The Last DJ
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Warner Bros.
At 53, Tom Petty can be one cranky fucker. He does, however, have his sentimental side. Both of these characteristics, and others, are represented on The Last DJ. Overall, the disc is a solid outing for the veteran artist and his ace sidemen. While not exactly rockin' the house, Petty shows he can still make music with lots of verve. And attitude. The Last DJ frontloads its most compelling songs — a few make scathing comments about the current state of music and, by association, society.
Petty, if you remember, fought a knock-down-drag-out with his label in the early '80s to prevent MCA from raising the list price of his LP a dollar. This is the guy who "won't back down." So it's no surprise that Petty takes on the corporate consolidation of the music biz in the title track. Over a strummy, folk-rock feel, Petty sings, "There goes the last DJ/ who plays what he wants to play/ and says what he wants to say/ hey, hey, hey/ There goes your freedom of choice/ There goes the last human voice/ There goes the last DJ."
By the way, the Last DJ ends up banished to a little station down in Mexico.
Petty turns up the vitriol further on "Joe," a savage indictment of record industry execs. With a churning riff underneath, he paints Joe the CEO as a shallow, money-grubbin' bastard. "You get to be famous/ I get to be rich," he taunts.
"Money Becomes King" is more of a lament, taken at a loping groove. The song tells the story of a once-committed rocker named Johnny who ends up playing in arenas for "golden circle" crowds. Petty's narrator sits in the nosebleeds, watching his former hero on the big screen: "And I tried to rock out with him/ But I slowly became bored."
(One can't help but wonder if Petty is resorting to a bit of sly self-examination here.)
The second half of The Last DJ softens up some. Songs include a plea for runaway kids ("Lost Children") and a few love tunes ("Like a Diamond," "You and Me"). Though solid, these numbers can't help but be a letdown following such bold statements.
Petty and company do wrap matters up in fine form with "Can't Stop the Sun," a swirling anthem that could be considered a sequel to "I Won't Back Down." "You may think you control things/ But there'll be more just like me/ Who won't give in," he sings.
Tom Petty's fabled career has been marked by an unwillingness to kneel down to the powers that be. The Last DJ proves that he's still fightin' the good fight, making music on his own terms. —Eric Snider 
Live from Camp X-Ray
Rocket from The Crypt
Vagrant
San Diego's most enduring, and maybe greatest, contribution to keeping the soul of rock 'n' roll incarnate continues to refine their now-familiar gnashing, snotty, danceable sound. RFTC have enough grit, groove and stamina to have single-handedly kept rock safe between any number of Last and Next Big Things, and Live from Camp X-Ray is yet another superior blast. It closely follows the comparatively more concise blueprint laid on last year's Group Sounds — in fact, the two together would have made one hell of a double album, and therein lies Camp X-Ray's only real problem. While incorporating a bit more Drive Like Jehu-esque angular noise (I Can't Feel My Head, Bring Us Bullets), and some surprising vulnerability (I Wanna Know What I Wanna Know), this newest salvo offers little we haven't heard before. The rhythms swing and pound; the Les Pauls wax dangerously jagged; the horns pump hi-octane melody. You should already know what you're getting from a Rocket disc, and what you're getting is always better than good, but in the past, the band has generally found more ways to recombine the elements of their style than they have here. Still, it beats the shit out of The Vines. —Scott Harrell 
Chimera
The Cost
Lookout
The desire to push rock's boundaries has produced plenty of engaging and/or artful innovation, and the debut full-length from Northern California's The Cost is both artful and innovative. It is not, however, engaging. In fact, it sounds like a tour through the head of a misanthropic and potentially murderous, out-of-work professor of higher math. Detectable influences range from the seminal Drive Like Jehu to Dead Kennedys, leaning heavily toward the darkly abstract. While the musicianship is creative and well executed, there's very little sense of cohesion beyond the overwhelmingly ominous vibe. Songs? They don't need no stinkin' songs, just malevolent, chiming, thrashy odd-meter beats and a vocalist permanently set on Purge. (www.lookoutrecords.com)—Scott Harrell 
The Creek Drank the Cradle
Iron and Wine
Sub Pop
Miami resident Sam Beam may live in the most un-Southern part of the Southern United States, but you'd never know it listening to this reverent, atavistic collection of porch-roots music. If he's faking it, somebody get him an Oscar — Beam's subdued tunes are steeped in a swampy yet Appalachian Deep South vibe that oozes into the mind and hardens there like red clay. Simply rendered with acoustic and slide guitar, the occasional banjo and quietly melodic vocals, The Creek Drank the Cradle showcases a canny low-budget production that manages to sound both immediate and incredibly dated, and fits the material perfectly. The CD's only real problem is a sense of one-dimensionality that leads the listener to wonder if the record may have finished and started over while they weren't paying attention. Beam inarguably paints one hell of a vivid picture; before these 11 tracks are through, however, you can't help but think you've seen it from one too many angles. (www.subpop.com)—Scott Harrell
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2002.