Pop Quiz: Kasabian

Pop Quiz: Kasabian

Aidin Vaziri | When a band names itself after Charles Manson's getaway driver, you can be fairly certain it's not going to sound much like Kelly Clarkson. As it turns out, Kasabian is the latest U.K. export trading in big rock swagger and even bigger block-rocking beats. Its self-titled premiere was released domestically three months ago, leading to the breakout singles "Club Foot" and "L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)," and putting the band on the road through the rest of the year.



Sergio Pizzorno of Kasabian
Q: How many awards shows did you attend last year?
A: A very large amount. But it's all been very good, and I'm totally not cynical about it like you are.
Q: You're really going to be in trouble when the tour with Oasis and Jet starts.
A: Well, it's going to be easier, because we're onstage for half an hour, so we can be in whatever state we want. If we're still alive by the end of that tour, then we've done well.
Q: Forget about staying alive. Do you think your liver is going to survive?
A: Yeah, I think it's quite hearty. I went for a checkup the other day and the doctor said I'm in fighting shape. I'm ready for 12 rounds.
Q: You should just make an appointment for the blood transfusion right now.
A: My hero's Keith (Richards). So I'm following in his footsteps.
Q: That's a good hero to have.
A: He's the only one.
Q: I predict there will be a shortage of Jack Daniel's and a surplus of bath water on this tour.
A: No, there will be no baths and plenty of whiskey, I'm sure.
Q: The only problem will be dividing up the girls backstage.
A: Well, I think that's a problem for the rest of them because I always get more than enough. It's whatever I leave behind for the rest of them. I have that Latin charm that those smelly people do.

Summer Concerts 2005

Summer Concerts 2005

Aidin Vaziri | It's time to drain the life savings account, mortgage the home and sell the kids to Michael Jackson. We're on the brink of the 2005 summer concert season and, well, let's just say that -- apart from attending the American Music Awards -- this might be the only opportunity to catch Coldplay, MC Hammer, Wilco, Judas Priest, Avril Lavigne, 50 Cent and the Dave Matthews Band in one fell swoop. Here are the highlights from the Chronicle's clip-and-save guide:



Summer Concerts 2005

MARS VOLTA Not since Van Der Graaf Generator has there been a prog-rock band that has struck such a fine balance between 18-inch Afros and 18-minute drum solos.

GRETCHEN WILSON Country music is supposed to be making a comeback thanks to Wilson's quadruple-platinum release, "Here for the Party." But what we're really looking forward to hearing are the cuts from her forthcoming release, "All Jacked Up." Trailer-park people come up with the best album titles.

OLD SCHOOL FUNK FEST REUNION WITH MC HAMMER Why is NASA wasting billions of dollars building a secret time machine when it could just send everyone to this show featuring MC Hammer, Morris Day & the Time, Cameo, the Ohio Players and S.O.S. Band?.

BECK/LE TIGRE Beck is the funkiest showman around. Le Tigre is an all-girl band that includes a member with a mustache and mullet. How could this concert be anything less than insane?

ROBERT PLANT Plant says his main challenge these days is being relevant rather than a 50-year-old jukebox, promising a heavy load of songs from his latest solo album, "Mighty Rearranger. " That would be the sound of crickets chirping.

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND When so many people find your band impossibly annoying, the best thing to do is bring out an even more annoying band to open the shows. Stand up, Black Eyed Peas.

AMERICAN IDOLS LIVE! The world's biggest roaming karaoke bar brings us Bo Bice, Anthony Fedorov, Constantine Maroulis and a bunch of other people who have already submitted their applications for "Surreal Life 7.".

JAMES TAYLOR "How Sweet It Is." "Fire and Rain." "Sweet Baby James." No, not the worst iPod playlist shuffle ever dealt. Just some of the hits the old folk-rock singer will be airing during his summer live shows..

CD Review: Oasis's 'Don't Believe The Truth'

CD Review: Oasis's 'Don't Believe The Truth'

Oasis's 'Don't Believe The Truth': Aidin Vaziri | It's been about eight years since Oasis unofficially gave up on America, shortly after the release of its wobbly third album, 1997's "Be Here Now," and the disastrous tour that followed. Not that it mattered. America had already given up on the badly behaved Gallagher brothers long before that. Yet all of a sudden, at least one side seems to be reconsidering the breakup. This week, Oasis releases its sixth studio album, "Don't Believe the Truth." This is shocking news not only because it means there was a fourth and fifth Oasis album, but also because people in the United States are actually excited to hear it. What's even more shocking, however, is tickets for the British group's upcoming shows at Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl sold out in less than an hour, and a Sept. 11 gig at Shoreline is already near capacity. Which raises the big question: Is Oasis ready to commit and make this relationship work? One listen to the lead single, "Lyla," from the new album and the answer is clear. The verses, a blatant rip-off of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man" reveal the band has stubbornly refused to grow over the past decade, still relying on old souls for new ideas. There are color-by-the-numbers imitations of the Velvet Underground ("Mucky Fingers"), Stranglers ("Part of the Queue") and Kinks ("The Importance of Being Idle"). And, in a telltale sign, the group's main songwriter, Noel Gallagher, only offers five of the 11 tunes, leaving the heavy-lifting to brother Liam, guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell. What do they bring to the table? It depends on how you feel about excessive tambourines, watery ballads that kind of sound like "Don't Look Back In Anger" and lyrics such as, "The boys in the bubble/ They wanna be free." There's a reason why these co-dependent relationships never work.

Live Review: Erasure

Live Review: Erasure

Erasure offers sensory overload in a glittering, strutting show: Aidin Vaziri | Wearing angel wings and head-to-toe white denim, Andy Bell thoughtfully glanced over the 500 sweaty fans crammed into the Independent on Friday and said, "This is so intimate. I feel like I've slept with half of you." It was the first of Erasure's five sold-out concerts at the small San Francisco venue, and the preening singer was in his element: a psychedelic stage set constructed of foil and inflatable trees; two backup singers dressed as fairies; and his sidekick of two decades, frowning keyboard player Vince Clark, just inches away punching buttons on the laptop and wearing a satellite dish on his head. Midway through the two-hour set, after the steel-drum-and-disco remake of Blondie's "Rapture," Bell disappeared backstage and re-emerged wearing a black Elvis jumpsuit, doing a glass-shattering rendition of "Ave Maria." Then the two black backup singers came out wearing Marilyn Monroe dresses that floated up to reveal their legs. You don't get that at a Queens of the Stone Age show. Shortly after that, Bell changed once more, this time into glittery bikini briefs and a pair of matching high-heel boots straight out of the International Male catalog. It was such a hilarious sight, with the singer doing a showgirl routine while singing the moody "Blue Savannah," even his long-suffering partner Clark couldn't help but crack a smile.

Pop Quiz: Alicia Keys

Pop Quiz: Alicia Keys

Aidin Vaziri | Alicia Keys has been on tour forever -- or at least since she released her last album, the wildly successful "Diary of Alicia Keys," way back in 2003. The R&B singer-songwriter-pianist swept up four Grammy Awards earlier this year, to add to the five she won with her breakthrough 2001 debut, "Songs in A Minor," and has been through the Bay Area several times since hitting the road. But she's coming back again -- to the Paramount Theatre in Oakland for a pair of shows on Tuesday and Wednesday -- just before the tour finally wraps up at the end of the month in Las Vegas.



Alicia Keys
Q: How many awards shows did you attend last year?
A: A very large amount. But it's all been very good, and I'm totally not cynical about it like you are.
Q: People just aren't getting tired of "The Diary of Alicia Keys." Don't you kind of wish they would?
A: No. I mean, it's pretty amazing, especially in regards to the climate of the industry. Things happen so fast. People have singles out, and there's not any type of longevity in regards to an album or that kind of thing. So for people to enjoy my album and really connect with it to the point where I'm still able to tour a year and a half after its release is just crazy.
Q: So the first three singles ate up the last year and a half. There are 11 more songs on the album. You could very well be on the road until 2012.
A: We're definitely not doing that. Definitely not.
Q: OK. On June 1, where are you going to be and what are you going to be doing?
A: Well, May 28 is going to be my last show. I'm going to wake up the next morning and be on a dreaded airplane -- I hate airplanes -- but I'll be excited because I'm heading home. I'm going directly to my house, chill out a little bit, take out a book, sit outside and just really breathe.
Q: Breathing is necessary.
A: Exactly. It's the first time I'm going to enjoy and have a whole summer in years.
Q: Admit it. You're going to hit the kiddie pool.

Live Review: M.I.A.

Live Review: M.I.A.

Rebel rapper is raw and ready to party: Aidin Vaziri | The walls of Amoeba Music on Haight Street may be plastered with the faces of dead souls like Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain and Sid Vicious, but on Saturday, the store's small corner stage was all about the face of the future. And at the moment that belongs to a Maya Arulpragasam, a.k.a. M.I.A., a 28- year-old rapper whose family narrowly escaped civil war in Sri Lanka only so she could grow up in one of south London's racially fractured housing projects. With a father who was a member of the notorious Tamil Tiger rebels and a debut album, "Arular," that prominently features images of rifles and bombs on the sleeve, M.I.A.'s street credibility is about eight notches above 50 Cent's. But it's her music -- a crude collision of primitive keyboards, cracked dancehall rhythms and deep slang -- that really makes her hardcore. "I'm bongo with my lingo/ Beat it like a wing you/ Can't stereotype my thing yo," she sings in "Sunshowers" before delivering the sober kicker: "Like PLO/ We don't surrender." The music was so bare, the melodies so minimal, M.I.A.'s voice so blatantly limited, it was hard to believe the 40-minute set actually came together as well as it did. Then again, those are the very elements all those tattered faces on the wall used to change the world. She was in good company.

Pop Quiz: Juliette Lewis

Pop Quiz: Juliette Lewis

Aidin Vaziri | It's hard to tell what's worse: musicians who think they can act (see: Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Madonna) or actors who think they're musicians (see: Keanu Reeves, Russell Crowe, David Hasselhoff). So it comes as some relief to find one who gets it right. Juliette Lewis, the Oscar-nominated actress who is best known for her role in Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers, " has made the transition look effortless with her glam-rock band Juliette and the Licks simply by playing it fast and loose. "We're not trying to be Pink Floyd," she says of the group's debut album, "You're Speaking My Language," out this week. And they're all the better for it.



Juliette Lewis of Juliette and the Licks
Q: Why the style change? Was there a spandex shortage or something?
A: No, it's just this year I was really inspired by androgyny. Last year was superheroes..
Q: So last year it was all about David Lee Roth. This year it's David Bowie.
A: Sure. I don't know.
Q: As a rock critic, it's my job to compare everything to everything else.
A: Oh, OK. I'm sure you'll make it sound interesting.
Q: Has the novelty of being in a band worn off yet?
A: It has not worn off. It's just that now that we've been touring so much, I crave the time to be in the studio. And then when we were in the studio, we crave touring.
Q: You can't win.
A: It's always going to be like that. But it hasn't worn off. Just when you're exhausted, it changes up and you go somewhere new. What is exhausting is I have to do 100 times more press than I did when I was acting.

CD Review: Paul Westerberg's 'Besterberg'

CD Review: Paul Westerberg's 'Besterberg'

Paul Westerberg's 'Besterberg': Aidin Vaziri | Paul Westerberg has good reason to hide his face on the cover of this retrospective set. How could the man who fronted the Replacements, one of the great generation-defining pop-punk bands of the '80s, justify a solo career in the '90s built around anemic barroom rock songs even Jon Bon Jovi would find too cliched, like "Knockin' on Mine" and "Runaway Wind"? Most of the material here sounds like the theme music to "Friends" played by scrappier musicians, with the rarity "Stain Yer Blood" even having the dubious distinction of appearing on the television show's cash-in soundtrack alongside music by Barenaked Ladies and Toad the Wet Sprocket. Add to that a disastrous lack of direction that sees our hero seeking refuge in gruff, tuneless blues and you begin to wonder if a more appropriate title wouldn't have been "Worsterberg"?

Pop Quiz: Joe Perry

Pop Quiz: Joe Perry

Aidin Vaziri | When Joe Perry was not busy last year rocking out with Aerosmith, bottling his Boneyard Brew hot sauce or playing with his grandkids, the guitar player was putting riffs and poetry together for his self-titled solo album -- the first in more than 20 years. Even though it contains covers of the Doors' "The Crystal Ship" and Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man," Perry stays pretty much faithful to his band's stadium-filling blues-rock sound, unlike Rob Thomas, who has miraculously turned into Justin Timberlake on his solo debut.



Joe Perry of Aerosmith
Q: So, what drugs were you on when you recorded the Doors' "The Crystal Ship"?
A: I had enough left over from the old days. I've been in a permanent state of euphoria since, I don't know, 1968.
Q: Your Jim Morrison impression is not so bad.
A: I was just reading some of his poetry and putting some guitar behind it. What happened was I was just driving around and singing along to that first Doors record and I said, "I can do this." That's pretty much it.
Q: Did you try recording your hot sauce on any of the songs? You know, just like the sizzling noise for percussion?
A: No, I should have done that.
Q: If you go on tour you can come out onstage and squirt some hot sauce on your guitar and then light it on fire.
A: Well, I'm only going to do a couple live shows and TV shows, but that's a good idea.

Live Review: Coldplay

Live Review: Coldplay

Coldplay's intimate Fillmore show worth whatever you paid: Aidin Vaziri | While hardcore fans offered to trade cars, bottles of expensive wine and even their bodies for a pair of black-market tickets, those lucky enough to actually land a couple for the measly asking price of $26 per ticket stood in the rain for hours Wednesday as the line outside the Fillmore ran down and around a very sizable block. Even there, people with sad faces marched back and forth through the gray drizzle holding cardboard signs offering hundreds of dollars to anyone who could get them into the show. It might seem a little much. But, really, when will anyone ever get the chance to see Coldplay this up-close-and-personal again without the aid of NASA's gamma-ray telescope? And it was well worth it. Chris Martin led the charge through 90 minutes of beautifully crafted songs, broke into his inimitable dance routines -- in which he hopped on one leg, wobbled his head and humped the piano -- and delivered every song with unblinking intensity. Yet the best moment came when the band briefly veered off the set list for an endearing but disastrous run through "Don't Panic," from its multiplatinum 2000 debut, "Parachutes." After forgetting the chords and the words midway through, Martin stood up from the piano and cut it off, drooping his head. "That's why we're the third-best band in the world," he laughed.

Party Ben's Monster Mash-Up

Party Ben's Monster Mash-Up

A DJ's 'mash-up' of sound-alike tunes by the likes of Green Day is getting mad airplay -- and no one's sued yet: Aidin Vaziri | The first time Ben Gill, a disc jockey and producer at Live 105, heard Green Day's single "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," he thought it sounded a little familiar. So he dug through the radio station's extensive CD library and came up with a match: Oasis' "Wonderwall." And then another one: Travis' "Writing to Reach You." With easy access to high-end production equipment and a broadcast microphone, he did what any sensible person in his position would do. He walked down the hall to the production room, spliced the three songs together -- throwing in a bit of Aerosmith and Eminem for good measure -- and put his creation on the air. That was six months ago. Since then, Gill's unauthorized mash-up, "Boulevard of Broken Songs," has gotten radio play in places as remote as Portugal, Singapore and Pago Pago (no, really), as well as just about every major alternative rock station in every major city in the United States. It was in regular rotation on Paris' Oui 102.3 FM. It has netted stacks of press, topped with the most recent clipping from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. And various people have tried to slap their names on it and call it their own. "The thanks I think I'm getting is the lack of cease-and-desist letters," says Gill.

DJ A.M.: Hollywood Shuffle

DJ A.M.: Hollywood Shuffle

DJ hired to play SFMOMA party says it's about tunes, not his L.A. glitz: Aidin Vaziri | Yes, we know Adam Michael Goldstein is the soon-to-be-husband of Nicole Richie. And, sure, he used to play with Crazy Town and Papa Roach, two of the more dubious bands not just in recent memory but of the whole past century. But it's his record collection that reassures us that the 32-year-old Philadelphia native who goes by the professional name DJ AM is the right guy to rock the Post-Modern Party after the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Modern Ball on Wednesday. Surveying the stacks of vinyl crowding the walls and floors of his Los Angeles home, he estimates over the phone that there must be something like 7, 000 discs in there, ranging from Wu-Tang Clan's "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" to Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Of course, he could make room for a few more but then where would he put the 600 designer sneakers he owns? Between his four regular weekly gigs -- two in Hollywood, two at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas -- and the wedding planning, it's lucky Goldstein made time at all for the San Francisco event. Having served as Hollywood's unofficial celebrity DJ since 1993, when he held a residency at the popular star lair Dragonfly, he contends that now the perfect night doesn't entail playing Killers records for the likes of Brad Pitt and Lindsay Lohan but loading up on rented videos and microwave popcorn. "Home with my fiancee, relaxing and watching movies in bed," Goldstein says. "That's my favorite thing."

Singing Lessons With Seth Riggs

Singing Lessons With Seth Riggs

Aidin Vaziri | When we first called voice teacher Seth Riggs at his Los Angeles studio, he picked up the phone and emitted the most amazing multi-octave wail. Then we realized that we had accidentally dialed his fax machine. So we tried again on his real phone, and the 75-year-old whose clients have included Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Barbra Streisand spent about an hour playing random chord progressions on his piano, making weird noises with his mouth and talking about old-school show business people who may or may not have been around during the Civil War. But just when we were starting to think Riggs was completely out of his tree, he started talking smack about Madonna, Josh Groban and "American Idol," and then we knew he was a genius.



Seth Riggs
Q: Hello?
A: We have four principals at the Metropolitan Opera right now, and we've had as many as six Broadway leads in one shot. Like Doug Sills in "The Scarlet Pimpernel." Bernadette Peters in "Annie." Oh, Peter Gallagher did "Guys and Dolls." The girl that did "Miss Saigon." You know. Here in L.A., we had the first black "Phantom." That was Robert Guillaume.
Q: These are real people?
A: We've had a lot of very fine people in that area. And then I have 120 Grammys here in the studio.
Q: Where do you keep them?
A: Well, they didn't give them to me, but the people have won that many.
Q: So the Grammys are not actually there?
A: Wouldn't that be something, because I did all of Quincy Jones' work and he's got like 52. He started out with Bessie Smith.
Q: The horse? Actually, I've been told I sing like a donkey. Can you teach a donkey to sing?
A: All right. We just left this interview. Can you roll your tongue?
Q: Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
A: Perfect. That's it. Now don't stop the tongue.
Q: The dogs around the corner are actually barking.
A: Perfect. What I'm so excited about is you're going right in your head voice. You're saying, "That's the stupidest thing I ever did." Yes, it probably is. But it tricks you into making that bridge.
Q: Do you think I'm ready to audition for an off-Broadway run of "Cats"?
A: I don't make stars. I assist the vocals that God has already given them as gifts. Now, Macaulay Culkin. They called me to help him with "Home Alone 2." He couldn't find his pitch with a map and a flashlight. But when I gave him these stupid exercises he finally got the pitches, and he did it.
Q: So I'm at least as good as Macaulay Culkin?
A: And Val Kilmer. When he did "The Doors," he did all the voice. And when you see Kim Basinger in "The Marrying Man," that's all her. She did the whole damn thing. Whoopi Goldberg in "Sister Act 2." She had never sung. I've got a whole list of people.
Q: Damn, I'm awesome.

Pop Quiz: Embrace

Pop Quiz: Embrace

Aidin Vaziri | Forget about the Pixies and Morrissey. The biggest comeback story this year is Embrace, a British band that was tipped to crush Oasis six years ago but got sidetracked by an incredible string of bad luck that left it dropped by its label and forgotten by the public. Then Chris Martin, whose band Coldplay once opened for Embrace, intervened. Handing over the single "Gravity," he gave the group its first Top 10 hit in six years, just in time for the release of its fourth album and U.S. premiere, "Out of Nothing."



Danny McNamara of Embrace
Q: The British magazines made it out like you were standing in the social welfare line every other day after the band got dropped. How bad did things get?
A: At one point, three of us had day jobs. One of us was welding. One of us was delivering bottles of water. Another one was selling advertising space. On top of that, our guitar player was selling guitars and amps out for his house on eBay just to make ends meet. So we were pretty skint.
Q: It's a good thing you didn't do anything embarrassing, like star in a Burger King commercial.
A: Yeah, just about. It was tough. If you had said at that point that the new album would sell more than our three other albums put together and that we would be selling out gigs in front of 12,000 people, I wouldn't have believed it.
Q: Why didn't you just hit the casino and livestock circuit?
A: I never wanted to do that. I always wanted it to be about our last record and for it to be relevant. I never wanted to get into doing a greatest- hits tour over and over. The only thing getting dropped by our label did was give us our ambition back. It's an ugly word when applied to most things, but it just made us write better songs.