Stone Temple Pilots

an interview with Stone Temple Pilots’ vocalist Scott Weiland who talks about touring, Pearl Jam similarities from their early days, Bad-asses, porn stars, strippers, Limp Bizkit and the Doors

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Second Coming

Few will argue the fact that rock music has fallen on bad times. Sure, the music’s out there, but by the time you’ve sorted through the bands whose pants are the only thing drooping lower than their guitar tunings, and ruled out the carefree world of men wearing mascara and lipliner, whose got the energy to look for it? For most, it’s just easier to stick to the classics, relying on Led Zeppelin for all-out rock virtuosity, counting on The Doors for a mature spin on the outlandish element, and looking to Jimi Hendrix for a guitar solo worth writing home about.

From the throbbing rock of the band’s classically-tinted sound, it’s obvious that they share that sentiment. And have targeted their efforts on doing something to fill that void. Clocking in at over seven minutes in length, “Confessional” might not be the most commercially viable cut on their self-titled, Capitol Records debut, but it’s definitely the most telling. The most telling of their sound, style, roots and direction.

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Blind Melon

The two associations that Blind Melon will always have are with the girl in the yellow and black bee costume from the video for their 90’s alternative chestnut, “No Rain” (a tune which reached #20 on the Pop Charts and even earned a Weird Al parody), and the drug overdose of their original lead singer, Shannon Hoon, in 1995. Indeed, when I met him as a underager in 1993 after sneaking into Marquette University in Milwaukee to see them, drugs was a subject he mentioned almost immediately. Although an album of outtakes and live performances followed (named Nico after the newborn daughter Hoon left behind) and the band went on a search for a new singer, the public would not accept them and the band broke up before the end of the decade.

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The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are one of the oddest, yet enjoyable musical units to come down the pike in a long time. Jonathon Richman’s early work, like “Ice Cream Man,” “Hey There Little Insect” and “Rockin’ Rockin’ Leprechauns” is about the only music you can compare to the TFSP. 

Formed a couple of years ago in Seattle by Jason [guitar, piano and singer], his wife Tina [projector] and seven year old daughter, Rachel on drums after Tina found and bought some old slide photos at a yard sale. The box was marked “Mountain Trip to Japan 1959 and that was what was on the film, someone’s color slide photos of a trip to Japan in 1959. Jason , who was a mild mannered struggling singer/songwriter in a city filled with aggressive and thriving singer/songwriters, put his talent to work and wrote songs around the slideshow and The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were born. 

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Vanishing Kids

Keeping alive the torch of post-punk and new-wave, VANISHING KIDS started making noise when guitarist Jason Hartman and vocalist Nikki Nads met in Madison in 2000 and decided to form a band the following year where they could indulge in their love of artists like The Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees. That path has since taken them to Seattle, back to Madison, and finally back to the West Coast to Portland, Oregon. They’ve achieved a good deal of success along the way, signing a distribution deal with Rykodisc and having industrial pioneer Martin Atkins take the producing reins on one of their albums.  This summer, they’ve released a brand new single, “Mother Earth”, and are hitting the road on a tour that will take them through the Western and Midwestern states.

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