August 4, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
Lots of Huey Lewis (and the News) news lately, so let's go back to the source and see what all the hype is about.
On the one hand, reading about Huey Lewis made me feel old because it reminded me of the dog-eared insert of my brother's Sports cassette; on the other hand, I felt young because the post-60s, hippie-vs-non-hippie music wrangling that apparently defined Huey's early career was so goddamn boring. Huey Lewis, on the third hand, is old as fuck.
But wait, let's look a bit closer at veteran Chris Connelly's (of MTV and ESPN fame) piece:
"If you were looking to cast a rock & roll idol, Huey Lewis would probably not make the final cut. He's a strong, yet somewhat one-dimensional singer; he's handsome but older looking than the average rock star; and he dances about as well as Menudo -- which is to say not very well. But despite those drawbacks - and a live show that seems a tad padded with instrumental soloing -- he gets his wildly enthusiastic, predominately female audiences where he wants them: on their feet."
Connelly later goes on to describe Huey's music as an "appealing blend of non exploitative sexulity and hearty fellowship." This, only a few months after describing the band as "a few bricks shy of a load" in his unflattering 2.5-star review (only a half star more than the Yentil soundtrack, for reference). Clearly, Connelly hates Huey Lewis, and it's fun trying to watch him wring some faint praise out of the palpable contempt. Too bad for us - as a historical document, this could have been an epic hatchet job. Instead, it's simply uninteresting.
As with many of the older magazines, the ads and special sections steal the show. I'm a sucker for old audio gear in particular. It's fun to laugh at their portable turntables and gigantic phones, but it's also instructive to compare the vision against what actually happened (cassette tapes vs. say, the iPod), because it underscores the inherent unknowability of how specific technologies will evolve. But mostly I like making fun of the giant phones. Those things were huge! And a recording device that saves time by playing tapes at 2x speed? What the fuck is that?
One last interesting note: a large portion of RS 430 is given over to Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, parts of which were serialized in 1984.
Continue reading OldStand: Rolling Stone, September 13, 1984...
Posted at 5:15 PM by Jon in
Tags: Footloose | Huey Lewis | Saturday Night Live
latest by Patrick McLaughlin
July 22, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
Okay, I'll admit it: I fell for the cover trick. It's Kerrang!, right? Of course their list of "100 Coolest Rock Stars" is stupid and subjective and laughably packed with bands whose long-forgotten names elicit cringes of embarrassment among the people who admit to having spent $15.99 on a Limp Bizkit album back in the day. Don't be so hard on yourself, man: you were thirteen.
But despite the fact that Kerrang! was engineered in a lab to resist careful scrutiny and common sense in equal measure, it's an easy magazine to like. There's an insider-only, cultish vibe that seems to reflect those arbitrary passions of youth; the way a band like Coal Chamber (Coal Chamber? Seriously?) can dominate the imagination to the extent that three of its members end up in the top 100. Unless the list is meant to be read as "100 Coolest Rock Stars We Can Think Of Off the Top Of Our Heads," in which case I'll stand down.
Warning: You will get worked up for absolutely no reason. And yes, I'm saving the good stuff for after the jump (hint: #1 is...somewhere on the cover). It's true, however, that Kerrang!'s independence day special sets up nicely for nostalgists (namely: Scott and me and you, if you've made it this far). It's a perfect time capsule of the post-grunge, pre-nu-metal scene in 1998, which is to say: muddled and unfortunate-in-retrospect. A few goth-y, industrial types; a few electronica stars; some nods to old-school heavy metal gods, and a few ska/punk/skacore dudes to keep things well-rounded. To paraphrase Spinal Tap: "Nobody knew ... who they were ... or ... what they were doing."
Okay, I can't resist. Here's a taste:
Continue reading OldStand: Kerrang!, July 4, 1998...
Posted at 1:10 PM by Jon in
Tags: Billy Corgan | Courtney Love | Kim Gordon | Nine Inch Nails | Sonic Youth | The Smashing Pumpkins
latest by kidacomputerok
July 7, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
Oh man, remember the future?
Well, my Macbook doesn't (thanks for nothing, Leopard!), because it refused to read the contents of this CD-ROM "magazine" from 1995. To rescue Blender 1.5 from technological obscurity I had to go to the PC, and even then half of the multimedia features were busted. So much for progress.
For those of you who are familiar with magazine but don't know the history, Blender began in a CD-only format in 1994. A mix of cheeky list-type humor, soft (wicked soft, like 10,000 thread count) journalism, and reviews, it combined the graphic power of a Sega Genesis with the interactive convenience of a dial-up modem. Which is to say: not much.
Given the technical constraints, there's an admirable amount of original audio and video here, including video interviews with Maus creator Art Spiegelman and a baby-faced Damon Albarn (Wikipedia tells me he was 27, but he looks 14). The cover "piece" about Courtney Love is about as vapid and contrived as it gets, but it's fun to read about Traci Lords' budding techno career while listening to her fabulous pornography techno music.
As you might expect, the multimedia elements best serve the review section, which clocks in at 25 reviews evenly divided into five categories: Dance, Hip Hop, Rock, Commercial Alternative (don't ask -- it was the 90s) and Everything Else. The caliber of the reviews (generally poor) takes away from the overall value of the magazine, but, at a time when song samples were difficult to come by, Blender generously provided two per artist. Good to see the Tindersticks' second album getting some love.
Other features include some nonsense about how Michael Bolton is a sign of the apocalypse, a feature about Robot Wars, and something about hockey that crashed the computer. Also, for some reason, a 90-second trailer for Mallrats.
Continue reading OldStand: Blender, May 1995...
Posted at 4:20 PM by Jon in ,
Tags: Blur | Courtney Love | Michael Bolton | Rancid | Traci Lords
latest by K.M.Kirby
June 23, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
For the cover story, Bob Guccione Jr. himself gets in the ring with a hirsute Bon Jovi, and luckily the profile, much like The Bon himself, is much more interesting than you might expect. While "Blaze of Glory" was hitting #1, Bon Jovi took a totally anonymous, love-of-the-game-type gig moonlighting as a guitarist for local bar-bangers/heroes Southside Johnny and the Jukes. He also owns a Steel Horse Ferrari, in which he rides.
But this particular issue of SPIN is not about the music. It's about politics, culture wars, and drugs. Dean Kuipers sends a dispatch from Reno, where Judas Priest is on trial for allegedly inserting subliminal messages (we're gay) into their albums (which led to the unfortunate suicide of two down-on-their-luck metalheads). These days, when middle-schoolers have easy access to scat-porn, its tough to work up much angst over Judas Priest. If anything, they seem a bit quaint, with their biker-fetish leather and feathered hair. Not that the album art wasn't totally subversive and scary as hell, but really, suicide? The whole trial, as you might imagine/remember, was ridiculous (they were acquitted).
Old friend Legs McNeil shows up a bit later, with another Thompson-esque foray into the dark heart of America. This time it's Atlantic City, where Donald Trump (and his original hair) are staging a Trump-centric game show Trump Card. Here's Legs, in all his misanthropic glory, describing the guy whose job it is to warm up the in-studio audience:
"Jimmy Craine looked like a man who had sold his soul to Satan in exchange for a bad punchline. And now he had to pay the price, descending into this hell of trying to infuse life and energy into a crowd of people whose orgasm in life is buying Birds Eye vegetables frozen in their own plastic serving pouches."
Get some, Legs! I definitely wouldn't turn down the chance to take a road trip with that guy.
Also: Duran Duran's eminently-forgettable Liberty gets the feature review nod over Bossanova and Mama Said Knock You Out, Axl Rose does his Axl Rose thing (yes you've read it before, but at least he's not wearing pants this time), and another "College Music" insert featuring albums and artists that are now officially classic rock.
Continue reading OldStand: SPIN, November, 1990...
Posted at 3:11 PM by Jon in
Tags: Axl Rose | Bon Jovi | Iggy Pop | Judas Priest | Pixies
latest by tomconway
June 9, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
We've suffered through some half-assed list issues here at the OldStand, but RS 602 ("New Faces '91") has a compelling mixture of the thoughtful, the prescient, and the ridiculous. On the plus side: David Fricke's trip inside the acid-fried mind of Ministry's Alain Jourgensen, the patron saint of Chicago's Wax Trax records, and a primer on independent labels which, in the days before the internet, might have been a suburban kid's first exposure to Matador, Sub Pop, Creation, and Flying Nun.
As with any exercise in picking the "next big thing," there are some hits and some misses. The Charlatans UK (lead singer Tim Burgess looks "like New Kid on the Block Jordan Night on ecstasy") and De La Soul are still active 17 years later, and it's hard to argue with the Chris Isaak pick. Even the obligatory artists-recommend-artists section has a few gems, including Brian Eno on My Bloody Valentine: "[Soon] sets a new standard for pop ... it's the vaguest piece of music ever to have been a hit."
And then there's New Faces cover boys Extreme. Allow me to transcribe:
"There are lines you draw, Paul, no matter what you do," Bettencourt is saying. "We could sell a million records, but if it's all twelve-year-old girls who think that one of us is pretty, what the fuck kind of audience is that to have? Of course you want to be rich, but how far would you go, you know? Would you suck dick to do it?"
"Thaaat's debatable!" barks Cherone happily.
Bettencourt and Geary shoot irritated glances at Cherone, then get back to the topic at hand.
"Seriously, what's the most important thing to you?" asks Geary. "Maintaining your integrity? What I'm saying is, if you've got your bottom line, then shut up. You want your cake and eat it, too."
The two continue to hammer away at each other; apparently neither realizes that although they're approaching the argument from different angles, they're both making the same point.
"I recently read this thing," Geary says. "The guitar players in Warrant were in Guitar Player, and I notice that they're struggling for respect from their peers. That's a big major problem for them. They have all the money, and they've got success, and..."
"I'm just making a point," says Geary. "Warrant is saying, 'Jeez, I got a million dollars, but I don't have any integrity,' and you're saying you'd rather have what you have than what they have."
"Okay, then be quiet," says Bettencourt sullenly.
More than words, indeed!
And it gets even more embarrassing, with a not-nearly-ironic-enough pullout fashion spread featuring dueling MCs Hammer and Van Winkle and a shitload of Z Cavaricci (Hammer: "Contrary to the Media, Vanilla Ice and I have actually been friends for about three years"). Now, I don't know much about fashion, but I do know that in 2-4 years, when the coming early-90s nostalgia apocalypse comes, we will all look like idiots. Except, apparently, for Vanilla Ice, who will look like Frank Sinatra.
Continue reading OldStand: Rolling Stone, April 18, 1991...
Posted at 5:01 PM by Jon in
Tags: Bartman | Bill Idol | De La Soul | DiVinyls | Extreme | MC Hammer | TMNT | Vanilla Ice
latest by Cheef
May 27, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
Best of 1999. Too soon? Maybe. But 9 years in music is a long time no matter how you cut it, especially when it stretches back to the pre-blog era. So, you ask, who took home the (not so) coveted 1999 Q Award? Short answer: Travis. Long answer: also Travis. Look, I don't have any problem with the Stereophonics beating out Suede for Best Performance (although I maybe perhaps do have a problem with the Stereophonics in general), but can you believe Basement Jaxx won Best New Act? What a joke. Gay Dad was robbed! The moral: as with most lists involving Gay Dad, it's best not to take the results too seriously.
The Top 50 list is underwhelming on first glance, but looks more solid upon closer review. I don't think of 1999 as a particularly memorable year for music, but then you see Midnite Vultures next to Blur's 13, Terror Twilight, The Soft Bulletin, Summerteeth, and TLC's Fanmail (I don't want no scrubs!), and the Top 50 starts to look like a list of "last batch of CDs you actually purchased before the Napster apocalypse/liberation." Good times.
Continue reading OldStand: Q, January 2000...
Posted at 4:02 PM by jon in
latest by sommerface
May 12, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
A while back we excavated SPIN's 8th Anniversary Dando-fest; now, through the magic of the Oldstand, we'll slide back a year, to 1992, as SPIN attempts to dial up the seven greatest bands of all time. Well, no spoilers here. And really, nothing even remotely controversial. In '92 Spin was still not quite as "alternative" as it would later become (or pretend to become), and their top-seven is proof positive. In no particular order:
Sex Pistols
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Public Enemy
The Ramones
Jimi Hendrix
Yawn. Rolling Stone wants its canon back! Although, in fairness to SPIN, the world would not become thoroughly listified for another fifteen years (thanks for nothing, blogosphere!), so at the time this must have provoked heated arguments among the slacker set. Some of the goofy, throwaway, "seven-based" humor pieces are much more entertaining (#5 on the list of "Seven Ways To Kill A Rock Star" is "Introduce him to Jeff Lynne." Huh?). There's also a surprisingly prescient "Guide to College Music," including featurettes on up-and-comers The Breeders, Manic Street Preachers, Swervedriver, Uncle Tupelo, and Moose. Well, four-out-of-five ain't bad.
But here's my favorite thing about this issue: buried underneath all of the self-congratulatory essays and chest-puffing argument fodder, tucked into the review section under the heading "Blue Light Special," Jim Greer's heartfelt defense of Queen:
What Queen did for me as a kid growing up in the suburbs in the 1970s was teach me the value of antisocial behavior. Meaning that none of my friends liked the band, but I stuck with 'em anyway (the band, not my friends)...In retrospect, it's easy to see what [they] didn't like. Queen was a bit off, wasn't it? Not nearly as one-dimensional or straightforwardly rock 'n' roll as our other heroes, Aerosmith, Boston, Sabbath, and Skynyrd, Queen introduced an element of uneasiness into the already-confusing world of adolescence, and was therefore taboo. Which to me was cool; I thought Queen was Art the way I thought The Lord of the Rings was Art. My love for the band was a way of placing myself above my peers, and of feeling misunderstood - essential for any budding misfit.
Also: NKOTB vs. Michael Jackson, TS Eliot vs. Lou Reed, and Gameboy vs. productivity.
Continue reading OldStand: SPIN, April 1992...
Posted at 5:18 PM in
latest by tummy trouble
April 28, 2008
Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.
The late, lamented, Hoon-led Blind Melon shows up on the cover of RS 669, rising like a gaggle of nude, hippie nymphs from the muck of LA's post-Gn'R hair-metal scene. Or something. Kim Neely's take on the band's rise to prominence is thorough enough -- but also frustratingly bland for a band that had a reputation for being a bit nutso. Good-natured bitching about living in the shadow of the Bee Girl's success gives way to a term-paperish accounting of the band's origins (short version: they all moved to LA and formed a band). Later, they threaten to vomit on a label exec, steal some artwork from a restaurant bathroom, and smash up a hotel room. But unfortunately all of the good stuff is buried after the jump, on page 82. Why? I have no idea. If Cameron Crowe had been dead in 1993, he would have been rolling over in his grave.
The rest of this workman-like issue is peppered with small joys: an item about Shaq rapping, an ad for one of those then-ubiquitous 1-800-Collect services (does anybody born after the year 1988 even know what calling collect even means?), a PM Dawn reference. Pearl Jam's Vs. pulls a (much deserved, though my judgment might be clouded by personal nostalgia) 4.5 stars from reviewer Jim Bessman ("A lot of singers know how to convey emotion in a song, but few are capable of the kind of range or drama Vedder routinely imparts"), thus cementing their status as one of those bands who always gets a good review from Rolling Stone. There's also a brave and well-crafted piece of gutshot journalism, written by a guy who was molested by a priest while growing up in Massachusetts. Doubly awful when you consider that it took nearly 10 more years before the Catholic church was called to any sort of institutional account.
Also: Glenn Frey gets a TV show, Elton John gets physical, and In Utero gets dissed...by Wal Mart.
Continue reading OldStand: Rolling Stone, November 11, 1993...
Posted at 5:26 PM in
Tags: Blind Melon | Elton John | Glenn Frey | Nirvana | Pearl Jam | PM Dawn
latest by Johnny
