This is XC-NN

(Aug. 4, 1994)

Brash and unafraid of confrontation, the British gritty-rock quartet XC-NN means business with its self-titled debut album on 550 Music/Epic, due Sept. 13.

Formed by ex-All About Eve/Sisters of Mercy guitarist Tim Bricheno, the band immediately locked horns with corporate America when it used CNN as its original name. Ted Turner's lawyers got wind of it and demanded the four either disband or change their name.

"We wanted a name everybody already knew," said singer David Tomlinson, "and we went through all sorts of products - cereals, beans. CNN has more of a ring to it than Heinz and it's one of the most pervasive things around in modern society."

With a simple "X" marking the spot, they became known as Clearly Nothing New, XC-NN for short.

Their first single, "Young, Stupid & White," took a swing at pop complacency and mediocrity, and to add insult to injury, they used the images of Suede's Brett Anderson, Simply Red's Mick Hucknall and '70s retro band Jamiroquai emblazoned with the song title in a London poster campaign.

"The song and the campaign challenge the pomposity of rock 'n' roll," said drummer Neill Lambert.

Isn't XC-NN falling prey to rock cliches? "Well, we definitely play around with it," Lambert said, "but I think there's a sort of cynicism is what we're doing. If you were going to pick out the worst offenders, as it were, there could be a few people you could pick on before you got to us."

In its press kit, XC-NN provides a slew of useful adjectives to describe itself: nasty, pneumatic, frenetic, inscrutable, emotional, inevitable. Its brand of grinding guitar rock is equally infectious.

The band's manifesto? "Follow your head and not your heart," Bricheno said.

Freedom rings at last for ecstatic XTC

(Feb. 21, 1999)

For everything bad that has happened to Andy Partridge and XTC over the past seven years, good fortune nearly always answered back.

Partridge, bassist Colin Moulding and guitarist Dave Gregory (now no longer with the group) staged a five-year strike against Virgin Records after the record company refused to renegotiate or release the British pop band from its international contract. After much hand-wringing, Virgin finally relented; XTC was set free and signed with Idea Records abroad and TVT Records in the United States. The group's restoration project began late last year with "Transistor Blast," a four-CD box set of early BBC recordings, and now, sounding none worse for the wear, XTC reappears this week with "Apple Venus Volume 1," the long-overdue follow-up album to 1992's "Nonsuch."

Along the way, Partridge went through a bitter divorce, raised their children on his own and suffered a variety of ailments, including a burst eardrum. Now he's feeling fine, and he's in love again.

Was it all worth it? Oh, yes, he says.

"Virtually every bad thing that happens to you, you treat it as a lesson," the singer-guitarist said recently from his home in Swindon, England. "You learn from it, and you say, 'That hurt like hell. That was really difficult. That left a bad taste in my mouth.' You then say, 'Well, if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have learned.'

"When, for example, my wife left me, which hurt like hell, it was a great motive for writing songs. All that hurt was great for channeling into songs, and it also enabled me to get together with the woman I'd loved for many, many years but never ever thought I would get together with because I was a married, faithful husband. We live together now, and it's wonderful. They say that the draft from a slamming door opens another one, and it's true.

"It was a big five years for me, and then at the end of that, when Virgin said, 'Oh, for god's sake, go away then,' it was fantastic. It was the result I wanted. Luckily, all the time we weren't able to work, I was able to try something that I hadn't tried, which was co-writing with other people (such as The Verve Pipe's Brian Vander Ark on a track for 'The Avengers' soundtrack). That was good fun. I also learned to cook, I brought up my kids virtually singlehandedly, had the time to write a load of material and concentrate on getting good quality material, which I think 'Apple Venus' is. It's head and shoulders above all of our other albums, hopefully."

It's no "Oranges & Lemons," but the orchestral acoustic feel of "Apple Venus" is wonderfully vibrant, full of Partridge's trademark witticism and Beatles hook-sense. Hearing such standout tracks as "River of Orchids," "Greenman" and the first single "I'd Like That," it's as if XTC never left.

Partridge originally wanted "Apple Venus Volume 1" and its electrical companion piece, "Volume 2," to be packaged as one, but to paraphrase a line from "The Simpsons," "One way to ruin a career is to release a double album."

"Everyone kicked against it, the least of which was Dave Gregory and all the record companies we spoke to," Partridge said. "No one thought it would be a good idea financially, because the price might scare people off. We sort of halfheartedly recorded some of the electric stuff, but I realized pretty soon that we had to concentrate on doing the orchestral acoustic stuff and leave the electric stuff for later on. All being well, and I'm obscenely optimistic, I would like to start recording 'Volume 2' in April. I'd love to have it out by the end of the year. I'd like to see all the 'Apple Venus' material come out in one year.

"It's too bad, because some of my favorite records have been double albums. They're needlessly fat; there's something kind of attractive in the mass of the stuff you can get. I think it was Stalin who said that quantity has a quality all its own, and it's true. A mass of something is very appealing."

Such as "Transistor Blast"? Partridge can't help but chuckle.

"I actually laughed myself into a coma reviewing that stuff and try to pick what to use, forgiving the kid that was playing on those things," he said. "Jesus, he was such a gauche, what a noisy little bastard he was. I forgive him now. It's a real hysterical document. We were very noisy, very spiky, very angular. One of the quotes in (the liner notes) was that my guitar playing was like Robbie the Robot knocking crockery off department store shelves. It's very space-age, sort of modern; there was more energy than wisdom going on there, but it has a naive charm."

The one thing that has remained constant with Partridge is his disdain for touring. He stopped in 1982 after collapsing several times during shows, later admitting he had a phobia about being in front of crowds.

"I enjoy making records," he said, "but the thought of standing up physically in front of people and shaking my stomach at them and saying, 'Look, I'm wonderful,' just fills me with horror and disgust. It's so needless. It's a pointless ritual, and the audience enjoys the sensation because it's the same sensation, it's the mass audience feeding off itself. It's the same sensation you get if you go to a wrestling match, the Grammy Awards, the Nuremberg rally. A large gathering of people get themselves into this hysteria of static electricity or whatever it is.

"These tiny little match sticks walk out onstage and suddenly people are having orgasms in their chairs. You could replace those match sticks with anything ... cardboard boxes on very fine string; they could be puppets. It doesn't matter. It's all to do with audience hysteria and nothing to do with artistic ability. I just don't like gigs and I don't go to other people's gigs, because they really suck the wet one."

Partridge thanks loyal XTC fans for keeping the faith, but he finds their devotion equally reassuring and scary.

"You think, 'What are all these people doing in the meantime?'," he said. "I'm struggling with doing all this stuff, but what are they doing? They just sat on the Internet all that time for chrissake? They had like a wake and they were consoling each other ... 'I miss those poor boys. When's Virgin gonna let them go?'

"I'm not on the Internet. A few times, people have sent me print-outs of stuff they're talking about. Not only is most of it incredibly wrong, it's the disinformation highway. Rumor is rife on there; it's Chinese whispers. Not only is it wrong, it's so congratulatory and effusive; it's so ludicrous, I don't believe it. They say, 'They're better than the Beatles' and 'They picked up where the Beatles left off,' blah-blah.

"So, wait a minute, we've got some part of it that's just plain lies, and the effusiveness can't be true because it feels wrong to my ears. And the other part of it is criticism, which you don't want to believe because it's so hurtful. They say things like, 'I bought this album and was disgusted. It's the unraveling of a once fine songwriter. It's terrible to see the deep degradation of this fine young man to being a middle-of-the-road blah-blah-blah.'

"It's like being at your own funeral and people are talking about you and some people are saying what a great fellow you were and some say what an asshole you were and then some people have come to the wrong funeral." Partridge vows XTC will go the distance this time.

"We haven't even peaked with this one," he said. "I don't even want to make an album where we peak, because if we do, I think it'll be useless finishing it off. I don't want to put the bullet into my own brain. I want to keep making better and better records until the day I die."

BWF (before we forget): Experience XTC on the Web @ www.tvtrecords.com. ... The XTC album discography - "White Music" (Virgin, 1978); "Go 2" (1978); "Drums and Wires" (1979); "Black Sea" (1980); "English Settlement" (Epic, 1982); "Waxworks - Some Singles (1977-1982)" (1982); "Mummer" (Geffen, 1983); "The Big Express" (1984); "Skylarking" (1986); "Oranges & Lemons" (1989); "Rag 'n' Bone Buffet" compilation of unreleased tracks (1991); "Nonsuch" (1992); "Upsy Daisy Assortment (The Sweetest Hits)" (1997); "Transistor Blast" box set (TVT, 1998); "Apple Venus Volume 1" (1999); "Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2)" (May 2000).

'Weird Al' Yankovic has a license to shill

(Sept. 5, 1999)

What does "Weird Al" Yankovic have in common with Santana, Cher, Barry White, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Donna Summer, Kenny Rogers, Jimmy Buffett, Alabama and George Jones?

Well, no, it's not what you think. They haven't been skewered recently by the king of parodies.

Those artists, including Yankovic, are on Billboard's pop chart this week with new albums, the only artists listed with at least 20 years in the music business.

"Weird Al"?

Yes, it was 20 years ago when a young disc jockey at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo cut his first crudely made recording - "My Bologna," a spoof of The Knack's "My Sharona" - in a restroom across the hall from the college radio station.

Dr. Demento took the gawky, bespectacled 20-year-old under his wing, played "My Bologna" on his nationally syndicated radio show and made him a star.

For the past 20 years, Yankovic has made a career out of poking fun of the music industry. Few have escaped his whimsical wrath; fortunately, his victims - from Michael Jackson to The Presidents of the United States of America - are flattered enough to allow it.

Even Yankovic is amazed he has been able to pull the wool over America's eyes for two decades.

"I've got permission to be a culture leech. Who has a better job?" Yankovic said recently. "I can shamelessly follow the trends and nobody can accuse me of selling out, because that's my gig. That's what I do.

"But I keep wondering when someone's going to tell me my 15 minutes are up."

That won't happen any time soon, especially after the June 29 release of "Running With Scissors" (Way Moby/Volcano), one of Yankovic's fastest-selling albums ever. The 10th studio album of his career debuted July 17 at No. 35 on Billboard's pop chart and, powered by the hilarious video for his Puff Daddy send-up, "It's All About the Pentiums," it quickly went gold (selling more than 500,000 copies) and is just days away from platinum status (over 1 million).

Just when you think Yankovic has outlived his usefulness, he pulls another rabbit out of his hat. Who says Trix are for kids?

"I try to pace myself a little bit," Yankovic said. "I wait until people are screaming and running amok in the streets yelling 'Where's the new 'Weird Al' record?' That's the secret of my success."

On "Running With Scissors," he's at his razor-sharp best on "Pretty Fly For a Rabbi," satirizing The Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)." It doesn't get any funnier than "When he's doing a bar mitzvah, now that you shouldn't miss; he'll always shlep on down for a wedding or a briss/ They say he's got a lot of chutzpah, he's really quite hhhhhip; the parents pay the moyl and he gets to keep the tip!"

Normally, Yankovic wouldn't tackle a song like "Pretty Fly," but it was too good to pass up.

"The Offspring song was kind of funny to begin with," Yankovic said. "I thought it was clever, but generally that wouldn't be my first candidate for a parody because songs that are more self-important and pretentious actually make better fodder for parody.

"Both The Offspring song and the Barenaked Ladies song I do ('Jerry Springer,' which lampoons 'One Week') are almost, I'm not going to say novelty, but they're quirky to begin with. But I really like the songs. They definitely jump out at you when you hear them on the radio and in music videos. So I figured, well ... at this point in my life, I'm doing songs that I actually really enjoy doing. I'd rather be doing an Offspring or Barenaked Ladies song when I'm 80 years old than 'Macarena' on some Las Vegas stage."

Yankovic can play a mean accordion - if that's possible - really going to town on the "Polka Power!" medley. In a little over 4 minutes, he salutes 14 hit songs, including the Spice Girls' "Wannabe," Smash Mouth's "Walkin' On the Sun," Madonna's "Ray of Light" and Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy."

On his current North American concert tour, he wows crowds with the frenetic medley.

"We play it with the original videos sped up in sync behind us," Yankovic said. "It's pretty hectic and an intense thing to do, but we pull it off every night."

The hardest part of the recording process, Yankovic said, is securing publishing rights to retreat the hits. "Polka Power!," in particular, was a logistical challenge, involving nearly 20 entities.

"Every time we do a polka medley, it's a publishing nightmare," Yankovic said. "There's always a dozen or so songs we have to get clearance for. And just look at the publishing information for 'It's All About the Pentiums.' The original Puff Daddy song ('It's All About the Benjamins') had like 12 different publishers because of all the samples and the various people involved. I think the publishing information was longer than the lyrics.

"I always have to go through a lot of red tape for these songs. It's an ongoing process. I started last year getting permission for the polka medley. I go for like six songs that I think are going to be memorable by the time the album comes out. I add a few more to the wish list. Not all 12 are going to be extremely topical, but there'll be a few topical."

Yankovic made music videos for "It's All About the Pentiums" and "The Saga Begins," a "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" tribute to the tune of Don McLean's "American Pie." He doubts he will do one for "Pretty Fly For a Rabbi."

"The chances of doing another video from the album are pretty slim," he said. "It all comes down to money. It's really expensive to do videos, even for a parody. It has to have the production values somewhat similar to the original videos and they spend a lot of money on those videos. Just doing these two videos, I think we spent like five times the amount we spent making the actual album. It's hard to justify spending a whole lot more on videos."

Yankovic, who turns 40 on Oct. 24, is resting his brain between shows, swearing off tweaking any other songs till his next album. He is upset, though, for missing the boat on one recent hit.

"Oh, man, Ricky Martin's 'Livin' La Vida Loca' would be an obvious one to do," he said, "but he took off just as we were finishing the album. Sorry, Ricky, maybe next time."

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "It was a 45 of the song 'Classical Gas' by Mason Williams."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "Elton John, sometime in the mid-'70s, at the Forum in L.A. He was at the height of his gaudiness. It was sometime after 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' and he was into the flamboyant costumes and the glasses that lit up. He really put on a show. It may have been a small inspiration for the kind of shows I do now, without all the costume changes."

BWF (before we forget): It smells like "Weird Al" on the Web @ www.weirdal.com. ... The "Weird Al" album discography - " 'Weird Al' Yankovic" (Rock 'n' Roll, 1983); " 'Weird Al' Yankovic in 3-D" (1984); "Dare to Be Stupid" (1985); "Polka Party!" (1986); "Even Worse" (1988); "UHF/Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff" (1989); "Off the Deep End" (Scotti Bros., 1992); "Alapalooza" (1993); "Bad Hair Day" (Rock 'n' Roll, 1996); "Running With Scissors" (Way Moby/Volcano, 1999).

Yello is in 'Tremendous Pain'

(Aug. 3, 1995)

Like the title of its new album, "Zebra," the techno-pioneering duo Yello is greatly misunderstood and unappreciated.

It's lost in the pop wilderness.

"The zebra was always my favorite animal," frontman Dieter Meier said recently from his Los Angeles-based studio. "It's a wild, unridable horse. It has a strong, graphic image, which is a lot like Yello. We have a very clear signature."

Meier and partner Boris Blank may have a fervent underground club following - due largely to the 1987 worldwide hit "Oh Yeah" (featured in several commercials and films, including "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") - but they lack respect within the U.S. music industry.

"Zebra," Yello's first studio album in four years, was released earlier this year on 4th & Broadway/Island almost as an afterthought. Many fans aren't even aware the album exists, but thanks to the group's current Top-10 dance hit - "Tremendous Pain" - the buzz is building.

"The problem is, we're PolyGram's only German PolyGram signing for the whole world," Meier said, "but they somehow seem not to be interested in promoting European artists. ... They just want to promote their own acts in America.

"It's a structural problem, and we hope to change it. We have one more album to do for PolyGram, and from there we'll see how things turn out."

"Tremendous Pain," with its slow churning psychedelic rhythm, is up against the same obstacles that "Oh Yeah" faced, Meier said. Even though it popped up in more than five movie soundtrack albums over the years, "Oh Yeah" peaked at only No. 51 on Billboard's pop chart in the fall of 1987. Meier blames it on the lack of support from the label.

" 'Oh Yeah' was a worldwide hit, I mean, literally worldwide," he said, "but no one cared about it here. But there's nothing you can do about it. I'm not angry or anything; I've just learned to accept it."

Meier admits Yello erred in waiting so long to deliver "Zebra."

"The main reason was, I was busy with my new movie ('Once Upon a Dream')," he said, "and Boris likes to work alone. It takes two of us to put the album together, and Boris tried to do it alone, but we weren't so focused on the album until later on. It was a big mistake in retrospect.

"But we're real happy with the album. It's one of our strongest ever, and no matter what, we'll always be making music."

BWF (before we forget): The Yello album discography - "Solid Pleasure" (1979), "Claro Que Si" (1981), "You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess" (1983), "Stella" (1985), "The New Mix In One Go ('80-'85)" (1986), "One Second" (1987), "Flag" (1988), "Baby" (1991), "Essential Yello" (1992), "Zebra" (1995).

Yellow Note spreads himself around

(Nov. 21, 1999)

Behind the scenes, David Barratt always has his hands full. He has written songs for Robert Plant and Jeffrey Osborne, among others; he creates music for a variety of advertising campaigns, from Revlon to Hawaiian Punch; he has remixed songs for David Bowie and many others; he has worked on films, notably "Sister Act" and "Forces of Nature."

When he's not wearing those many hats, he's assuming his alter ego, Yellow Note, an emerging figure in drum 'n' bass circles.

Barratt's second full-length album, "Yellow Note vs. The Daleks," was released Oct. 5 on Liquid Sky Music. A witty mixture of genres, from hip-hop to electronica, the album is essentially a pop record that's unafraid to touch on all the bases. Barrett, a native of Britain, attributes the album's broad-based appeal to the many sounds permeating from his new home, New York.

"One of the nice things about living in New York," Barratt said recently, "is that you're exposed to so many things at ground zero, like tons of Latin music, and it's impossible to live in New York without being aware of hip-hop and all its manifestations. There's lots of dance music that cross-pollinates here. I'm not influenced by any particular records or artists, it's the overall mix of genres that I find exciting."

Barratt says his Yellow Note work keeps his creative juices flowing, which ultimately benefits his other projects.

"They all feed me in different ways, obviously," he said. "Working in advertising generates more income than doing a record for Liquid Sky. However, working with Liquid Sky is incredibly rewarding. It's great to do something experimental in the long form.

"If you're working on advertising or film, you're pretty down low on the food chain. Things get changed without your consent, which is fair enough, but you have to get used to it. But working with Liquid Sky is pretty simple; I've got to deliver a piece of work that's timed to fit on a CD or vinyl, but that's basically the only constraints they put on me."

His advertising work even creeps onto the Yellow Note album.

"There's germs of ideas were some advertising things that got dumped, for whatever reason," Barratt said. "The nice thing about having my own recording studio is that pretty much any day I can come in and knock down a few ideas and sometimes they end up used in my things or something else. If I'm doing a remix for someone, I might approach it from three different angles and deliver one but the other two may work in another context. There's always a stockpile of stuff."

It especially came in handy for "Yellow Note vs. The Daleks."

"The main difference between this and the other project ('We're Not the Beatles')," Barratt said, "was that the first album was just a CD; this one's vinyl and CD, and I wanted very deliberately to make the CD and the vinyl very different from each other, because they have different uses.

"The CD you tend to use in the car or at home, for a particular environment, and you tend to leave it on for the whole 60 minutes, at least I hope so, so I was concerned with making it a complete piece of work. It flowed at different tempos with different atmospheres but holding together as a cohesive work.

"The vinyl, on the other hand, was never going to be listened to that way. It'll probably used to DJ with, so the tracks are stripped down a lot more; I deliberately made them more club-friendly. That's an interesting process of going through that, using the same piece of music in two different ways. It's very challenging."

BWF (before we forget): Fancy Yellow Note on the Web @ www.liquidskymusic.com.

Young Dubliners gladly play second fiddle

(Aug. 6, 2000)

No headliner wants to be upstaged by a talented opening act. Especially if it's the Young Dubliners.

Irish-born Keith Roberts, leader of the Los Angeles-based Celtic rockers, says for years the six-member band couldn't get hooked up with major tours (and subsequently spread the word and sell more albums) because no one wanted to follow their wild, fervid shows.

That didn't stop Jethro Tull from enlisting them for a recent U.S. tour.

"I don't think anyone would've predicted it would've gone as well," Roberts said recently. "We've had Tull fans telling us how they've never seen a reaction like this for an opening band. We've been getting standing ovations and raucous screaming at the end of every show. Some of them actually say we remind them of early Tull, in terms of whatever feeling they felt when they first saw Tull. Not that the music is necessarily alike, but maybe it's the energy and the Celtic blend of rock.

"We've been a headliner all these years because of our high energy and because nobody wanted us going on before them. That's not to toot our own horn; it's just that when you think of an opening band, you're thinking of someone who's not using all that much of the stage and that's not going to be too high intense. Most bands don't need six guys going crazy with 12 instruments before they come on."

Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson listened to the Young Dubliners' fourth album, "Red" (released June 20 on Omtown/Higher Octave), and liked what he heard so much, he gave them the nod to open shows in Texas and Florida.

"We went through Texas, the first time we've really been through Texas," Roberts said. "We did five shows and we sold more albums in Texas than anywhere else in the last three weeks. It was No. 1 on Amazon.com in Texas for two and a half weeks. That shows you that there's a huge difference going from playing at Pat Murphy's local pub to soldout halls with Tull.

"We're a pretty loud band; we're very much a rockin' live band, and this record captured that to a certain degree, more so than any other album we've done. I think maybe people are surprised when they come along and hear the Young Dubliners first, and they know that the Chieftains have opened for Tull a few times, and maybe they're expecting some mild-mannered ballad band and then they get shocked when they're belted over the head with our stuff."

The Young Dubliners, now on tour with John Hiatt, have garnered a fervent following since its 1994 debut Scotti Brothers album "Rocky Road" - even fans in high places, such as Bernie Taupin, Elton John's longtime collaborator. Taupin, a Young Dubs champion for years, asked to work with them and eventually provided the words to the title track.

"With Bernie, we had been told for years that he was a fan of the band and wanted us to sign CDs that had been sent to him," Roberts said. "We never really knew if it was true or not.

"Then he and another producer wanted me to add some Celtic touch to something they were working on, and when I went down to do it, I couldn't relate to the song that they were working on, but I went through a bunch of lyrics that Bernie offered up and I found the lyrics to 'Red.' It hit me right away, 'man, I could do something with this,' and put the music together real fast. I brought it back to the band about a week before we were doing the album, and they all dug it. We arranged it and recorded it a week later and sent it to Bernie and he freaked out. He loved it.

"The next thing we know, we're hanging out with Bernie Taupin at the House of Blues and we're playing at his 50th birthday party. To be onstage playing to a smallish crowd and there's Rod Stewart, Rene Russo, Bo Derek, (Elton John guitarist) Davey Johnstone, just a bunch of people. We're up there going, 'Holy, Jesus.' "

For "Red," Roberts says he and his band mates - Jeff Dellisanti (saxophone), Bob Boulding (guitar), Bren Holmes (bass), David Ingraham (drums) and Mark Epting (violin, mandolin, harp) - wanted the album to be the culmination of everything they had done up to that point.

"We knew we had a great distributor, we knew we had a big label behind us," he said. "It was just a case of picking some of the songs of the past that we felt had great potential and had maybe improved over the years but never gotten a shot on the records. We basically wrote a bunch of new stuff and took a few songs from the live album; I wanted to give them studio treatment.

"We knew a lot of people would be seeing us for the first time on tour with this album, so the years we've put into this were captured on a very focused album with every song being treated in a similar way. We didn't want to have Celtic songs, rock songs, Celtic rock songs. We wanted it to be a Celtic rock album the whole way through, where you could take any song and have that identifiable sound. Thom Panunzio (U2, Alice in Chains, Bruce Springsteen, No Doubt), being the killer producer that he is, understood that and really guided us through 18 days of recording and keeping that focus."

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "I think it was The Pretenders' first album, the one with 'Brass in Pocket.' That's a great first album to buy."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "It was a band called King, who were huge in England at the time. They were a one-hit wonder band, and they came to Dublin and played at this venue and my dad was working there. Me and my brother got to hang out backstage. Not only was it my first concert, but it was the first time I decided I was going to do this. I'm looking at the crowd, the whole sound check and all the crew putting up the gear, and I'm thinking to myself, 'Jesus, there's a ticket to ride right there.' The only hard work I saw them doing was teasing up their hair before the show, and believe me, this King had a lot of hair."

THE LAST CD I BOUGHT: "I haven't bought one in years because radio stations give them to me all the time, but my favorite CD right now is 'The Bends' by Radiohead. It's probably the best record ever recorded since I've been alive. It's one of those records where I can't listen to it enough times; it's so well written and so well sung. 'OK Computer' was like a sequel to a movie, but it didn't have the unbelievable shock you got listening to 'The Bends.' "

BWF (before we forget): Find the luck of the Irish with the Young Dubliners on the Web @ www.youngdubs.com. ... The Young Dubliners album discography - "Rocky Road" (Scotti Brothers, 1994); "Breathe" (1995); "Alive, Alive 'O" (Cargo, 1998); "Red" (Omtown/Higher Octave, 2000).

YOUNG DUBLINERS FEEL RIGHT AT HOME IN AMERICA (March 8, 1998):

It's not news to their fans, but one of the best-kept commercial secrets are the Los Angeles-based Young Dubliners, a group of Irish and American rockers led by singer Keith Roberts.

"There's kind of a buzz, or whatever you call it," Roberts said during a recent tour stop, "where people are aware, they know who we are. They're just not sure exactly what we are."

Their Cargo album, "Alive, alive 'o" (released Feb. 10), captures the seven-member band's tight live show, with one new studio track, overseen by producer-engineer Steve Albini (Nirvana, Bush, Breeders). It may not become a million-seller, but with a fervent following, an active Web site and loads of tour dates across the United States, the luck of the Irish is bound to catch up with them.

"This is a chance for us to boost it up to another level," Roberts said of the album and the extensive tour. "That's the shock for us, without the huge push from a huge record company, how many places we're playing. We're getting some killer shows, like the House of Blues (in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day). It's a sign that the people, the country, have always loved to hear something unique. Commercial radio hasn't always necessarily represented the people, as we all know."

The Young Dubliners are the result of Los Angeles' melting pot, stirred by the Irish-born Roberts with Randy Woolford (guitar), Jon Mattox (drums), Brendan Holmes (bass), Jeff Dellisanti (saxophone/organ/flute) and Mark Epting (violin/mandolin).

"I was always in bands, but I had a degree in journalism, and that's why I came here," said Roberts, who moved to Los Angeles in 1987. "Music kept pulling me back in and eventually I realized that was what I really wanted to do. There was no point denying it anymore.

"At first, we were a jam band. We were playing away in the Irish pub scene and people would come in and sit in with us and play various instruments. Slowly but surely, we got to know who was worth sticking around and they got an appreciation for what we were doing and we got to enjoy what they added to it.

"Before we knew it, it was a full rock band writing its own songs. That's when it hit us: Maybe we should try to get a deal. That was totally after the thought. Originally, it was just a fun thing for the weekends, get free booze and have a laugh."

Above all, Roberts wanted the Young Dubliners to avoid the pitfalls associated with Irish-American groups.

"We're a band that's heavily influenced by the Irish connection because of me, because I'm one of the chief songwriters and I'm the band leader," he said, "but we don't like to class ourselves as an Irish band. It's extremely stereotypical, and people will generally presume you're going to sound a certain way. Whereas with U2, they're a band from Ireland; they aren't an Irish band.

"That's how we like to see ourselves; we're a band from Ireland and America and our sound is a blend of those two cultures. That's how we'd like to be seen, not as the kings of the Irish pub circuit."

The Young Dubliners help fill a void left by the early-'90s breakup of The Waterboys. On "Alive, alive 'o," the Dubs - as fans call them - pay tribute to Mike Scott's Celtic, rock hybrid with a vibrant cover version of "Fisherman's Blues."

"He's been an influence on me for quite a while," Roberts said. "I met Mike a while back. He's a concept kind of guy. When he first kicked off, I loved the early Waterboys. I loved the big music, 'The Whole of the Moon' and all that. Then he got into the whole Celtic thing, it hit me: Wait a minute, the sound of one of my favorite musicians is mixed in with my background of cultural music. It was brilliant.

"We've been doing 'Fisherman's Blues' for a long time, so we decided to throw it on there as a nod to their fans and say, 'You home people, come on home. Come to poppa.' "

BWF (before we forget): Hoist a pint to the Young Dubliners on the Web @ www.youngdubs.com.

Young M.C. busts a whole new move

(Sept. 25, 1997)

Young M.C. is at peace with himself today. He knows he had his day in the radio sun eight years ago with the platinum-selling "Bust a Move."

He can't top it, he admits. There's no way.

That aside, now he's able to concentrate on making better music, without all the distractions that consumed his early career.

The wit and insight that sparked the 30-year-old Grammy Award winner's "Bust a Move" remains intact, even when drawing up an analogy for his career.

"If Roger Clemens throws a 100 mph fastball on Earth," Young M.C., a k a Marvin Young, said recently, "and then you take him into outer space with no gravity and he's able to throw 200 mph, then you put him back on Earth and he knows he'll be on Earth from here on in, he knows he'll never throw another 200 mph fastball.

"The analogy being that the time where the public was, where the music was and where rap was, I'll never be back there. Topping it artistically is one thing, but topping it in terms of notoriety, I know it will never happen again. I just don't see it. I'm just worried about making better music in my own eyes."

In a way, Young sees himself as a new artist with his recently released Overall Records album "Return of the 1 Hit Wonder," a tongue-in-cheek reference to his rocket ride to fame. Success happened so quickly, it made his head spin.

In 1988, he co-wrote Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina," two of the most successful rap songs of the decade, and then his debut album, "Stone Cold Rhymin'," featuring the infectious "Bust a Move," sold more than 2 million a year later; he won the Grammy and American Music Awards for best rap artist. He rapped in Pepsi commercials. His follow-up album, "Brainstorm," was certified gold in 1991.

Then the hits dried up.

"It would've been nice if I could have had a three-, four-, five-year career, something like that, and then come out with something so big," Young said. "I would have learned more in the process and I would've been able to handle it better. I think I handled it well, but you always look back and wonder if you could've done it differently.

"What I will say, not a lot of people can relate to this, but '87, '88, '89 was a different time, in terms of rap, in terms of how people responded to music, to musicians and careers. Today, I don't think any record could have the impact on people that 'Bust a Move' had. People are too jaded, there's too much material out there, there's too much politicism with radio and retail. The focus isn't into breaking a new artist or a record, it's in playing what you know is popular."

That's why Young went with fledgling Overall and not a major label. A smaller label gives him the undivided attention he needs to stay visible in the crowded rap field.

"To an extent, that's the tightrope I have to walk," he said. "You want to be approached as brand new, but you don't want to reinvent yourself so much that someone who had heard you years ago won't recognize what it is."

His first single, "On & Poppin'," charted briefly on Billboard's R&B chart and fared well on the rap chart. "Mr. Right Now" is up next and looks to be more competitive.

"Early in my career, I think I may have learned too much," Young said. "Mostly, you overthink things and you try everything you know into making the music and promoting it and dealing with the public and the press. At some point you have to step back and say, 'I want to have fun and make records.' That's what I've done with this album.

"Previously, I was so concerned with how everybody construed 'Bust a Move' and thought of me then and try to ride on that and then try to avoid that too much. Now I haven't even thought about it. I'm just making the best record I can, and if people hear it and have heard me, fine. If they didn't hear me, fine. I know I've done my best."

It's still the time of the season for The Zombies

(July 5, 1998)

Chris White can't help but laugh. Last November, the British rock quintet shared the same stage for the first time since its December 1967 breakup, brought together for a launching party for the release of the acclaimed box set "Zombie Heaven" (Ace).

With no rehearsals, White (bass) and band mates Rod Argent (keyboards), lead singer Colin Blunstone, Paul Atkinson (guitars) and Hugh Grundy (drums) performed two of their biggest hits, "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season." There was just one problem: They didn't know how to end "Time of the Season."

"We never had played it onstage before, because at the time when it was a hit (1969), we had split up many months previous," White said recently. "There's a fadeout on the record, so we had to discuss quickly how to end the thing."

That alone describes the Zombies' history.

The group was part of the Beatles-led British Invasion in 1964, quickly distinguishing itself from the pack with the keyboard-driven "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No." Critics hailed the band's clever lyrics and soaring melodies and harmonies, but many felt the Zombies were too melancholy and complex for radio airplay.

After recording its most cohesive album, "Odessey & Oracle," in 1967, the group became disheartened over the lack of recognition in Britain. Columbia Records' refusal to release the LP in the states only sealed their fate; they disbanded and started their own projects. Meanwhile, Columbia staff producer Al Kooper continued the battle, convincing the label to reconsider. It finally relented in early 1969 and reaped the benefits of the album's million-selling track "Time of the Season."

"We weren't earning any money on the road, the gigs were drying up," White said of the breakup. "We weren't getting any recognition. We thought we had done a great album. ... Rod and I were able to live because we had song royalties, but the others weren't earning any money. We never made any money on American tours. I think the most we ever made was 500 pounds each for a six-week tour with Dick Clark."

"Odessey & Oracle" was reissued on CD by Ace in late May, with stereo and mono versions of all 12 cuts. Today, it's often mentioned in the same breath as the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

"I'm so knocked out to hear 'Odessey & Oracle' talked of in that company," Argent said recently. "That's rarefied air, really."

Argent said "Time of the Season" was the last track he wrote for "Odessey & Oracle." He had a feeling it would be a hit.

"But of course nobody shared that, except Al Kooper," he said. "He was our savior. It wouldn't have come out in America if it hadn't been for him. And if it hadn't been a hit in America, then a lot of things wouldn't have happened. For instance, in England, it was never a hit, but it appeared on one of the first rock compilations and it became a cult classic and many people knew it through that over here."

In retrospect, White wishes the Zombies had lasted longer than two studio albums over three years, "but I find 'if-onlys' difficult because I wouldn't be who I am today. If you change anything in the past, the future changes. And we got some great things going with Rod's group Argent ('Hold Your Head Up') and we (produced) Colin Blunstone's first three solo albums. I don't regret anything, I'm just glad for the all the good times we had. It was fun, and we were young."

These days, White creates backing music for British TV shows and nurtures the careers of new artists, while Argent said he and former Argent guitarist Russ Ballard are writing songs together and planning an Argent comeback tour next year.

"What happened last year was," Argent said, "we played a couple of charity gigs, and it was such a buzz doing it, and everybody's playing better now that we did when we were in the band. It was great, so we thought about it just for the buzz, not as a major career move."