CRINew Music Re a ort JULY 3 .000 ISSUE 673 VOL. 63 NO. 3 WWW.CMJ.COM MUST HEAR Seagram, Vivendi In $34 Billion Merger The Seagram Company, which owns the the successor company, while Edgar Bronfrnan, largest music company in the world, Universal Chairman/CEO of Seagram, will take the num- Music Group, will merge with French utility ber two spot in the company as vice chairman company Vivendi, which already holds a49 per- with responsibility for the group's music and cent stake in Canal Plus, a Paris-based pay tele- Internet activities. vision company and film studio. The companies are looking to combine According to the deal, valued at $34 billion, Vivendi's wireless and Internet capabilities with or $77.35 per Seagram share, the companies will music and other content from Seagram. form Vivendi Universal, which will be headquar- Universal Music Group operates in 59 countries tered in Paris. Jean-Marie Messier, Chairman/ and has the leading market share in the indus- CEO of Vivendi, will hold the same position for try. Its stable of artists (Continued on page 10) DILLINGER FOUR Napster Polls Post Conflicting Letters To Cleo Results Split With interest in the presidential race at a nadir, polling Bostoit's Lewis To Cleo has companies looking for aquick score have increasingly turned decided to call it quits after ten to Napster, whose ability to induce heart palpitations in record- years and four albums in order to ing industry executives has made it new focus for the opinion pursue solo efforts. The band's last research industry. In the first two weeks of June, four pub- performance was on May 4 at a lished surveys examined the role of the now infamous file-shar- benefit concert series for deceased ing software. Boston musician Mickey Dee. As part of the court papers filed by the Recording Industry Letters To Cleo's last release Association of America (RIAA) seeking an injunction against was 1998's Sister, but the band has Napster, the RIAA included a poll by (Continued on page 10) since kept (Continued on page 11) TONY TOUCH Jets To Brazil Fly This Summer THIS By Lisa Hageman members forged in stints in O. WEEK'S Ui With almost two earlier bands: Blake years of life experi- Schwarzenbach's 12 CMJ RADIO 200 ence under their col- HIGH \,ears as the gui- SONIC YOUTH NYC Ghosts.. lective belts since tarist/vocalist for 18 CORE RADIO their debut album, PROFILE fawbreaker, bassist BELLE & SEBASTIAN Fold Your... Orange • Rhyming Jeremy Chatelain's 22 INTERNET BROADCAST Dictionary, the four members singing career with BELLE & SEBASTIAN Fold Your... of Jets To Brazil have com- Handsome and Chris Daly's 22 INTERNET RETAIL pleted a second album that tie-in with Texas Is The B.B. KING &ERIC CLARION Riding... reflects the growth of the Reason. The band seems to individual band members have made it over that hump 27 RPM EXPLOSION and, perhaps more impor- now, a (Continued on page 11) LTJ BUKEM Journey Inwards tantly, the growth of the 23 Ñ ALTERNATIVE band as a unit. The new LA LEY Uno album, Four Cornered Night, 29 JAZZ and is slated for release by MEDESKI MARTIN &WOOD Tonic jade Tree Records on August 15. 38 LOUD ROCK Since its inception in IRON MAIDEN Brave New World 1998, Jets to Brazil has strug- 31 BEAT BOX gled to get past the individual JURASSIC-5 "Quality Control" identities of its founding Jets To Brazil 32 TRIPLE A THE LAST WORD: BILLY BRAGG & WILCO Mermaid... 34 NEW WORLD MARVIN PONTIAC BEBEL GILBERTO Tanto Tempo HUNGRY GHOSTS PAGE 56 -P-trk---3's DJ steps out from behind the turntable UNC,Lt ette.ACKstêt to turn the tables on you À í e the debut album featuring "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" COLLEGE ADDS 6/20 PRODUCED BY KID ROCK ft "This is the Sinéad album you've been waiting for." —Rolling Stone %Inéab ()Obese' • *fat> anb (rage* the stunning new album featuring •No tnaw5 wornatt. COLLEGE ADDS 6/20 wax pootic (verb): to become lyrical The debut LP featuring "Angels" Hitting clubs and stores June 2000. ADDS 6/27 TAPROOT yesteraayisnistorytomorrowisamysier 3song sampler AT RADIO NOW from the forthcoming debut album gift featuring "Again and Again" FULL ADD DATE 7/11 APPEARING ON OZZFEST THIS SUMMER www taprootmuslc cool ?.cuco, THE ATLANTIC GROUP 0 20 00 ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP. ATIME WARNER COMPANY www.atlartc-records.com MUST HEAR THE ESSENTIAL RELEASES OF THE WEEK y 111r(e 1111.1010,51011 RASH FLASH RASH e DILLINGER FOUR TONY TOUCH EXPLOSION HUNGRY GHOSTS Versus God (Hopeless) The Piece Maker (Tommy Boy) Flash Flash Flash (Jade Tree) Alone, Alone (Smells Like) The Dillinger Four's Midwestern New York City hip-hop heads To describe the Explosion as a By virtue of their origin (Mel- Songs Of The Americas was a great have been bouncing to Tony mere throwback to the snarling, bourne, Australia) and basic introduction to the punk rock "Toca" Touch's brutal urban nihilistic punk of the late '70s structure (an instrumental trio), community of the Midwest. Play- beats for years, thanks to the misses one of the most thrilling the Hungry Ghosts are destined ing music that steered clear of "Taino" DJ's ongoing series of truths about records like Flash to get many of their mentions in the sunny pop of the Left Coast underground mix tapes. Now the Flash Flash: You can't put an expi- the same breath as the revered and the gritty nihilism of the masses can get their groove on ration date on punk rock. Regard- Dirty Three. Though such quick Right, the Minneapolis band with The Piece Maker, Touch's first less of the political or musical cli- comparisons are usually unfair, demonstrated a workman-like official CD release. Touch mate, there will always be bands this particular one holds water sensibility and an ear for melody earned respect on the street by banging out rebellious, red-raw past the obvious similarities that made it immediately like- dropping bombs that avoided the rock 'n' roll, just as surely as there between the two. The Hungry able. On Versus God, its sopho- corporate sheen of commercial are disaffected kids chomping at Ghosts are blessed with the same more effort for Hopeless, the urban radio programming, and the bit to start up an old-school, ability to utter a million words group is at it again, hammering the wealth of ghetto superstars brotherly mosh pit at those same with a single instrumental out 13 songs in a sweaty 31 min- that show up to rip the mic on bands' shows. This full-length phrase and to turn amelancholy utes with a hook quotient that this joint only offers further debut from the Boston quintet passage into a triumphant cli- leaves the listener at wit's end — proof of his growing reputation lives up to the promise of the EP max. The differences between each listen to the album will in the hip-hop community at the group put out just a few the two are notable enough, bring a new song to the fore- large. Giving nods to the diverse months ago, and though the however, to make the Hungry front, making it hard to settle on flavors of hip-hop through col- band's fevered playing is undeni- Ghosts worth seeking out. Most afavorite. The ringing chorus of laborations with a virtual convey- able, it's the angry rasp of "Mil- of their songs for example, "Who Didn't Kill Bambi?" is a er belt of lyrical luminaries — lion Dollar" Matt Hock that mans focus on the interplay of elec- shot of adrenaline; the chorus including the old-schoolers (De the epicenter. His continual bar- tric and acoustic guitar with on "Define 'Learning Disorder" La Soul, Gang Starr, Big Daddy rage of acidic skepticism speaks organ and accordion — as is a punk anthem up there with Kane, Kool G Rap and KRS- for generations of American kids. opposed to the Dirty Three's Superchunk's "Slack Mother- One), New York hardcore heads Whether couched in clever twists soaring fiddle. More important, fucker." In between the anthems, (represented by the contribu- of classic lines (e.g., "This is the the Ghosts take their cues from the band adds snippets of dia- tions from Mobb Deep's Prodigy, dawning of the age of who knows instrumental masters like Ennio logue, revealing a wicked sense Cormega, the Flipmode Squad best/And with each passing day I Morricone more than they of humor that gives the album and the Wu-Tang Clan), and the feel like Iknow less," or "Our eyes adhere to the Three's long- depth and allows listeners to Nuyorican posse (the Beatnuts' have seen the glory of the rise winded song delivery. Finally, catch their breath. Smart, addic- Psycho Lees and the late Big before the fall/Times get tight no Alone, Alone is divided into three tive and energetic, Versus God is Pun) — this explosive set never end in sight we've run against suites of shorter songs, each unabashed fun and utterly loses its punch, hitting you up these walls") or right up in your with a distinct voice — and that refreshing. — Tad Hendrickson with enough beat-juggling, battle- face with both fists clenched makes the work seem like a scratching, neck-spraining beats around your measly shirt collar soundtrack to an unrealized For Fans Of: Superchunk, Scared Of Chaka, and jaw-dropping surprises (e.g., "If you don't know, you film rather than an extended Kid Dynamite, Flop (check Mos Defs Spanish tongue weren't meant to"), his words are lamentation.