Anonymous

Join our special guest "Anonymous" in his quest for the ultimate "package". Maybe we would want to remain anonymous too, when dealing with subject matter this, shall we say, "sensitive?" All we can tell you is that this talent lives and works in NYC and makes a living doing promotional writing for the record business (VH1, Interscope, BMG, etc.) He once referred to a new release by Motley Crue as the "aural equivalent of a good nipple-piercing," and believe it or not, got away with it. In his free time, Anonymous steals from the rich and gives to the poor, swings through windows on chandeliers and sings with a lederhosen Oompapa band. This guy is busy.

Choice Cuts

Your Musical Advisor

By Duncan Reid

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to dinner by a very hip couple who live most of the week in New York City. She's a designer, he's a stylist. They both wear the coolest of clothes and get invited to the hippest of parties -- they are a Dolce and Cabana kinda couple, and that's fine by me.

So, guess what kind of music they played at the dinner? Portishead? Some groovy new drum and bass thing? Nope. For three hours, all we listened to was The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Van Morrison

Now, I have nothing against Moondance. Love the song, in fact, and have for years. But how many times do you have to hear it before it's time to try something else?

So I brought the subject up in the most diplomatic way I could. And my friend Joel, who I respect in most every way, cut straight to the point when he said, "most music these days just sucks. It's soulless and generic, which is why I'd rather hear the Allman Brothers, hands down."

Joel, I get your point, and it's valid in some ways too. But there have been great artists out there since the sixties -- here are just a few. Look for more in the weeks and months to come.

Mercury Rev -- Deserter's Songs

When reporters used to want to interview the famous writer Samuel Beckett, they were given the telephone number of a bar in Paris. Now, when journalists from around the globe want to interview the world-renowned rock band Mercury Rev, their destination after hours and days of travelling is often a sports bar in uptown Kingston.

The fact that this band uses this bar as kind of a collective home base for the band is just this far from ridiculous -- the fact that they are close to being unknown in their adopted hometown, even more so. Because in 1998, Mercury Rev released an album that made it to hundreds of top ten lists around the globe. The name of that album -- Deserter's Songs.

Gosh, how would one describe this album in just a few words? Maybe let's start with beautiful. Maybe add a touch of evocative. Mix in pastoral and eerie, two words that don't seem to go together, but do in this case. And finally, definitely, throw in psychedelia. This album is an opus, and fittingly enough, it seems like a love song to the Hudson Valley, with songs like Opus 40 and Hudson Line.

It's strange, it's beautiful, it's unique. Just like the albums they made in the 60s.

Wilco -- Summer Teeth

Hailing from Chicago but sounding like a strictly Californian mix of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Wilco have been exciting music critics and a dedicated legion of fans for nearly a decade.

As early avatars of the alt-country movement, their earlier work was, in my humble opinion, better in concept than in execution. But then, in 1998, they released Summer Teeth, and they joined an entirely new league.

Wilco clearly planned this as their own Sgt. Pepper's. Yeah, really. And while not quite pulling off the same kind of mythic status achieved by the Beatles, this is one fine, fine album, filled with top-of-the-line melodies, evocative lyrics, and a cool production. Which, by the way, sounds like pure 1971. So if you're Jonesing for some Eagles, well, here's where to turn. You'll be happy you did.

Elliot Smith -- XO

I still remember the first time I saw Elliot Smith. It was at the Academy Awards, of all places, and he was being nominated for best song for Miss Misery from Good Will Hunting. The nominator was Madonna, and when she breathlessly (and sincerely) described Elliot Smith as the coolest man alive, well, who would you have expected to show up? A mixture of Guy Ritchie, Sean Penn, and John Shaft, perhaps?

And then, then, this little, scruffy guy walks on stage, bearing nothing but an acoustic guitar, and he starts to play, ever so softly, and that crowd out in Hollywood went completely silent -- this guy was, in no uncertain terms, a major talent. And with XO, all this talent finally coalesced in a full set of 14 songs.

Elliot Smith's music is gentle, elegiac, and sometimes even baroque. It settles over you like a shot of rum and gives your head that same tingling sensation. Beatles fans -- if you want to update your CD collection, this is a good place to start.

Next week, back to the good old 90s. Oops! Wrong decade. Anyone figured out what to call this one yet? The noughts? The nils?

Contact Anonymous at 5a7@avivalasvegas.com. Make sure to put Anonymous in the subject line.