Email Author Steve Pick

1999 Stories by Steve Pick

• Critical Mass

  published December 29, 1999

  As anyone who's read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity knows, music critics -- especially that species known as Criticus hiparawkasauraus... More >>

• Meshell Ndegéocello

  published December 1, 1999

  Forget what you know about Meshell Ndegéocello, including the fact that she has an apostrophe in her name. The apostrophes are gone... More >>

• Waterson:Carthy

  published November 24, 1999

  Of all the great shows Focal Point has presented through the years, none has been better than the times Martin Carthy has visited St. Louis. He's... More >>

• ASTROPUPPEES

  published November 17, 1999

  A thread of music runs from the Go-Gos to Holly and the Italians to Marshall Crenshaw to Don Dixon to Marti Jones to St. Louis's '80s heroes the... More >>

• Continental Drifters

  published October 20, 1999

  The Continental Drifters can't escape their history. Susan Cowsill was once the little girl singing with her family, the Cowsills, back in the... More >>

• BLACK BEAUTY

  published October 13, 1999

  There they are onstage: A 6-foot-tall blond woman wearing a sheer, body-hugging shirt cradles the frets of a standup bass while she attacks the... More >>

• Tiny Universe, featuring Fred Wesley

  published September 1, 1999

  It hardly seems fair that Fred Wesley's name is so prosaic. Everybody can remember the name "Maceo Parker." When James Brown needed to kick up... More >>

• Richard Thompson

  published September 1, 1999

  The world is made up of three possible types of people: those who love Richard Thompson's music, those who don't know Richard Thompson's music and... More >>

• VISIONS OF GRANDEUR

  published August 25, 1999

  Who said pop music had to be of its time? Why must it be "contemporary" — be enslaved by the idiom du jour of any given year? What do... More >>

• Isley Brothers, Kool and the Gang, the Gap Band and Morris Day and the Time

  published August 11, 1999

  The Golden Age of Funk lasted about 12 years, running from 1971 or thereabouts to maybe 1983. That was when rhythm & blues music was dominated by... More >>

• The Lord’s Player

  published July 14, 1999

  Leeora Daniels doesn't just tell a story straight-out. A retired schoolteacher who runs the business aspects of six different gospel groups,... More >>

• Listening Post

  published June 30, 1999

  It's been a rough couple of weeks for the St. Louis music community: We've lost two of the city's most talented musicians... UNSUNG HERO OF... More >>

• Sound Checks

  published June 9, 1999

  Donna the Buffalo Friday, June 11; Union Station Donna the Buffalo is a damn good band, perhaps the great missing link between zydeco,... More >>

• Forever Young

  published June 2, 1999

  The latest rock radio station to make a splash in St. Louis is WXTR, a.k.a. "Extreme" radio. The music on this station is loud, distorted, fast,... More >>

• Heat Treatment

  published May 19, 1999

  "There was a definite lack of energy and intensity before Graham Parker and the Rumour," Graham Parker says during a telephone interview. "You... More >>

• Listening Post

  published May 5, 1999

  RADIO WAVES: The late 1970s saw one of the great weirdo-pop explosions of all time. Punk and new wave weren't just about the handful of bands that... More >>

• Ghost Stories

  published April 28, 1999

  For more than 10 years, singer/songwriter Tom Russell has been stopping in at St. Louis' Off Broadway club at least two or three times per annum.... More >>

• Listening Post

  published April 14, 1999

  SUMMER DUBBIN': With longer, warmer days upon us, it's time to dust off your reggae discs or, better yet, delve into the world of recent... More >>

• Deserving of Praise

  published March 24, 1999

  Kelly Willis offered just enough on her first three albums, released between 1989 and 1992 on MCA Records, to hint that she is a woman with a... More >>

• Vienna Fingers

  published February 10, 1999

  KRUDER & DORFMEISTER The K&D Sessions (Studio K7) Ahh, stoner music, pecking you on the cheek like a blown kiss from across... More >>

• Listening Post

  published February 10, 1999

  MARDI GRAS MUSIC: Up against some stiff competition in the neighborhood on the same evening -- including a big blast supported by this paper --... More >>

• Clever Disguise

  published February 3, 1999

  Los Lobos have been so good as a band, for so long, that the individual personalities involved have been lost to our sight. David Hidalgo has... More >>

• Devil's Advocate

  published January 20, 1999

  Fifteen years seems like a long time to spend in hell, but I suppose the afterlife spins on Einstein's relativity theory, too. The premise of... More >>

• Golden Rockets

  published January 13, 1999

  THE BOTTLE ROCKETS Leftovers (Doolittle) With all due respect to the alt-country holy trinity of Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt and... More >>

• Sound Track

  published January 13, 1999

  VISIONS OF JAZZ: THE FIRST CENTURY By Gary Giddins Oxford University Press, 690 pages, $35 During the last 100 years, music... More >>