Word: bande
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Happily, Garbage's sophomore album, Version 2.0 (Almo Sounds) doesn't live up--or down--to the band's name. The quartet, based in Madison, Wis., and consisting of singer Shirley Manson (originally from Edinburgh, Scotland), guitarists Steve Marker and Duke Erikson, and drummer Butch Vig (who produced Nirvana's album Nevermind), had never played outside the studio before recording their debut album, Garbage, in 1995. Their inexperience showed: while the album had its moments, it often felt indecisive and inorganic. In the past three years, Garbage has had a chance to tour, and now it sounds more like...
...Marker and Erikson had played together and separately in a number of small, Wisconsin-area bands. One night they saw Manson on MTV fronting another band, called Angelfish. They tracked her down, asked her to join their nascent group, and Garbage was launched. "Madison is isolated, so we're kind of removed from the music business or the distractions you may have in New York, Los Angeles, London or Paris," says Vig. "It's a great city, but there's not much to do, so everyone kind of leaves us to our own devices...
...town," Manson sings in the track's closing moments, a reference to one of the Pretenders' hits. Indeed, Manson called Hynde up to ask her permission for the vocal homage. Says Manson: "A fax came through the machine saying, 'I, Chrissie Hynde, do solemnly swear that the rock band Garbage can sample my sound, my voice or indeed my very a__.'" When an established rocker is willing to give so generously to a new band, it's an indication of the group's promise...
Version 2.0 is not without faults: some of the melodies are weak, and the production is, at times, overbearing. Still, the band is headed in the right direction. "We're very aware of how treacherous the music industry is, particularly nowadays," says Manson. "The industry doesn't want to encourage fan loyalty over the long term, they just want a quick hit." That isn't always the rule, of course: the Dave Matthews Band's uneven new CD, Before These Crowded Streets, just debuted atop the Billboard charts, helped by a loyal fan following established through constant, Grateful Dead-like...
...current, still tiny lounge scene--with its tailored suits, martini sipping and laid-back jazzy music--seeks to capture some of the style exemplified by Sinatra and other performers of the Big Band era. The swing scene, a close cousin, tries to focus less on the style and more on the music itself. One swing group, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, currently has a Top 40 CD. Scotty Morris, 30, bandleader for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, another brisk-selling swing act, says his classmates at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood would play Sinatra records "nonstop." That was 10 years ago. Frank...