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All Pushed Out: Popular Austin band and interminable Texas tour-mongers, Pushmonkey, have finally finished recording their major-label debut for Arista. They've been recording in L.A. with esteemed rock producer Mike Clink of Guns ën' Roses and Aerosmith fame. Pushmonkey, consummate professionals that they are, will no doubt offer a redoubtable record of first-rate production values and professional gloss. Will it move us? We shall find out.
 Pervis just goes on and on and on: Formed in the early nineties, the Fort Worth band Pervis has been grinding and screeching in Dallas-area clubs ever since. In 1993, MCA funded a demo record for the band, but it didn't materialize into anything. Last year, the group's second lead singer left the band and it was widely assumed that the end of the raucous group was nigh. But singer Rachael Strauss sings on, and the band which had always been overshadowed by the two frontwomen shines on Pervis' second release for Idol Records, Cleansed by Fire. The album rips and tears through several songs that will be familiar to many who have followed Pervis live, but the band's energy is abundant in the digital vistas of the CD as well. Songs like "Mannequin," "AWOL," and "Kites Cost Money" display the tight playing and twisting hooks of the musicians, and Strauss' lyrics are appropriately postured. The only problem is that there's not much originality or innovation in the music: they're doing well what people did well years ago. It would be nice to hear them plumb some new depths. Thanks to Joe Nick Patoski for the following reviews: Most of Moll: If singing cowboys ever become the national craze in Norway, I've no doubt it will all be because of Erik Moll, a Wimberley resident and songster in the Texas troubadour tradition with deep Scandinavian roots. His plaintive voice hits all the right high lonesome notes on his third solo album, Most of All (Fire Ant), a kicked-back self-produced gem of thirteen ballads that straddle the divisions between country and folk, all underlaid with an understated intelligence not common to either genre. Picks to click: the ethereal, quasi Tex-Mex "Can You Handle It?", "She Thinks Different Now" (check out his yodels), and the bluesy, straight-to-the-point "I Love Your Cookin". Sweet Alamo Suite: From his role as a charter member of Austin roots kings, the Leroi Brothers, to front man for swamp rockers the Tailgators, the conjunto trio Los Cadillos, and his latest creation, Alamo Suite, a three-piece jazz outfit (all of which have the same personnel), Don Leady has proven himself to be such an expert stylistic interpreter, he passes for an original. Alamo Suite, the self-titled album by Leady as jazzbo, works the same turf as Texas guitar great Herb Ellis, messing around with bluesy, jazz-inflected instrumentals. Listening to it is like having a lounge in your own home, without the bothersome barroom smoke or loud talkers at the next table. (7/15/98) |
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