Son Volt - November 1997 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - November 2nd, 1997

There is a new wave of young American “alternative country” bands daring to re-evaluate their national music heritage. Nashville pedal steel guitars now sit easily in the kind of independently minded acts that would once have considered them heresy. They draw in fans old enough to remember country rock’s first wave of the Byrds and…

Rachel’s Rex - October 1997 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - October 5th, 1997

Late last month, Cecil Sharp House, the English Folk song Society HQ in Regent’s Park, hosted the UK debut for Rex and Rachel’s, twin leading lights of a hardy hybrid strain of American post-rock dynamics and folk classical sensibilities. A 500-strong crowd on plastic seating saw Rachel’s showcase last year’s essential Sea & the Bells…

Yo La Tengo - July 1997 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - July 13th, 1997

The centre of the New Jersey trio Yo La Tengo’s 1993 album, Painful, features a blurred polaroid of a plate of French fries. Neil Young’s French fries. Yo La Tengo’s guitarist Ira Kaplan, a moon-faced thirtysomething once described as “the Jewish Jimi Hendrix”, had lunched with the grandfather of grunge in a New York restaurant…

Bill Hicks - March 1997 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - March 2nd, 1997

At the time of his death from pancreatic cancer three years ago, the American comic Bill Hicks was revolutionising stand-up comedy. A regular on David Letterman’s television show at home, here he could sell out West End theatres. With a brooding, rock-star-like stage presence, Hicks was feted by comedians such as Rob Newman and Sean…

Eleventh Dream Day - February 1997 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - February 16th, 1997

Rick Rizzo, guitarist and songwriter of the Chicago band Eleventh Dream Day, is growing into contemplative maturity. He’s embarking on the traditional “difficult” later career phase, without ever having enjoyed the commercial success that ought to precede cult status. After more than a decade at the helm of the most consistently overlooked American band of…

Pavement - February 1997 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - February 2nd, 1997

‘Notebooks out, plagiarists!” ran the sleeve notes of the Fall’s 1991 album Shiftwork. The veteran Manchester band’s frontman, Mark E Smith, tends towards an inventive paranoia, but in the case of the American indie quintet Pavement, he couldn’t have been more right. Their acclaimed 1991 debut, Slanted and Enchanted, was the sound of the Fall’s…