Mott the Hoople

Juno begins with the unexpected and ends in the middle of I-never-saw-that-coming. It has the cleverest, hippest dialogue this side of Heathers, which qualifies it as this year's indie delight. It's a Little Miss Sunshine built around a zingy, zesty...

Testifying to the ongoing Invasion, the kingdom's sounds enliven clubs and Angelenos find a cultural kinship. In a town where you can practically dance to the beat of the boom-bust cycle, and six months is a good run for a club night, one part of the...

A toddler's playful scream elicits a chuckle from Alejandro Escovedo as he calls from his home in the Texas hill country between Austin and San Antonio. It's encouraging to hear Escovedo laugh, considering that the revered singer-songwriter has spent most...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Alejandro Escovedo has been introduced more than once on stages across this town as the mayor of Austin, a measure of how seriously a city that calls itself "The Live Music Capital of the World" regards one of its most cherished...

Ian Hunter called his 1974 tour memoir "Diary of a Rock Star," not to revel in his job description but to deglamorize it. At the Park West on Sunday, Hunter's curls still glowed halolike beneath the lights, his shades still reflected rock-star cool. But...

Ian Hunter was on tour with Ringo Starr's All-Star Band last summer when he found himself singing harmonies on the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." Since his days in Mott the Hoople, the greatest of the glam-era bands out of England in the early '70s,...

NoneJohnny Marr was only 23 when his first major band, one of the best England ever produced, fell apart. The Smiths, the Manchester quartet he had cofounded with Morrissey in 1982, released seven albums that changed the course of British rock. By 1987,...

For those of us who came of age in the indie-rock '80s, few bands mattered more than Wire, the Buzzcocks and Death of Samantha. Now all three are back (with Death of Samantha reincarnated as Cobra Verde), and heading to Chicago with boisterous new...