To Whom It May Interest, ”If you don’t stand up for somethin,’ you’ll fall for anything.” In 1994, Public Enemy ’s Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age left a rather large smear on an otherwise spotless catalog of recorded output that was rife with critical acclaim. By and large, the album was ignored as the hip-hop-buying public were too willing to sip on gin n’ juice, their heads still reeling from the effects of Dre and Snoop ’s G-Funk sound blast. PE’s fifth studio record didn’t lack the funk to match the West Coast flavor, nor did it lack the punch that Death Row Records seemed to boast. What it did lack was the “G” factor. PE, being an overtly political powerhouse, were speaking to a generation that was tired of politics. A Democrat was in office, Desert Storm was long gone, grunge was dead and hip-hop was largely based on the rhythms of George Clinton and violence on the streets of South Central. Consequently, Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age slipped through the cracks, the unfortunate ...

The Dresden Dolls Yes, Virginia… Roadrunner Records Released 4.18.06 Rating: 2.75 out of 4 When I’d first heard the notes that spoke through Amanda Palmer’s delicate, but angry, fingers, I admit I was a bit smitten. You could just tell, listening to the reverberating keys, that she was striking them down with remarkable gusto, commanding them to do her will, forcing them to feel her pain. Well…I don’t know, is it her pain? Probably not but if she’s writing for the pained demographic then, like all good actors, she must put herself there, like a CNN cameraman in the trenches. It was an attractive pain though. And it was very well written. I knew after first hearing the self-titled debut of The Dresden Dolls that Amanda Palmer would assume the roll of Goth-Mommy. Around the globe hundreds, maybe thousands, of misunderstood suburban female youths listened to “Girl Anachronism” and “Coin-Operated Boy” and found themselves in the arms, and at the breast, of the one woman who finall...

To Whom It May Interest, I’ve been simultaneously reading two books at once for the past month or so. One is a biography about Elvis Presley and his rise to superstardom. The other is “Mainlines, Blood Feasts & Bad Taste” by Philip Seymour Hoffman…er, I mean Lester Bangs. A couple weeks ago, I was paging through Bangs’ compiled ferocity and observation and found a review of Wire’s second opus, Chairs Missing . Direct quote from the man himself: “Wire. Think about that word and what it has meant in your life, perhaps even the lives of your ancestors. Then think just how hot you’d be hoppin’ to get a chance to hear a group whose sound might live up to such euphonious appellation! Wire. The Sound of the ‘70s. Flat. Dead. Dull. Thud. Mud. Plod. Sod. But mebbe with a whiplash on the counterstrike.” Now, having myself only recently opened the door to the wonderful world of Wire’s initial trio of recorded bliss, my reaction to the review was chockfull of “you don’t know what you’re ta...