PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR APRIL 27, 1995 BY NICK KREWEN Ball-hog or Tugboat? Mike Watt, the legendary the bass-playing linchpin who anchored San Pedro underground collage masters Minutemen for six years and followed it up with flannel rocking fIREHOSE for seven, has named his first solo album after one of his favorite armchair hobbies: wrestling. “It’s the only TV I watch, besides Soul Train,” said Watt, recently in…
NICK KREWEN The Hamilton Spectator April 6, 1995 Being ignored at home was the best thing that ever happened to England’s Radiohead. Unlike other Johnny-come-latelys of the British pop scene, the five members of Radiohead weren’t former plastic surgeons who got bored with their professions, nor are they the byproduct of some horrible laboratory accident. They’re simply a handful of normal school friends from Oxford who practiced…
NICK KREWEN The Hamilton Spectator March 30, 1995 Al Yankovic is a lonely guy. No wonder he’s turned Weird. Who’d expect an individual with an enviable collection of loud Hawaiian shirts and a pathetically sick sense of humor to be the musical equivalent of the Maytag repairman? Who’d figure that a guy who uses the accordion to provide such parodies of public pleasure as Jurassic Park — a claymation…
Sparks talks Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins NICK KREWEN Hamilton Spectator March 30, 1995 Credited as the inspiration for British electronic dance pop combos Depeche Mode, Erasure and Pet Shop Boys, Sparks is a modern music anomaly: a California duo that is revered in Europe, but ignored in their own backyard. With the release tomorrow of their 16 th album, Gratuitous Sax And Senseless Violins, Sparks linchpins Ron and…
NICK KREWEN Hamilton Spectator Thursday, March 2, 1995 “Secret Heart What are you made of? What are you afraid of?” — from “Secret Heart”, written by Ron Sexsmith, © 1995 Ronboy Rhymes Inc./Interscope Pearl Music/Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., BMI. French fries. When I first met Ron Sexsmith, his two favorite foods were French fries and Yorkshire pudding — mainly because they were British. At the time,…
