HIGH BIAS -- October 7, 2001 -- Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Pat Haney, James LaBrie's Mullmuzzler, Madredeus, Pat Martino, Quasi, Michael Rank

Album reviews of new music by:

Pat Haney: Haney is as important a Southern songwriter as you're likely to encounter in the post-Townes Van Zandt era. (more)
James LaBrie's Mullmuzzler: [James LaBrie's] Mullmuzzler side project allows him to show off not only his vocal chops, but his writing as well. (more)
Madredeus: Madredeus creates a shadowy, very Portuguese and beautifully modern vision of the fado, Portugal's sweet and sad traditional folk music. (more)
Pat Martino: [Pat Martino's] now as good as he ever was, if not better, setting standards and making would-be ax gods' jaws drop as in days of yore. (more)
Quasi: Drummer Weiss and multi-instrumentalist Coomes play together like two bodies connected to the same brain. Combine their almost supernatural tightness with the finest set of songs they've written to date, and you've got The Sword of God, a near-masterpiece. (more)

Plus some loud reading from Snatches of Pink's Michael Rank: Herodias

Audio-Visuals

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
(Fine Line)
Inevitably, Hedwig and the Angry Inch—the film adaptation of writer/director/star John Cameron Mitchell's long-running off-Broadway musical—will be compared to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. After all, they've both got transvestites and glam rock/show tune hybrids in them, right? Don't be fooled, though—those are the only things the two films have in common. While Rocky Horror is merely an over-the-top ode to camp excess, Hedwig has a story to tell. It's a quirky tale, to be sure, and like all the best glam rock it obfuscates its messages with flash and a thick layer of makeup. But there's a beating heart to this film that belies its outer glitz. This is a film about power struggles—in relationships, in gender definition, in rock 'n' roll. There's plenty of sly humor, but camp is thankfully absent. This film deals with serious issues while staying tunefully entertaining—it's quite simply the best rock musical ever made. (more)

Refreshed

HAROLD MELVIN & THE BLUE NOTES
The Ultimate Blue Notes
(Epic/Legacy)
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes are best remembered, if at all, for the cynical but devilishly catchy "Wake Up Everybody." The song's refrain "The world won't get no better" and insistent funk pulse made it an answer record of sorts to their labelmates the O'Jays' "Love Train." There was a lot more to the Blue Notes, however; they were some of the 70s' premier chroniclers of adult relationships in an R&B context. The Ultimate doesn't cover their entire career, which stretches back to the mid-50s. Instead it hits the highlights of the group's 70s music for Philadelphia International, when it shared the limelight with such Philly soul stars as the O'Jays and the Spinners and employed the top-flight funk services of the Gamble & Huff production team and house band MFSB. (more)

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