Greg Burk

Hard to imagine Cassandra Wilson being the way she is if she were not from Mississippi. It‘s Deep South hot in her mind, so she doesn’t move much. Same with her singing, a moan that‘s leisurely even when she scats. Her rhythms are like a big river, not a city......

McGILL MANRING STEVENS, COSMOSQUAD, BUTTERMILK at Sixteen-Fifty, January 16 Mesa Boogie amps, guitars plucked way up under armpits, tangles of FX stompboxes, rows of audience tech vultures in band T-shirts -- the entire Pageant of Fusion Tradition unfolded in this hi-klass Hollywood barn during a night of voxless power trios,......

Noise KMFDM, Opium 1984 (KMFDM). If you thought KMFDM was harsh later, you ain‘t heard their maiden vomit, originally released only on cassette at a time when these Euro headfuckers were rasslin’ for gnash supremacy with the likes of Einsturzende Neubauten. Inspired. Featuring Sascha Konietzko, Raymond Watts and Ton Geist......

As the titles of hit after hit by the Four Tops, the Temptations and Marvin Gaye flood across the screen during the credits of Standing in the Shadows of Motown, you can‘t help wondering what primal source birthed a sound strong enough to hog the charts for a decade. From......

We should have been sick of Westworld by now. Instead, practically nobody’s ever heard of ‘em. The process should have gone like this: We would’ve run across Westworld a few years ago on the car radio, where Tony Harnell‘s voice, like some intimate rocket, would have gotten inside our heads......

BOB DYLAN at the Wiltern, October 17 Here's a sonofagun who virtually rose from the dead just a few years ago, and ever since has performed as if his life depended on it, which it does. Beyond that, in some way our own lives depend on it. Because if not......

Virtuosic instrumental jazz-rock fusion doesn‘t pull much ink, and the reason is obvious: It’s made by and aimed at a non-rockcrit breed of human. Why journalists don‘t get it: 1) We assume that people listen to music so they can hear the words. (Har!) 2) We don’t play instruments that......

”Lusting for blood and death again.“ ”I will hunt you down and tear you limb from limb.“ ”Ride through their blood.“ ”Today the blood of battle upon my weapons will never dry.“ ”My enemies all shall die. Die! Die! Die!“ Such is the balladry of Joey DeMaio, from Warriors of......

Photo by Ebet Roberts LENI STERN GOT A NEW AUDIENCE. That was part of what she was shooting for several years back when she stopped being exclusively a fusion-rooted electric-guitar plucker and stepped out as a singer and a balladic songwriter as well. Of course, she also hoped to tug......

Photo by Debra DiPaolo JAMES CARNEY, A MORTAL WHO plays up-to-the-minute jazz piano in Los Angeles, makes one consider the nature of media gods: Either they bestride the world, inspiring awe and terror, or they lie in the mud with their noses bashed off. During the cycles of mud, such......