22 — Friday, March 26, 1999 - North Shore News New bag of tricks from Dummies Michael Becker News Editor michacl@nsnews.cont B x #xx Crash Test Dummies — Give Yourself A Hand (VIK Recordings/BMG 1998 74321 -63822-2) Who put the Dummies in the Harlem house? Brad Roberts did. baby. The city grit seems to have changed everything. Where Winnipeg inspired the philosophical nature of the quirky basso profundo, New York City has brought out falsetto, ironic cradity and sexually charged hip hop trimmings trom Roberts* bag of tricks. Dummies keyboardist Ellen Reid steps forward for lead vocals on three songs. The effect is much in the league of Evervthing But The Girl. Visic their label ar ewww. vikrecordings.com> to explore a very hip Web site. B xxx Blondie — No Exit (Beyond Music/BMG 1999 63965-78003-2) Deborah Harry polishes her heart of glass to step out right sprightly with an earnest attempt at recreating some of that old New Wave magic. Is it possible to be too overtly derivative if one is stealing from one’s own past? In this case 2 16-year gap between albums allow's the reconstituted Blondie — Harry, Chris Stein and fellow original members Jimmy Destri and Clem Burke — the elbow room to pull it off. For a new generation the stuff must sound fresh. Blondic runs a let of sound bases on No Evit in a multi-tasking bid to cover off numerous stylistic nuances. Ska, cheesy disco, peppy pop, in-yo-face rock ‘n’ rap courtesy of guest gangsta Coolio, mejodramatic balladry, and just to prove she’s got the spurs te go there — waltz-tempo country. The strategy is already paying dividends. The first single, Photo Chris Buck CRASH Test Dummies (left to right, Brad Roberts, Mitch Dorge, Ellen Reid, Dan Roberts and Benjamin Darvill) released their new CD Give Yourself A Hand \ast Tuesday. Maria, dcbuted at number one on the U.K. singles chart in February. For more go to . B xkkx«x Wilco — Summerteeth (1999 Reprise/WEA CDW 47282) Wilco’s hybrid mesh of raggedy neo-psychedelic country-rock is buffed with some breezy big production touches and throw-back key- board instrumentation that puts the sound smack dab back to the 1970s. Summer teeth rolls with simple tunes fleshed out with decep- : a tively simple lyrics that upon closer examination reward with some wonderful poetry. Watch for Wilco March 30 on David Letterman. Ger more on the band at . Win Crash Test Dummies new CD Enter to win a copy of Crash Test Dummies’ new CD Give Yourself A Hand plus a poster of the band. Tell us what city the band is from and if your name is drawn you will be a winner. Send your entries to Crash Test Dummies Contest, North Shore News, 1139 Lonsdale Ave., Morth Vancouver, B.C.V7M 2H4, Attention: John Goodman. You can fax entries to 985-2104 or e-mail . Deadline for the contest is Thursday,April I, 5 p.m.Winners will be contacted by phone. Winners. The Bad Girls Guide to the Open Road book — Tenny Bache The Mayfield Four Fallout CD — Robert A. Maier Fuel Sunburn CD —- James Ross Music in the vernacu This Week Editor johng@nsnews.com John Goodman V WHEN Cakland’s notori- ous f-word band F#&! appeared on BBC Radio I last fall they presented DJ John Peel with a problem. He got around it by pro- nouncing the band’s name as “pheck” throughout the Peel session. The time-honoured tra- dition of subversion in the vernacular. But that’s old news. F#&! are now identi- fied with another “bad” word — MP3, thanks to their label Matador. The New York-based company is one of the first major players to adopt MP3 as a format for marketing music. MP3 is a computer file format which allows users to store audio files. The software is available tree over the Internet. That’s not good if you're in the business of making money. The concept of recording, playing and dis- tributing audio files has been in the works for sometime. The small size of MP3 (1MB is roughly equal to one minute of music) makes ita commercially viable format. Anyone with a Power PC can download a player ire minutes. There is a long list of soft- ware players available for Windows users and several created specially for Mac. Your choice. Go to for everything you need. Except the music. Or should I say good music. The MP3 site has hundreds of tracks to download but little that is worth listening to. Form without con- tent. Enter Matador. In the past month they’ve begun making songs available free from their Web site. Of the seven to date some are straight from CDs while others are unavailable elsewhere. All of the tracks are worth check- Buflalo Tom “EVO LATENGO D: ing out but here’s my nwo cents worth anyway. B exe xx The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion — Wait A Minute; Confused (Dickinson) (3:02). As a promatianal incentive for Matador’s new MP3 Web site The Jon Spencer Biues Explosion will make an unreleased song available each week through the first week of May, Eight in total. Bur they are not archiving the material. If you don’t download the songs the week they are on the site you are out of luck. By the time you read this Wait A Misute and Confused (Dickinson) will have come and gone. Confused sounds like Elvis singing with the Who circa 1966. i xxx & x Khan —Body Dump (from 1- 900-GET KHAN) with Julee Cruise (6:16). Unreleased track from upcoming Matador CD 1-900-GET-KHAN in collaboration with Twin Peak vocalist Julee Cruise. Great ballad with carly techno groove. B kee k FAK! —Laundry Shop (from Conduct CD) (2:28). Despite the name they aspire to pop stardom. Laundry Shop opens with a Badfinger Come & Get It piano riff before settling down into radio-friendly Velvet Underground. Bassist Ted Ellison’s mother and grandmother still don’t know the name of the band. Bk kkk Yo La Tengo —Astumn Sweater (Kevin Shields’ remix) (8:39). My Bloody Valentine last came through town at the top of a triple-bill with Yo La Tengo and Buffalo To.n in 1991, Mythical music-making. For the rest of the decade Valentine frontman Kevin Shields has been doing remixes for other bands while his label waits for him to deliver the next album. He's working on something for Mercury Rev, and See Deconstruction page 21 ALL REG. $200 EACH BONANZA isiCall $1,500. 2nd Call €500 Ticket Price $5 Tickets must be purchased in advance Limited seating - so reserve early!!! 877 East Hastings, 2nd Floor, Vancouver (Next to Gulf & Fraser Credit Union) Prizes and Promotions subject to BC gaming regulation