Pop Quiz: Fiona Apple

Pop Quiz: Fiona Apple

Aidin Vaziri | If you've been wondering if Fiona Apple is going to go bat-crazy in the middle of a song and run off the stage when she plays three shows in the Bay Area this week, stop. After taking six years off to do pretty much nothing, the Grammy-winning songwriter has grown up and mellowed out. After the release of her third studio album, "Extraordinary Machine," in October, Apple spent several incident-free months on the road playing a solo theater tour and supporting Coldplay.

Fiona Apple
Q: You don't drink, do you?
A: Yes, I do. Oh my God, yes.
Q: Hooray! Wait, does that help or make things worse?
A: If I drink too much I can go into being an angry drunk or a very sad drunk. But I can never play that risky game. I can have a little bit of alcohol before the show, and that's fine. It takes the edge off. But just that much.
Q: Was it nerve-racking playing with Coldplay?
A: It was the easiest thing in the world. It was such a short set, you don't even get tired. I didn't even care if people weren't listening. Most of the audiences were really great, but if they were eating their hot dogs or whatever, it didn't matter because then it became this thing where the band and I were just playing for each other. It was the most useful thing to know that I could survive in that situation and not freak out like I used to.
Q: Were there any Apple mix-ups backstage? Like, if someone said, "Hey, Apple!" would you turn around, but they were actually talking to Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow's baby?
A: No. I heard she was actually at the show one day, but I never even saw the little girl.
Q: But it could have been possible.
A: It could have been possible. If I would have been in the same room, I would have turned around.

Review: Björk "Surrounded"

Review: Björk "Surrounded"

Bjork "Surrounded": Aidin Vaziri | It costs too much, the quality of the music is wildly inconsistent and we're still not certain why anyone needs to own an album in both DVD and traditional CD formats. Otherwise, this box set containing deluxe edition reissues of Björk's entire solo catalog gets it right -- the sound quality is incredible, the packaging attractive and bundling each double-sided disc with its accompanying music videos is a smart move, although including the B-sides for each album would have made it even better. While it's hard to guess who "Surrounded" was made for -- Björk's obsessive fans surely already have all the material here and it sounded fine the first time around, while newcomers will simply be overwhelmed by the rash of fax machine beats and Inuit throat singers -- it provides a great opportunity to re-evaluate the groundbreaking work of the cosmic Icelandic songstress. It culminates with her most recent albums, 2004's "Medulla," which was built entirely around vocal samples, no instruments, and last year's darkly restrained score for "Drawing Restraint 9," almost entirely instrumental -- releases that are so ahead of their time they are still largely unlistenable. Meanwhile, her first post-Sugarcubes releases, 1993's club-hopping "Debut" and 1995's string-laden "Post," already sound dated, especially the thumping single "Army of Me." So it's her mid-period stuff that does wonders -- 1997's "Homogenic" bravely fuses techno and classical with desperately lovelorn lyrics in tunes like "Joga" and "Bachlorette" that help it retain its urgency. Meanwhile, 2001's emotionally uninhibited "Vespertine" towers above everything else with its blueprint-shredding arrangements and old-fashioned poignancy, particularly during the last few seconds of "Pagan Poetry," where Björk chants "I love him, I love him, I love him." She makes the point that few people can deliver such a common sentiment in such an uncommonly evocative way.

On The Scene: Baby Loves Disco

On The Scene: Baby Loves Disco

Hey, baby -- it's time to get your groove on at the clubs. Just don't forget to bring some diapers and a bottle. Oh, Mom and Dad too: Aidin Vaziri | They were fighting in the lobby, peeing in the hallway and nodding off on the dance floor. It wasn't the kind of behavior the burly bouncers standing watch over the velvet rope at Ruby Skye, a sleek nightclub in downtown San Francisco, usually tolerate. On Saturday, however, they were simply outnumbered. Baby Loves Disco, the monthly traveling dance party for swivel-hipped toddlers and their culturally deprived parents, had rolled into town. Shortly after the doors opened at 2 p.m., the place was so packed that Sarah Mallace, who was working the list, had to get tough. "We've been turning people away," she said, as young parents balancing bottles, blankies and diaper bags waited out front. Strollers were parked four rows deep at the entrance. Inside the club, Soomee Arikawa bounced under the disco ball to Frankie Smith's "Double Dutch Bus" as her 9-month-old son, Tayme, took everything in from the safety of a BabyBjörn carrier strapped to her chest. "There's nothing else like this," the San Francisco native said. "My whole mommies group is here." The dance floor was crowded with wobbly small fry from 3 weeks to 10 years old along with their grinning parents, all jiggling, running and shouting to classics by the likes of Michael Jackson, Kool & the Gang, Madonna, the Bee Gees and Prince. "I think he's delirious because he's missing his nap," said one chic mother, chasing after a screaming toddler with a Mohawk.

Pop Quiz: Smokey Robinson

Pop Quiz: Smokey Robinson

Aidin Vaziri | Smokey Robinson, 66, makes his entry into the Great American Songbook craze on "Timeless Love," an album of standards that is the Motown superstar's first non-gospel or holiday album since 1999's saucy "Intimate." On the new disc, Robinson lends his distinctive voice to easy-listening greats such as "I've Got You Under My Skin," "Tea for Two," and "Moody's Mood for Love." Robinson, the former leader of the Miracles, has recorded an astounding 70 Top 40 hits in his 50 years in the music business. He marks the golden anniversary with another flurry of activity.

Smokey Robinson
Q: So, in the past few years you've made a standards album, a gospel album, a baby-making album and also started a supermarket line of microwave gumbo. Are you going through an identity crisis?
A: No, I'm not really trying to find myself. I know I'm going to be me for the rest of my life. Like I said, the songs on this particular CD are songs I've been singing all along. The food thing came up, and one of the main draw points for me to get involved is we're going to have seminars and forums and educational classes for young inner-city and minority kids.
Q: And for microwave gumbo, it's not that bad. Not that I've really had anything to compare it with.
A: Thank you.
Q: You also want to get into some acting?
A: That's still the case.
Q: Do you have anything coming up?
A: Not right now. I'm waiting for the proper one to come along. I don't expect to star in any movies or anything like that. I just want a good role I can sink my teeth into.
Q: What would be your ideal role?
A: I don't have anything in mind. Nothing. Whatever it is, as long as it's a good part that has some substance.
Q: Maybe like a kung fu detective?
A: All right. Pass that along to Hollywood.
Q: Do you think you could do Chef on "South Park"?
A: Not really. I think Isaac has got that covered.
Q: He quit.
A: Oh, no. I didn't hear that.
Q: Send your resume.

Review: Keane

Review: Keane

Keane "Under The Iron Sea": Aidin Vaziri | It's funny. Young bands spend a lifetime angling for a record deal and all the luxuries it brings only to fall apart the second the world falls into their arms. That's the story of Keane, the piano-driven British trio that scored big with its 2004 premiere album, "Hopes and Fears," after seven years of struggle. With guitarless, rainy day hits such as "Somewhere Only We Know" and "This Is the Last Time," the disc inspired comparisons to Coldplay, sold millions around the world, earned the band a spot on the star-studded Live 8 bill, and made it popular enough to headline Madison Square Garden and land a ripe opening slot on U2's last tour. Yet when it came time to make a follow-up, the band fell apart. Singer Tom Chaplin was missing. Keyboard player and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley was suffering from terrible bouts of anxiety. And drummer Richard Hughes was simply left wondering what was going on. "We wrote 'Under the Iron Sea' because we needed a record that was going to make us feel alive again," the band explains in the album's press material, and, sure enough, this is a darker, more complicated disc than its lovelorn predecessor. Simple romantic sentiments have been shoved aside for creeping bitterness in songs such as "Crystal Ball" and "A Bad Dream," while the dense arrangements throughout betray the band's knack for turning out an epic melody. The first single, "Is It Any Wonder," sounds like "Achtung Baby"-era U2, when the Berlin chill set on its earthy quest for glory. To hear Keane arrive at this point so quickly is at once encouraging and alarming. If the band can keep it together, its third album just might be a killer. With "Under the Iron Sea" it's literally sink or swim.

Notes on Paul McCartney Turning 64

Notes on Paul McCartney Turning 64

He's 64: Aidin Vaziri | We hate to kick the guy while he's down but this seems as good a time as any to remind everyone that tomorrow Paul McCartney turns 64. Just like he said he would on "When I’m Sixty-Four," the worst song from the Beatles' best album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Let's have a look at his state of affairs on this momentous occasion.

1. McCartney opens the song with the lines, "When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now/ Will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?" Let's see, if by "birthday greetings" and "bottle of wine" he actually means "divorce papers" and "pornographic photos of my estranged wife Heather Mills-McCartney in the tabloids," then the answer would be affirmative.

2. "Will you still need me, will you still feed me/ When I'm 64?" McCartney appears on the cover of last month's AARP magazine. When reading the article, try not to get distracted by the web exclusive, Tofu: The True Diplomat.

3. "Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?" No qualms there. McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings essentially broke up on January 16, 1980, when McCartney was arrested for possession of marijuana as the group arrived at Tokyo's Narita International Airport for a Japanese tour. He served nine days in jail and the tour was cancelled.

4. "When I'm Sixty-Four" was reportedly written as a gift for his father on his 64th birthday.

5. "Hmm, mmm, mmmh." Reviewing McCartney's latest album, last year's "Chaos and Creation In The Backyard," which was produced by Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich, Britain's New Musical Express said, "By teaming up with Godrich, McCartney has come out of his safety zone and challenged himself in a way not seen since his first solo album way back in 1970. But the feeling remains that the one person who could really inspire him to write one final classic record was tragically murdered in 1980."

6. "Send me a postcard, drop me a line stating point of view." Even though he received an obligatory writing credit, John Lennon said in a 1980 Playboy interview, "I would never even dream of writing a song like that." He was shot and killed later that year at 40.

7. Ringo Starr was the first Beatle to turn 64. That was in 2004.

8. George Harrison died of throat cancer at 58.

9. "Indicate precisely what you mean to say, yours sincerely wasting away." Actually, recent scientific studies show 64 is the new 44. Since 1967, the average life expectancy in the United States has risen from 70.5 to 77.9 years. Scientists, what do they know?

10. That's it. Have a good one, Paul.

Pop Quiz: A.F.I.

Pop Quiz: A.F.I.

Aidin Vaziri | Is he or isn't he? That seems to be the big question surrounding A.F.I.'s gender-bending lead singer, Davey Havok. But the more relevant one is: What does it matter? The Bay Area goth-punk group has just released its most ambitious album, "Decemberunderground," and has gate-crashed the malls and fast-food restaurant speakers of mainstream America with its snarling first single, "Miss Murder."


Davey Havok of A.F.I.
Q: Did you plan on releasing "Decemberunderground" on the totally evil date of 06/06/06? Are you into all that weird stuff?
A: It was actually for my grandmother's birthday. She turned 90 years old the day "Decemberunderground" came out.
Q: No other reason?
A: No. I just thought it would be a great birthday present. Honestly, no. It was a coincidence.
Q: So it's not true that you eat children and have sex with goats?
A: Actually, that's on 06/06/08. That's the day of eating the vegan babies and fornicating with the wildlife.
Q: What are some of the best rumors?
A: I heard recently that I used to date Patrick Swayze.
Q: In the rumor, did you cuddle together and listen to "She's Like the Wind"?
A: You know we did.

Pop Quiz: Steven Seagal

Pop Quiz: Steven Seagal

Aidin Vaziri | Everyone knows Steven Seagal, the awesome action hero who's not afraid to rock ponytails, marry Kelly LeBrock and hug panda bears. But who knew that under that stoic tough-guy exterior there was a wild Delta bluesman clawing his way out? Not us. But it turns out the star of such blockbuster films as "Under Siege" and "Under Siege II: Dark Territory" (he's been doing mostly straight-to-video stuff lately), has just released his second album, "Mojo Priest." That's right, his second. The first one had Stevie Wonder on it. If he saw David Hasselhoff backstage, he would totally kick his butt back to last Thursday.

Steven Seagal
Q: A lot of people don't even know you play music.
A: Okaaay.
Q: What kind of music do you play?
A: Authentic Delta blues, I guess.
Q: Really? Since when?
A: About 40, 50 years.
Q: But people don't like actors who play music. How do you get around that?
A: I play for them. Forgive my rudeness, get Keanu Reeves or Kevin Bacon or any of them to play for you and then tell me what you think. You'll see the difference real quick. OK?
Q: What do you put in the occupation box on your tax return: Actor, musician or professional ass-kicker?
A: Well, my first love is music. I can say that. I make more money in the movies.
Q: Do you think some people come see you just because they think you're going to blow stuff up?
A: I would be guessing, just like you are, why people come to see me. Some know about my musicianship and songs. I have albums out in different parts of the world. I've been playing concerts all over the world for a long, long time.
Q: Nobody knows all this. It's like breaking news.

Reviews: Snow Patrol, Final Fantasy

Reviews: Snow Patrol, Final Fantasy

Snow Patrol "Eyes Open": Aidin Vaziri | Right about now, Chris Martin should be watching his back. After years of sounding like a middling university band (largely because it was), Belfast's Snow Patrol sprang to life on 2004's "Final Straw," thanks to the towering pop singles "Run" and "Chocolate." Two years later, the ridiculously named band returns with an album that slays from the very first notes of its rumbling opener, "You're All I Have." Singer Gary Lightbody may stomp through the familiar wasteland of relationships, but he has a way of turning things upside down with stinging lines like, "Somehow everything I own smells of you." And in "Chasing Cars," the band has come up with its crowning moment, a U2-worthy stunner complete with chiming guitars and epic chorus that will melt the competition.

Final Fantasy "He Poos Clouds": Aidin Vaziri | Owen Pallett dresses up in sailor suits, obsesses over video games and was once described in a New York Times headline as, "The World's Most Popular Gay Postmodern Harpsichord Nerd." Trained as an opera composer, the Toronto-based musician first grabbed the public's imagination through his work as a string arranger on "Funeral," the Arcade Fire's breakthrough disc. "He Poos Clouds" is the tastefully titled second album by his violin-driven solo project, Final Fantasy. It's certainly not easy listening. Songs like "This Lamb Sells Condos" and "Arctic Circle" sound like carnival music gone wrong, with creeping strings, seesawing piano flourishes and Pallett's histrionic voice serving to make them the most frightening thing that has happened to popular music since the last Shakira video.

Live Review: Arctic Monkeys

Live Review: Arctic Monkeys

We're the young generation, and we've got something to say: Aidin Vaziri | The Monkeys appeared as four slouching figures in a puff of purple smoke, tentatively clutching their instruments and keeping their eyes firmly focused on their shoelaces. The first few songs passed in a blur of raw, ragged energy, each one seemingly tossed off. The tempo never shifted. The fog never lifted. Heavy-lidded singer Alex Turner barely said a word, intelligible or otherwise. It wasn't until the band reached its whacked-out first single, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor," well past the halfway mark of its hourlong set, that the walls started to shake violently. From then on, the tuneless metallic clamor of the first bit of the show gave way to the sly R&B groove of "Leaving Before the Lights Come On" (courtesy of replacement bass player Nick O'Malley, who was, ironically, playing with a broken hand), the gnawing punk melody of "When the Sun Goes Down," and the bitter, seesawing chorus of club hit, "Fake Tales of San Francisco." But how many more of those do they have in them? It might be saying something that they left the stage without an encore.

Summer Tours Preview 2006

Summer Tours Preview 2006

Slap on the sunscreen, tank up the car -- Bruce, Shakira and a pack of 'Idols' are headed your way: Aidin Vaziri | If you stick together the biggest tours this season -- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, the Black Crowes, Counting Crows, the Flaming Lips and Nine Inch Nails -- the whole thing starts to resemble a Lollapalooza bill from 1993. All that's missing are a couple Smashing Pumpkins and Holes. But let's not tempt fate. We've already got the Def Leppard/Journey doubleheader to contend with.

AMERICAN IDOLS LIVE
Katharine McPhee, Taylor Hicks and eight other aspiring singers whose names you've already forgotten from the past season do big-time karaoke.

RADIOHEAD
"Spooks." "Bodysnatchers." "House of Cards." No, it's not a B-movie horror film festival. Those are the "enigmatic" titles of the new songs Radiohead is airing during this tour preceding its next release.

COUNTING CROWS/GOO GOO DOLLS
There are people who might expect this concert to sound like one long soft-drink commercial. These people most likely have ESP.

FIONA APPLE/DAMIEN RICE
Two socially awkward, emotionally bruised singer-songwriters sharing the stage? This could be the most disastrous pairing since Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson.

EMMYLOU HARRIS and MARK KNOPFLER
When the former Dire Straits front man and the Nashville duet queen come together, it's kind of like Dolly and Kenny without the boobs and beards.

NINE INCH NAILS/BAUHAUS
Break out the top hats and rainbow suspenders! Oh, wait. Actually, it's break out the black mascara and rusty razor blades as two of the world's biggest gloom merchants join forces.

PEARL JAM/SONIC YOUTH
Currently experiencing a late career comeback thanks to Clive Davis (the man behind recent successes by Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart), the Seattle rockers carry the grunge flame through yet another year with the help of fellow New York stalwarts Sonic Youth.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
Celebrating their first No. 1 album in a 22-year career punctuated by death, tragedy and lack of clothes, the Chili Peppers confusingly bring "Stadium Arcadium" to an arena.

CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG
The grizzled hippie quartet's first outing together since 2002 is called Freedom of Speech '06. As in, "CSNY is touring again? S -- ! F -- ! C -- !"

SHAKIRA
We need about 70,000 more bilingual belly dancing pop stars. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with the bottle-blond Colombian star behind "Hips Don't Lie."

DEF LEPPARD/JOURNEY
Whatever profits California's smoking restrictions took away from the lighter industry, this tour will single-handedly restore them tenfold.

Pop Quiz: Scott Stapp

Pop Quiz: Scott Stapp

Aidin Vaziri | Scott Stapp, 32, is the last honest rock star -- getting too drunk to finish shows, picking fights with other bands' girlfriends, making sex tapes with Kid Rock. Oh, and how about when earlier this year he married former Miss New York Jaclyn Nesheiwat in Miami and got arrested the next day at Los Angeles International Airport for public intoxication on the way to his honeymoon in Hawaii? Why can't everyone be just like him? After years as the front man for multiplatinum-selling Florida Christian rock band Creed, last year Stapp released his solo debut, "The Great Divide." It's awesome, in a shirtless guy standing on top of a mountain screaming his head off kind of a way. Stapp is currently on tour with INXS.

Scott Stapp
Q: You're opening for INXS. Are you worried people are going to be like, "Oh, he's going to be drunk and fall over," or "Maybe he's going to punch INXS in the face"?
A: Not at all, man. That's what I kind of enjoy doing the most, winning over new people and playing in front of an audience that's like, "OK, prove yourself to me." It reminds me of 1997 when I was in Creed. Back then it was, "He's this Christian guy who thinks he's better than everybody."
Q: In a way, being Christian is worse than being wasted.
A: Now people relate to me more and people understand me more. It's weird because that's the perspective from the rock 'n' roll industry.
Q: If you were a rapper like Ludacris, you would make a whole album about being drunk at the airport and it would win 18 Grammys.
A: I feel you, man. I think it all goes back to people's preconceived ideas of who I am. That's what I keep going back to. I never came out saying I was this or that.
Q: And what's the problem with making a sex tape with Kid Rock?
A: It was just something that happened, and I would have liked for it not to be public and to stay in the dark. When it starts affecting people around you, then it's not something to be brushed aside.
Q: At least you learned one thing: not to have a video camera in the room.
A: You could say that again.
Q: That's a sign of maturity and growth.

Reviews: American Idol "Season 5 Encores"

Reviews: American Idol "Season 5 Encores"

American Idol "Season 5 Encores": Aidin Vaziri | Like Sasquatch, unicorns and the Chalupa Supreme, it's a mystery scientists of the future will be pondering for years: Why did millions of people devoutly tune into the Fox network every week for a glorified karaoke contest featuring so many bad singers doing so many bad songs? Despite Paula Abdul's progressively incoherent rants and finalist Taylor Hicks' horrifying dance moves, the fifth season of "American Idol" proved as riveting as ever, with an unexpected group of front-runners that bucked the series' seemingly unspoken rule that the louder you sing the further you will go (well, except for crowd favorite Katharine McPhee, pictured at left). The show's magical allure was so strong that people unwillingly found themselves rooting for Chris Daughtry, the guy who sounded like the lead singer of Staind. But without Simon Cowell's spot-on commentary and the thrill of sending some off-key loser home the very next night, it's not quite the same, which makes this highlights disc nearly as pointless as a new Justin Guarini album. Half the aspiring Beyonces have already disappeared into the pop culture ether (Melissa McGhee? Lisa Tucker?) while others, such as the insufferable Kevin "Chicken Little" Covais, are just painful reminders of the wasted hours spent in front of the tube. There are no showstoppers. Nothing even worth hearing twice. Mandisa's "I'm Every Woman" is OK, until you remember that she's purportedly homophobic and definitely not Chaka Khan. On live television, Ace Young's version of George Michael's "Father Figure" felt like a star-making moment. Now it feels like a waste of five. And if only it was possible to hear Hicks' spin on "Takin' It to the Streets" without picturing him slapping his knees. Oh, the embarrassment.