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innocent words magazine issue 48
Interviews & Features Minimize
Fiction Reform hadn’t even put out their first record, and they were getting the kind of word-of-mouth buzz that punk veterans would have killed for.
When a national or world tragedy strikes, the media and people in general often show a lot of compassion, maybe even donate a few dollars or blood, sweat or tears. However, time passes, and another big news story breaks. Yet, those left behind in the wake of the previous tragedy are still coping and struggling to get back on their feet or to just survive.
Mark Civitarese (a.k.a. Mark Unseen) is probably one of the most recognizable punk rockers playing today. Sure, he’s got that impressive Mohawk, but he’s also got a solid two-decade reputation for turning out gritty, blistering street punk that pays tribute to everyone from Black Flag to Bad Religion.
Philadelphia’s Good Old War – two thirds of which are refuges from the band Days Away – is hardly wasting time. Together just two years, they already have two full lengths and an EP under their belts.
Chris Shiflett is obviously best known as the guitarist for the phenomenally successful Foo Fighters.
Not the type to simply sit around and wait to be discovered, Atlanta’s Trances Arc have taken the rock do-it-yourself ethos to heart.
The musical family tree of Seattle is as immense as the Redwoods and Douglas firs that inhabit the Great Northwest. For every tree, there is a branch that represents a band of the Emerald City’s music history, which is as rich and bright as the green leaves hanging from these majestic towers of wood.
Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll – they can all be addictive, but one can be the cure. No, as much fun as it sounds, sex therapy hasn’t caught on; I’m talking about the healing power of rock.

Once More With Feeling Minimize
It’s been 20 years, more than a dozen releases and an infinite amount of arguments between brothers Chris and Rich Robinson.
Though hair metal was still finishing off the last few cans of Aqua Net in 1990, the year actually closed with a fantastic list of influential albums, from Depeche Mode’s Violator to the Sunday’s debut Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. And toward the top of that list sits Concrete Blonde’s Bloodletting.
If there was ever a Queens of the Stone Age album deserving of a reissue, Rated R would not be on the top of my list.
Fables of the Reconstruction, the third album from college rock poster boys R.E.M., showed the band was evolving toward a tighter, more cohesive sound.

DVD Reviews Minimize
In the early 1990s, the world was all abuzz with the music coming out of Seattle, but there was a pretty damn good music scene right up I-57 in Chicago.
In 1979, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' lives would change forever with the release of their seminal album Damn the Torpedoes. Their third album, first on MCA Records, would be their breakout album and, some would argue, their masterpiece.
It’s been 20 years since Pearl Jam formed out of the ashes of Mother Love Bone and the release of their multi-platinum selling debut Ten.
This is a nice collection for the diehard U2 fan and consists of two previously released titles, “Achtung Baby: A Classic Album Under Review – An Independent Critical Analysis” (originally released in 2006) and “The Rebirth of Cool – U2 in the Third Millennium: A Review and Critique” (originally released in 2008).
HBO has managed to make an entire TV show out of a guy with a huge wang.

Table of Contents

Issue 48/September 2010
Features: Fiction Reform, Dear New Orleans, Ashers, Good Old War, Chris Shiflett, Trances Arc, Kevin Wood & From The North, and Clarity Way.
Album Reviews: Rusty Anderson, Jay Bennett, Peter Block, Bullet for My Valentine, Chew Heart, Cowboy Junkies, Dead Weather, Eyes Set to Kill, Glitch Mob, Great Big Sea, Hawthorne Heights, Tony Lucca, Ozzy Osbourne, The Paperbacks, People Eating People, The Russians, Secret Colours, Snake! Snake! Snakes!, Toy Soldiers, Underworld, Kevin Wood & From The North, Various Artists (Warped Tour 2010)
Once More With Feeling: The Black Crowes, Concrete Blonde, Queens of the Stone Age, R.E.M.
Book Reviews: "And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records"; "My Appetite for Destruction: Sex, Drugs, and Guns N' Roses"; "The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University"
DVD Reviews: "Gauge 153"; "Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Classic Albums: Damn The Torpodoes"; "Pearl Jam: Under Review"; "U2: Let Them Be: The Second Chapter"; "Hung: The Complete First Season"

Album Reviews Minimize
Anderson’s a cool cat – tasteful, reserved, and confident.
On first listen to Kicking at the Perfumed Air, Jay Bennett’s recently released posthumous album, I was gripped with a tremendous sense of sadness.
A musician once told me that he writes his poppiest songs while in the worst moods. The press release for Peter Block’s self-titled album is no fairy tale.
Fever is a record that shows both Bullet for My Valentine’s strengths and weaknesses, one that truly showcases where the band excels sonically, and where they are limited stylistically.
Although their name sounds like a nickname a serial killer might have, Chew Heart is a very promising indie duo out of Chicago.
The Cowboy Junkies’ most recent record is the first in a series of four releases known as the “Nomad Series” that the band plans to release over the next 18 months.
Sea of Cowards picks you up where 2009’s Horehound left you, curled up in the fetal position in the corner of your bedroom with your eyes closed clutching your teddy bear.
Think of Broken Frames as something of a power struggle, a constant, yet jerky, ebb-and-flow of beautifully stunning melodic segments and aggressive, abrasive screams.
The LA-based Glitch Mob is a DJ super group of club spinners, who have pooled their expertise and finally put out a debut album.
The biggest band to come out of Newfoundland, (yup, I think there may have been more than one) is back with their tenth record, Safe Upon the Shore.
At the same time, Hawthorne Heights’ latest effort Skeletons is both the bands most acclaimed work they’ve released yet, and their most massive.
There is a lot to like about Tony Lucca’s latest CD, Rendezvous with the Angels. His subject matter, “the ebb and flow” of love, is universal.
Sometimes you need the company of an old friend. It’s when those moods hit that the familiar is the most welcome. And that is what you get with Ozzy’s latest.
It was a little more than overkill when The Smashing Pumpkins put out their double album in 1995, so the fact that The Paperbacks, a Canadian indie pop band with little recognition outside of the Pitchfork crowd, gave their latest release the double record treatment seems downright ballsy.
“Darling,” the opening track on the debut by Seattle’s People Eating People, sets the pace for the record. With its heartfelt and honest vocals/lyrics and rhythm, it defies you to not tap your toes and nod your head in time with the beat.
Cambridge, Mass., has always had a rich history in music and it only seems to be getting richer with the release of The Russians' Crash the Party.
The ‘60s garage rock revival that we seem to be a part of as of late is a trend I wholeheartedly endorse.
Hailing from Phoenix, AZ, the new and emerging indie rock group Snake! Snake! Snakes! delivers an invigorating and aggressive style of rock on their debut self-titled E.P.
If Rusted Root is ever willing to call it quits and pass on the tribal drums, Philadelphia’s Toy Soldiers may be the next obvious heirs to their pop/folk-infused jam band title.
Our copy of this CD sampler from Underworld’s forthcoming album Barking had a sticker on it that said it was not for broadcast of review, which is a shame because it’s really good.
This is a unique release from Kevin Wood & From the North as it features lyrics penned by Wood’s legendary late brother Andrew Wood of Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone fame.
Every year the Warped Tour just gets better. Over a decade in and the tour's line-ups are still growing annually, as well the crowds and stages.

Book Reviews Minimize
Author Larry Harris comes across as a dick. Maybe he is. Or, maybe it’s his plethora of insider stories and willingness to dish the dirt that makes it appear to be true. Regardless, Harris’ got one hell of a book on his hands.
Just how fucked up do you have to be to get kicked out of Guns N’ Roses for being a druggie? If you’re original drummer Steven Adler, pretty fucked up.
The Unlikely Disciple could not possibly be written by anyone else. Sure, the journalist/author Kevin Roose is a novice (he was still in college when he researched and started writing this book), but that’s exactly what makes this expose on college life at an evangelical university come off genuine: Roose has none of the cynicism and practiced story-telling clichés of a longtime reporter.

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