NOISE

The Reverend Horton Heat, The Cheetah Girls, Albert Hammond Jr. and Moving Units







The Reverend Horton Heat Sounds Off



It took only one question—about his general disdain for the recording medium—to get the Rev revved up during a January 4 interview with the Weekly:

"The idea of recording, to me, is a very recent phenomenon that has been overblown. To me, being a musician is way more valid than being a recording artist. Being a musician is a centuries-old art form. It's a real endeavor. It's all live and then it goes away. I play a fast riff of notes and it's gone. Just because we have the technology now to record it and distribute it so people can crank it up on their Gramophone or Victrola doesn't mean that a recording artist is more valid. From my point of view, a recording is something a band or an artist does as an advertisement.

"So now we've got recording artists who make millions of dollars, and they can't play a D9 chord, and then you've got a genius piano player who plays in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel for Sunday brunch. I think a lot of bands and, of course, record industry people, get it backwards. So now these bands go, ‘If we don't get a record deal in the next two years I'm gonna quit the band and go back to college.' That's the guy you've got to kick out of the band that day.

"Was Mozart's artistic vision just him sitting at a table writing sheet music? And then once he finished writing the sheet music, he felt oh, so good? No, he wanted to play that music. You play it with people listening. You don't go and play it in a studio.

"Technology is great, and I love my tons of albums and CDs and now MP3s, but recording technology has only been around for about 100 years now, and the art form of being a musician goes back thousands. It's so easy to go into the studio and get a group of engineers and computer programs and make a record. And everybody's always interested in how it sounds. I don't care about that. Sounding good is for people who really don't know anything about music, audiophiles who think they know something about music: ‘Oh, I only listen to it this way.' Forget that, man. I wanna hear somebody playing an instrument, as a craft. It's a lifelong, mountainous, treacherous, obstacle-ridden thing to learn to play guitar, a monumental accomplishment. But everybody just throws that to the side because they want it to sound good. Forget sound. I wanna hear the achievement of musical ability played with soul. It can be recorded on a Memorex voice recorder and that soul will come through and I'll enjoy it.

"A lot of the music that I'm influenced by—the mid-20th-century stuff—is archaic-sounding, and I like that. In fact, I wanna make a bad-sounding record. That's what I wanna do. One of these days, I'm gonna make a bad-sounding album."

Hear, hear, Rev. Hear, hear.



Spencer Patterson









In Case Someone Mentions The Cheetah Girls, Now You Won't Appear, Like, Totally Clueless


Never heard of The Cheetah Girls? That's probably because you're not a girl between the ages of 9 and 14, and/or don't have a close female relative that age. For tween girls, though, the Disney-branded girl group are as big a deal as Beyoncé or Justin. Part of a growing crop of successful teen-pop acts crafted, packaged and marketed by Disney—including Aly & AJ, Miley Cyrus (daughter of Billy Ray, and star of the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana) and the cast of High School Musical—The Cheetah Girls were manufactured for a pair of Disney Channel movies and get airplay primarily via Radio Disney. Disney acts inspire rabid fan loyalty and sell millions of records without any traditional mainstream exposure on pop radio or MTV. It's an alternate world where wholesome young girls are the unquestioned rulers.



Josh Bell









What's in a Name?


Minus his Strokes cronies, it's difficult to place Albert Hammond Jr.'s moniker. Now that the guitarist has temporarily gone solo, let the confusion begin.



Mistaken for: Albert Hammond, Sr.

Who is really: Singer-songwriter who recorded in both English and Spanish; his father.


Mistaken for: "Albert Hammond Bootleg"


Which is really: A song by '80s U.K. rock outfit Half Man Half Biscuit.


Mistaken for: John Hammond (1)


Who is really: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame record producer; discoverer of Seeger, Springsteen and Dylan.


Mistaken for: John Hammond (2)


Who is really: Rich, grandfatherly, ethically challenged creator of Jurassic Park, played by Richard Attenborough.


Mistaken for: Hammond B-3 Organ


Which is really: Two-keyboarded, effects-laden, church-roof-raising musical instrument.


Mistaken for: Albert Pujols


Who is really: St. Louis Cardinals slugger and first baseman; not at all a steroid user.


Mistaken for: Hector Hammond


Who is really: Massive-headed enemy of Green Lantern.


Mistaken for: Prince Albert


Which is really: Male-genital piercing; sexual-pleasure enhancer.


Mistaken for: Fat Albert


Who is really: Never mind. Albert Hammond Jr. is rarely mistaken for "fat."



Julie Seabaugh









100 WORDS ON MOVING UNITS














Where: Celebrity.
When: January 18, 8 p.m.
Price: $12.
Info: 384-2582.


"Between Us & Them" is precisely the type of song we should demand from a band called Moving Units. Not because the track created a spike in sales for the LA trio's 2002 debut EP or its 2004 full-length follow-up (yes, the tune made both releases), but because you can't listen to the pulsing, three-minute ditty without moving something. At least I can't, and I'd say I'm not alone, judging from the Units' crowd at Coachella '04, which morphed from petrified concrete to blurred gesticulation the instant the ringing guitar intro was joined by its throbbing drum and bass counterparts.



Spencer Patterson

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