ISSUE #29 MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE TNobody’sHE ROLLING Daughter STONES [Universal] Crossfire Hurricane [Eagle Rock] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sFrom the beginning, people have asked how much of second solo album—co-founder,their image is an act. “All of it,” says in one of the ’60s interviews songwriter and lead guitaristincluded in Crossfire Hurricane, a documentary produced by the band and aired Eric Erlandson isn’t involved, nor is any other previouslast Hole year on HBO to celebrate their 50th anniversary. By the ’70s, the singer member. So it’s Love andhad three changed his tune, and in another featured clip, Mick dismisses the claim ringers on 11 new songs—10he’s a “shrewd” live performer. So which is it? Were the Stones a marketing of which Love wrote with gimmick—the bad-boy “anti-Beatles” dreamed up by manager Andrew Loog collaborators like Billy Corgan, Linda Perry and new guitarist Micko Larkin. (PerryOldham—or gets full credit are on they one tune, genuine rock ’n’ roll outlaws immune to time, substance “Letter to God.”) abuse and regrettable ’80s fashions? Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s

Probably a little of both. WithDaniel Jackson no mention of the musicians’ pre-Stones lives, heyday appears to have left along with her former bandmates, but there areCrossfire fl ashes here opens of the insnarling the early ’60s,Too when often, the though, band the slowerwas on songs the rise.trip her As up. guitarist While once fury Love deployed to suchKeith devastating Richards effect explains back in thein theday. 2012they wereinterview showcases he gave for harrowing for the displays film (each of naked of emotion, the She spits out her vocals Stoneswith vengeful did disdain likewise, on “Skinny with Littleno camerasLove sounds allowed), more dispassionate things went these “crazy” days. The midway production Bitch,” overdriven guitars roiling atop an elastic bassline that doesn’t help—the songs have an airless, sanded-down feel that speeds up as the song throughraces toward the afirst climatic tour, pile-up and atthey the onlydoesn’t got ficrazier. t with her The visceral film persona. zips through Courtney Love’stwo decades tumultuous end. She shifts tempos andof (mis)adventures,attitude on the more contemplative chronicling riotoushistory suggests early gigs, that she the has death a compelling of founder story toBrian tell, and “Pacifi c Coast Highway,”Jones, taking stock the asugliness layers of acousticof Altamont, and perhaps Keith’s she various does. It’s justdrug not busts,the one she’sand tellingthe band’son Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton unlikely emergence as universally loved stadium gods. The story ends in the early ’80s, and while there are no major revelations about, say, Mick and Keith’s COURT YARD HOUNDS A side project of new offering suggested that its creator was a few strides closer to complex relationship,Dixie Chicks’ the Martie DVD warrantscrafting something a spin truly simply monumental for inthe both footage musical and of social the terms. Court Yard Hounds Maguire and Emily This cold and private set isn’t it, although that’s probably due more to [Columbia] Stones being Robison,the Stones, Court Yardonstage personal and circumstances off. Even thanif they’re anything acting,related to talent.these Wainwright are characters thatHounds continue delivers to fascinate. wrote All –KP Days Are Nights while his mother, Kate McGarrigle, was much-anticipated dying of cancer, and there is a quiet, complex sadness even in its insight—both musical and personal—into the sisters who have less autobiographical material. There’s nothing here except piano for so long ceded center stage to Chicks singer Natalie Maines. and vocal, and Wainwright doesn’t project his words in the way Though steeped in familiar instrumentation, the album offers little we’ve come to expect from him. Instead of serenading the person of the barn-burning brashness that made the Chicks famous (save in the farthest corner of a packed theater, he’s singing to himself in perhaps the gutsy “Ain’t No Son”). Instead, its delicate folk-pop an otherwise empty room. –David Styburski prettiness perfectly suits Robison’s more-than-capable voice and the jumble of emotions, sunny and melancholy, that emerge in a song Ozomatli’s music has been called a collision cycle inspired by her 2008 divorce. Maguire’s weeping fi ddle and OZOMATLI of styles, a cultural mash-up, and a 20-car seamless harmonies are welcome as always, and her one turn on pileup of genres. It’s also some of the most ‘Thelead film vocals zips(“Gracefully”) through is so two warmly decades affecting thatof (mis)adventures, listeners may chronicling joyfully energetic music you’ll ever hear. On wish she stepped to the mic more often. Court Yard Hounds ably its fi fth album, the L.A.-based band stirs its demonstrates that, whether with their fellow Dixie Chick or without, blend of salsa, ska, samba, funk, and hip-hop riotousthese ladies’ early talent gigs, runs deep.the death –Katie Dodd of founder , the ugliness in ways few groups could conceive. Imagine Fire Away tossing the English Beat, Herb Alpert and the of Altamont, Keith’s various drugFor busts,a dozen years,and thethe band’s[Mercer Street/Downtown] unlikely Tijuana Brass, Caetano Veloso, and Sly and RUFUS arrangements on Rufus the Family Stone into a magical blender and emergence as universally loved Wainwright’sstadium gods. albums These got you are get characters some sense of Ozomatli’s eclectic approach. High points WAINWRIGHT busier and his sometimes on their latest, Fire Away, include “Are You Ready?,” a horn-and- All Days Are Nights: Songs naughty, occasionally percussion-driven blast of salsa-fl avored ska; “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” for Lulu that continueangry to declarations fascinate.’ of gay an exultant Latin pop anthem fi tted with shrieking sax; and “Gay Vatos [Decca] pride got louder. Each in Love,” a rockabilly-tinged tune with a soaring chorus. Even when

70 MAY 2010 ISSUE #29 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE

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