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Play Ball Spring Music Guide 2003 IN A YEAR that saw blank CDs outselling old-fashioned recorded ones, there are plenty of reasons prognosticators forecast yet another crappy year for record sales. Maybe if the labels put out more quality bands instead of dreck and dropped the prices some, they wouldn't have to wonder why the new Whitney Houston record is languishing at the bottom of the charts. Whatever the record companies are sniffing, it's time for a new drug. These days, a blues-punk duo can headline two nights at the Warfield and a perky Canadian skate rat can headline the Shark Tank. You go, Avril. Metro's 2003 Spring Music Guide provides lots of reasons to be cheerful. Last year's buzz bands--the White Stripes, the Vines, Disturbed, Linkin Park and Coldplay--try to maintain momentum. Hot new bands Audioslave, Ladytron and Sahara Hotnights feed off a power surge in popularity. The old guard--Pearl Jam, Herbie Hancock, Bon Jovi, Joe Jackson, Tim McGraw, KRS-One, Steve Turre, even Erasure--remind the young ones how it's supposed to be done. In between, we have a ragtag selection of groups and artists like Death Cab for Cutie, Kenny Garrett, They Might Be Giants, Common, June Kuramoto and the Raveonettes, who make music for the simple pleasure of creating. Wow, making music to feed the soul? It's a concept so foreign, it just might work. Todd Inoue Cards by Corinne Asturias (CA), Michael Alan Goldberg (MAG), Jackson Hickey (JH), Todd Inoue (TI), Yoshi Kato (YK), Sarah Quelland (SQ) and Traci Vogel (TV) [ Silicon Valley | Metroactive Home | Archives ]