When you’ve been around as long as we have—20 years, as we’ve reminded you every week for the past 22 weeks—you’re bound to see some things come around again. And again. Steve Earle, for instance. The troubador returns to the Paramount for a night of pill-popping tunes about a year after his last visit, and as far as we’re concerned if he makes an annual pilgrimage to Central Virginia, that’d be just dandy. Let’s be honest, though, folks, there are some things we’ve seen in the past two decades that we hope to never lay eyes on again. An example? The 16-year-old cover reproduced below. Now, we love a Sly joke as well as the next alt weekly (cue a chorus of “Yo, Adrian” and a round of “Rambo” jokes). Sadly, we’re not sure this cover was meant to be…ironic. Inside the issue is an impenetrable review of Cliffhanger that leaves us with a deeper appreciation of Stallone’s, uh, simple vocabulary. Grunt here, if you know what we mean, and tune in next week for another blast from the past of this still free and still free-thinking weekly newspaper.
Paging through the archives
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“After five quick songs, Earle stepped back, took a breath and announced ‘This one goes out to what’s-her-name, wherever the hell she is,’ then began picking out ‘Now She’s Gone’ before moving into ‘Goodbye,’ singing, ‘Was I off somewhere, or just too high?’
“Sure, nobody can do regret with such swagger, but then defiance has always been Earle’s thing, even if it is his outlaw persona giving the finger to his more reflective side. There’s a sweet tension between the two, the ache of loss and the fuck-it-all attitude. Earle embodied both between the two songs, switching harmonicas and saying, ‘Same girl, different harmonica.’”
—Scott Weaver, April 22, 2008
Getting covered
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June 1, 1993