Mary's Danish were about to take off, to have some financial success approaching the creative success they had achieved in the studio for years. But alas, it was not to be. The reasons why are a mystery to me, I'm not one to keep up with the gossipy details about why bands split up or get back together or do whatever they do. I only know that Mary's Danish is gone, and they've been gone for a very long time. Shame...

I took a chance on this album the year it was released, after hearing so much about their (major label) debut "Circa". With so much critical acclaim, I was initially skeptical; I generally am where critics are concerned. But after further listenings, the band's influences mattered less than the total product, which turns out to be one of the top ten best albums of the 1990s.

Their influences range from Hendrix to the Go-Go's, but this isn't a novelty retro pastiche. Some of the numbers ('God Said', 'Underwater') suffer from lack of conviction, but 'Killjoy', 'Weeping Tree', and 'Porcupine' take the plunge and show that the band isn't afraid to rock out sensibly.

For the best song Jane's Addiction never wrote, check out 'Sister Shade'. It's epic in its scale, and the freshest thing written in all of 1992.

It's not original, but it's entirely unique in its field. The same can be said about "Everything Must Go" by the Manic Street Preachers (another essential 90s album). 'There Goes The Wondertruck' and 'Circa' are fine, and you can't go wrong by purchasing them, but if you don't own this album, then your collection is far from complete.