Kid Rock

If there’s a single artist that best signifies America as we bum-rush the millennium, it’s Kid Rock. He oozes white trash and he’s proud of it, blazing across the country and winning audiences over with a devilish charm and coy irreverence to anything that gets in the way of his pimpin’ ain’t easy persona. He’s as smooth as a frosty cold one, but kicks back with the sting of a warm malt liquor. He’s rock, he’s rap, he’s country, and he’s blues. He probably smokes bluegrass, and his stage show rolls with the rocking and rolling curves of female dancers and big-bottomed bootieful backdrops. He’s impishly sexy, yet slyly chauvinistic, something his female hordes of fans are ready to lap up with a tease me, please me grin and an enthusiastic baring of their chests to get backstage. Call it all what you will, but it’s rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s something mainstream music has been without for too damn long-Kid Rock’s a superstar, the likes of which American audiences haven’t had since ‘80s hair bands left women wanting to be sexy, and made it fashionable for men to be sexist. It’s all about living in the U.S. of A., and Kid Rock is here to make it fun again. “I just call it true, red-boned, American music. That’s exactly what it is,” says Rock of the rock ‘n’ roll hybrid that has pushed his Atlantic Records debut, Devil Without A Cause, beyond quadruple platinum status. That’s more than four million records sold, and counting. “It’s just American music to the fullest, right here. People like Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash did it in their day. My hang up was always with The Stones and The Who, and a lot of the bands like that who just mimic blues music and stuff, and are probably some of the greatest rock bands in the world-They are nothing compared to Lynyrd Skynyrd or Marshall Tucker. Those were the only bands that could get onstage and blow them off. So what I’m doing is just a hybrid of true American music, everything from blues to rock ‘n’ roll to metal to hip-hop to jazz. Anything that sounds good-rockabilly, country, anything-I put it in there.”

The results-while they can be confusing to fans of traditional, straight-forward styles that don’t span competing genres-are infectious in their musical energy and primal enthusiasm.

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Korn - 2006

In an era where nameless, faceless and meaningless have become standards, Korn have transcended hard rock and heavy metal banality with a sound and vision that defies categorization. They bubbled from the Bakersfield, CA, heavy metal underground more than a decade ago, emerged as a hard rock phenomenon with the breakthrough success of Follow The Leader in 1997, and have exceeded any and every conceivable expectation since then. It may seem premature to consider Korn legends in only their second decade as a band, but not when you acknowledge the facts.

Impressed by numbers? Korn have released seven albums, surpassed the 25 million mark in worldwide sales (more than 15 million of those in America alone), and have had every album since their self-titled debut enter the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart in the Top 10, with all seven of their studio albums achieving Platinum sales (their 2004 Greatest Hits release is certified Gold). The numbers don’t lie, but they don’t even begin to tell the story of Korn, who not only redefined heavy metal with the diabolic, cutting-edge histrionics of their 1994 debut, but turned the industry on end in the years that followed, having a profound influence on today’s heavy music scene and making a marked impact on the way metal has reemerged as a sonic force on the pop-driven musical mainstream.

In one fleeting decade, Korn have single-handedly changed the way America views heavy music. Now, with the release of See You On The Other Side, they’ve opened the doors to even more disarray, taking their trademarked sound to the next level. It’s what they’ve always done, but to even more astonishing depths.

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Know Boundaries

Know Boundaries, speaking simply, is indefinable. Calling them rap-rock is misleading because they’re, you know, good. Allowing for a more complicated definition, they describe their intention “[to] mix hip hop and rock and not make them two separate styles of music but just one music using the power in both.”

The six-piece, six-year Madison veterans have opened for groups as disparate as Cypress Hill and the Gin Blossoms. They’ve been sponsored by Budweiser’s True Music program, won multiple Madison Area Music Awards and have been showcased at numerous industry conferences.

The band is exceptional in that it follows through on its intention. The music of Know Boundaries has the energy and power of all exciting and powerful music, tastefully brought together in one sound. The rhythm is heavy - a deceivingly simple drum beat paired with an ambitious and audible, but not overpowering bass. This leaves the guitar to flit around on the high end mostly, ducking back into the general groove for the lush hooks and choruses. Out front the band flaunts a cooperative rap-rock ying yang. An easy symbol of the band’s musical ambition, the rapper and singer twist around with each other, always in support - never detracting from one another’s parts. Through all this the keys (a decked out and supplemented-with-gizmos Rhodes) steer this would-be chaotic ship through melodies that don’t get old when they repeat-they get stronger.

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Kraftwerk

The history of Kraftwerk begins in 1970 when Florian Schneider-Esleben and Ralf Hütter, the founding members of the band, formed a group called Organisation. The Oranisation’s only album, Tone Float, was a mixture of tape loops, electronic feedback, and clanking rhythms. It was decidedly experimental compared to what the rest of the musical world was doing, and while a German record contract was landed, the LP did very little in the way of sales. By the end of that same year, however, the group had morphed into Kraftwerk.

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Kicksville

The Presidential candidates have shared a motto during this election season: change. On Saturday, Nov. 15, America will have selected its leader, and a new era will be underway. Depending on your belief in what kind of change is needed, you may be looking to celebrate and/or protest. A perfect opportunity to do both awaits you at the Overture Center where a band called Kicksville is scheduled to perform. 

Kicksville can’t be constrained by the general conception of what is commonly referred to as a “band.” Kicksville is an entity. Their “Director of Propaganda” describes Kicksville as a political movement, a virtual community, and a musical collective. Madisonians and anyone else hell-bent on a free-thinking mind ought to be licking their chops.

Conrad St. Clair, the “Commissioner” of Kicksville, resists shackling attempts at categorization. “Politically we’re not Marxists, liberals, democrats or any of that.” Kicksville’s music also thwarts categorization. Constantly taking on new forms, collaborating with new artists (who gain “citizen” status), and utilizing new technology, Kicksville is an ever evolving creation that incorporates more than just sound. It assimilates ideas. St. Clair elaborates: “We’re teaming up with Amnesty International’s Small Places Tour 2008 to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It’s an honor. It’s something we feel strongly about.”

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Steve Katz of Blood Sweat And Tears

Steve Katz’ initial guitar motivation came from folky blues great Dave Van Ronk and the Reverend Gary Davis. I asked Katz about his first guitar and his connection to Van Ronk. “(It) was a Gibson J200 acoustic. I never even played electric until I joined The Blues Project. I took lessons from Dave when I was just a beginner. Both Van Ronk and Rev. Davis will always be major influences on me.”

Inspired by the folk and jug band music that was popular in the early/mid 60s Greenwich Village scene, Katz found himself in a group of like-minded friends and musicians, including Stefan Grossman, Maria Muldaur, John Sebastian, and David Grisman, forming the Even Dozen Jug Band and recording a self-titled album in 1964 for Elektra Records. Steve commented to me on this early group of eventually high profile performers, “The great thing about the jug band was the diversity of styles of all the members. There was a blues, bluegrass, and a ragtime contingent. We were all friends and it was a great way to bring all our musical interests together. We performed at Carnegie Hall, on The Tonight Show, and a TV show called Hootenanny.”

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Maynard James Keenan

Part 2 of my conversation with Maynard James Keenan: Squeezing Life Into Arizona.

These days, when you see a picture of the infamous and enigmatic Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer), he is sporting and promoting something related to his wine making efforts. Often times it IS a bottle of wine. Look closely. The wine will say it is a Caduceus Cellars wine.[www.caduceus.org] (The Caduceus is the ancient symbol for commerce.)  Maynard and his business partner Eric Glomski have become vine pioneers for their wine making efforts in northern Arizona near Jerome.

Blood Into Wine: The Arizona Stronghold is a documentary that tells the story of these upstarts as they grow, squeeze and ferment in the Verde Valley. The land in this area is arid like a lot of Arizona, but it has more structure and certain characteristics that make it uniquely advantageous to the grape growing sector as Maynard explains. Mr. Keenan is very passionate about his wine and that really shines through.

Have you always been a wine enthusiast?
“Over time. In my mid 20s. That’s when I started getting into it.”

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