Review: Britney Spears

Review: Britney Spears

Britney Spears 'Blackout': Aidin Vaziri | Things I'd rather do than listen to Britney Spears' new album: (1) Change Koko the talking gorilla's diaper, (2) Watch "You've Got Mail" twice, (3) Eat the Malibu chicken platter at Sizzler, (4) Play Frisbee with a cat, (5) Make out with Jenna Bush, (5) Lick lead paint off a set of recalled Thomas the Tank Engine trains, (6) Shove a dozen Twinkies down the back of my pants and sit on a beanbag, (7) Go trick-or-treating dressed as a smoking squirrel, (8) Marry Kevin Federline and give him custody of my children, (9) Exercise, (10) Karate-chop the Eiffel Tower in half, (11) Buy back my Wham! cassettes from Amoeba, (12) Train a pack of Doberman pinschers to rob a bank, (13) Listen to Backstreet Boys' new album, (14) Tattoo every character of the Mandarin language on my left leg, and (15) Stop looking at foot-fetish porn on the Internet. What am I waiting for? That's an awesome to-do list!

Pop Quiz: Nikki Sixx

Pop Quiz: Nikki Sixx

Aidin Vaziri | For someone who was declared legally dead in 1987 - at least for a few minutes - Nikki Sixx seems to be in rude health these days. The Mötley Crüe bassist recently released "The Heroin Diaries," a 400-plus-page book covering the year he nearly kicked the bucket while touring behind his band's "Girls, Girls, Girls" album. The book, by the way, premiered at No. 7 on the New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list. There's an accompanying soundtrack by his band Sixx:A.M. His clothing line, Royal Underground, is flying off the racks at high-end retailers. And last month, the 48-year-old rocker, born Frank Feranna, spoke out about addiction on Capitol Hill.

Nikki Sixx
Q: How did you remember any of the material for this book, considering you were dead for a good part of it?
A: I always kept journals. I still do. This little time capsule was important to me because it shows all the different sides of how people go from nothing to achieving everything and still having a lot of unanswered questions that haunt them. I was asking a lot of questions.
Q: What's your guiltiest pleasure?
A: Sadly, I'm addicted to the series "House."
Q: When I hear Nikki Sixx begin a sentence with the words "sadly, I'm addicted to," that's not how I want it to end.
A: I know. But he is such an -hole I can't help but root for him. Maybe there's a little bit of me in there.
Q: How much life insurance do you have?
A: You're assuming someone would give me some. Continue reading.

Devil Doll: "Tip The Bartenders"

Devil Doll: "Tip The Bartenders"

Devil Doll rocks at Rockit Room: Aidin Vaziri | Not sure what to make of Devil Doll's music, we consulted the group's singer-songwriter, Colleen Duffy. "Take some '40s jazz and mix it with rockabilly, Latin and swing," she said. "I'm really inspired by torch singers, but I grew up on punk rock." Whatever you want to call it, the Los Angeles outfit that just released an album called "The Return of Eve" will play it Sunday at Rockit Room, marking its first live appearance in San Francisco since opening a string of shows for Social Distortion at the Fillmore two years ago. "People are either going to come because they're mad that it's been so long since we've been there, or they're going to come just to experience the new songs," Duffy said. "As long as they turn out and tip the bartenders, I don't care."

Pop Quiz: Joe Henry

Pop Quiz: Joe Henry

Aidin Vaziri | Joe Henry is one of the great unknowns - even though he won a Grammy for his work on Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up on Me," wrote a hit for his sister-in-law Madonna, and has produced acclaimed works by Aimee Mann, Loudon Wainwright III, and Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint. Two two decades after starting his own music career, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter remains popular only to NPR listeners. His 10th solo release, "Civilians," probably won't change that, even though it's stuffed with clever literary-pop gems that evoke Tom Waits and Randy Newman.

Joe Henry
Q: Are you the only person alive who's worked with both Ornette Coleman and Madonna?
A: Yes, as far as I know. I'm certainly the only person who's worked with Ornette Coleman, Madonna and Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
Q: That's the combo to have?
A: That's the trifecta. Anybody could hit two of those bases. The trick is to hit all three.
Q: I'm sure Elvis Costello could give you a run for the money.
A: We've actually had this conversation. He's worked with a lot of good people, but not that particular combination.
Q: Do you have any good stories about the time you were the opening act on a solo tour by Glenn Frey of the Eagles?
A: Not a single one. I've had that chip removed from my brain and donated to the Smithsonian. Continue reading.

Review: Dave Gahan

Review: Dave Gahan

Dave Gahan 'Hourglass': Aidin Vaziri | Declared clinically dead for a full six minutes just over a decade ago after taking a particularly potent combination of heroin and cocaine at the Hollywood Sunset Marquis, Depeche Mode front man Dave Gahan not only came out alive but also continues to roar with renewed creative vigor. After 23 years of singing songs by Vince Clarke and Martin Gore, he released a surprisingly decent self-penned solo album four years ago. Its follow-up is even better, taking the best elements of his band's saturnine electro-rock and updating them with a fresh coat of black enamel. Those who have nearly worn out their copies of "Violator" will want to pay extra attention to the sky-punching glam stomp of "Kingdom" and intense navel-gazing of "A Little Lie," now with added life experience.

Justin Currie: Del Amitri Frontman Goes Solo

Justin Currie: Del Amitri Frontman Goes Solo

Ex-Del Amitri front man Justin Currie releases solo CD: Aidin Vaziri | "I started recording the album in my house, and that took a long time just because I got lazy," Currie said. "Anytime I should have done an overdub, I just made dinner and watched TV." Before recording even started, he spent a year touring with a Scottish soul-and-jazz-cover band called Button Up ("I was able to keep my voice in shape by doing really challenging things like 'Hercules' by Aaron Neville and 'Clean Up Woman' by Betty Wright, which was good fun"). The 42-year-old Glasgow native also devoted some time to singing with a real folk outfit called Blazin' Fiddles ("they are like the best Scottish fiddle players in one band") and recording an album with a fake '60s beat combo called the Uncle Devil Show (sample lyrics: "Gilbert O'Sullivan is everything you could need, if you've got kids to babysit or dogs to feed"). With "What Is Love For," however, Currie is getting back to doing what he does best: crafting intelligent, soulful late-night pop gems. Continue reading.

Pop Quiz: Debbie Harry

Pop Quiz: Debbie Harry

Aidin Vaziri | Deborah Harry hasn't released a solo album in 15 years, which is fine because most people have spent that time wearing out all the amazing singles she made with her band Blondie. But now that "Necessary Evil" has arrived, the 62-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee would like to redirect your attention to more than a dozen new songs she wrote for the disc, many of which she previewed on this past summer's True Colors tour with Cyndi Lauper and Erasure. Harry also took all the photographs for the album cover.

Debbie Harry
Q: What's your idea of romance?
A: Gee, I don't know. It's different. Real romance is sharing something and enjoying something with another person. It's not one specific thing. It's a moment.
Q: I was always led to believe it was a sunset stroll on the beach while drinking piña coladas.
A: It could be. It just depends on how you approach it.
Q: How would you describe yourself in a personal ad?
A: Oh, I don't know: Fun-loving sex maniac available.
Q: That should do the trick.
A: Yeah, that would work.
Q: You took the self-portraits on the album cover. Did you just hold a camera and reach out as far as you could?
A: Pretty much.
Q: Why didn't you call a real photographer?
A: I just thought, "I'll try this." It was a pretty interesting experience. With digital, you can't go wrong. You just erase your mistakes.
Q: So, basically, you were bored on a Tuesday night?
A: Not quite. I did it on a Sunday. Continue reading.

Review: Jennifer Lopez

Review: Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez 'Brave': Aidin Vaziri | Her movies are mind-blowingly stupid. Her perfume smells like horse urine. And let's not even get started on the men she sleeps with. The only thing Jennifer Lopez seems to occasionally get right is her music. And by "occasionally," we mean just twice so far: "Love Don't Cost a Thing" and "If You Had My Love." Nothing on her fifth English-language studio album comes close to those sublime pop triumphs. In fact, many of the songs, especially "Mile in These Shoes" and "I Need Love," are so bad you'll consider ramming your head into a steel door just to stop the torture. But make it halfway through the disc and there's "Gotta Be There," a minor gem that finds her sampling a young Michael Jackson and coming up with one of those lush, multilayered choruses that name-checks several major cities and makes you feel so ecstatic you won't even mind that it all sounds a bit 1997.

Elliott Smith: From Behind The Lens

Elliott Smith: From Behind The Lens

Portraits of Elliott Smith: Aidin Vaziri | Autumn de Wilde didn't exactly pick the easiest subject for her first picture book, "Elliott Smith" ($29.95, Chronicle Books). "He hated having his photo taken," the Los Angeles photographer says of the troubled singer-songwriter, who four years ago this month was found dead at 34 with two stab wounds in his chest. "What we had between us was trust, and all our ideas flowed from that." Best known for sad-eyed folk ballads such as "Between the Bars" and "Miss Misery" (which he surreally performed at the 1998 Oscars), Smith is featured in little-seen images in the 224-page book that astoundingly show him cracking smiles, pulling funny poses and generally having a ball in front of de Wilde's camera. "People always think about him sitting in a bar, depressed," the photographer says. "But he was so smart and so funny, even when he was down. This book is my humble attempt at trying to prevent him from becoming a cartoon character." Continue reading.

Live Review: Annie Lennox at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, 10/10/07

Live Review: Annie Lennox at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, 10/10/07

Soulful searching from pop chameleon Lennox: Aidin Vaziri | Launching her first American tour in four years with a slick five-piece band and two commanding backup singers, Lennox wore a sparkly little black dress over plain black trousers. Even though the old videos, which seemed to appear every time she dipped into her rich back catalog, provided a distracting game of "then and now," she looked ravishing. Lennox put showstopping exclamation marks on the stomping choruses of songs like "Walking on Broken Glass" and "Thorn in My Side." But it was the ballads that gave her soulful voice room to take flight, especially during the concert's exquisite centerpiece, "Cold," which came accompanied with an otherwise useless slide show depicting pictures of frost, ice and snow. Continue reading.

Pop Quiz: Annie Lennox

Pop Quiz: Annie Lennox

Aidin Vaziri | Annie Lennox has sold nearly 80 million solo albums worldwide, earned four Grammys and scored both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for "Into the West" from "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Not bad for a woman who started her career dressed like a man with a bad dye job as a member of the Eurythmics in the early days of MTV. Her fourth solo release, "Songs of Mass Destruction," finds Lennox in a typically confrontational mood, taking on the ills of the modern world. On "Sing," a song devoted to the treatment of pregnant women with HIV, she is joined by Madonna, Shakira, Bonnie Raitt, Celine Dion and Fergie.


Annie Lennox
Q: On this album you also take on global warming, the war in Iraq, AIDS in Africa and lots of other fun stuff. Have you ever written a happy song?
A: I'm not an ostrich. I live in this world, and I'm not about to pretend that everything is fantastic, because it's not. As a mother, I would love to see a future world where children are born not into medieval circumstances. I'm only touching on the surface with these topics. We could go on.
Q: What would Annie Lennox most likely be arrested for?
A: Very little. I'm terribly law- abiding.
Q: What? I thought we were ready to take on the world here.
A: You can do it without breaking the law. If I were arrested, it would probably be for something really banal, like sometimes I sneak a call on my mobile phone while I'm driving without pulling over.
Q: That's not even illegal in the United Sates. Would you at least climb up a tree to save it?
A: No. I would be terrified. I couldn't do that. I work within my own sphere of influence. Continue reading.

Review: Mick Jagger

Review: Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger 'The Very Best of Mick Jagger': Aidin Vaziri | If whoever came up with the title of this set was being really honest it would contain just one song: "Memo From Turner," Mick Jagger's bluesy masterpiece from the 1970 soundtrack to "Performance." The rest of the Rolling Stones front man's solo output has been unspectacular at best, most notable for embracing every unfortunate trend from the past three decades - overblown saxophone solos ("Too Many Cooks"), wiggy heavy-metal guitars ("Lucky in Love") and, well, Bono ("Joy"). It's not all bad. His romp with David Bowie on "Dancing in the Street" still raises a smile, and his moronic Michael Jackson duet "State of Shock" was kindly left out. Even better, one of the more recent selections, the sweetly self-reverential "Old Habits Die Hard," proves Jagger can still muster genius when required with a snap of his skinny fingers.