Email Author Robert Wilonsky

1997 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Rotation

  published December 11, 1997

  Spice Girls Spiceworld Virgin So what do you want to hear? That the Spice Girls suck? That they're nothing but shills pandering... More >>

• Too Much Genius

  published November 13, 1997

  A few weeks ago, VH-1 aired a documentary on the making of some Fleetwood Mac release -- either Rumours or Tusk, it hardly matters which. Lindsey... More >>

• Negative Seven

  published October 9, 1997

  By its very definition, a thriller should, you know, thrill. It should not only scare its audience with a quick jolt, that sudden noise in the... More >>

• Road to Nowhere

  published October 2, 1997

  Kevin Corrigan doesn't act as much as he seems to stumble from scene to scene, like a guy who doesn't follow a script but rather his own internal... More >>

• Rotation

  published October 2, 1997

  The Rolling Stones Bridges to Babylon Virgin In 1994, I listened with a straight face as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards told me... More >>

• Closet Case

  published September 25, 1997

  Howard and Emily's marriage is the talk of Greenleaf, Indiana, a small town idyllic enough to repel Norman Rockwell. The town has waited three... More >>

• Burying the Brakeman

  published September 11, 1997

  They tried this nine years ago, and then, somehow, it worked. In 1988, Columbia Records rounded up a cast of familiar and vaguely bankable voices... More >>

• Rotation

  published September 4, 1997

  Oasis Be Here Now Epic It's tempting to write off Oasis's third CD as a vague facsimile of the two that preceded it; Definitely... More >>

• Time to Kill

  published August 28, 1997

  Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation -- a goofy remake of the 1974 scare, uh, classic -- is a film so worthless the admission ought to... More >>

• Wanted Man

  published August 28, 1997

  It was due in stores by July, but a lifetime of memories does not come easily to a man whose first hit came 41 years ago, when he was a member of... More >>

• Hats Off

  published August 14, 1997

  It's so damned hot in Austin on this Saturday that condensation forms on your skin before you're all the way out the door. You're like a... More >>

• Tell No Lies

  published August 7, 1997

  She lives about 20 minutes away, but she doesn't want to meet in person. She ostensibly knows how to dial a phone, yet she has her publicist place... More >>

• Chucking Chuck E.

  published June 26, 1997

  Rickie Lee Jones doesn't want to be here. Well, here, maybe -- in the Novel Cafe in Santa Monica, a nice place for a cup of coffee or a light... More >>

• Rotation

  published June 12, 1997

  Paul McCartney Flaming Pie Capitol It's possible that undue stress has been heaped upon Paul McCartney's post-Abbey Road... More >>

• Rotation

  published June 5, 1997

  John Fogerty Blue Moon Swamp Warner Bros. John Fogerty hasn't been heard from much in more than a decade, since 1986's Eye of... More >>

• boringsomething

  published May 29, 1997

  It lasted a mere four seasons, but thirtysomething lives on. Its legacy began the moment the show went off the air in 1991: The yuppie angst... More >>

• Soul Survivor

  published May 15, 1997

  The rain and the cold don't stop Solomon Burke. He's an hour late for a rendezvous in the parking lot of a red-ribboned church in Los Angeles, and... More >>

• Radio Daze

  published March 6, 1997

  During the first few minutes of Howard Stern's romp through his inexplicable life, he spells out his mission: Private Parts will both convert the... More >>

• Rapumentary

  published March 6, 1997

  Given that hip-hop has begun turning on itself -- gangsta factions splinter between Left and Right coasts, Marion "Suge" Knight is knocked off... More >>

• Odd Man Out

  published February 20, 1997

  Van Dyke Parks does not talk. He speaks, pronounces, proclaims, mumbles and grumbles, chuckles and chortles. But he does not simply talk to waste... More >>

• The Man Behind Andy

  published February 6, 1997

  Dallas filmmaker Spencer Williams was revered as an idol and a groundbreaker by the black community that flocked to his movies, and rightly so. He... More >>

• Gracious Angel

  published January 2, 1997

  She does not stick out in the dilapidated lobby of the Farmer's Daughter Motel on Fairfax, just across the street from Los Angeles's Farmer's... More >>