The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 77

MUSIC Everclear gives fans reason to cheer Minnelli opens LA. shows with benefit T-tt- 1 roadway and Hollywood legend Liza MiN-nelli brings her new show, Sun Wire Services Everclear fans have reason to rejoice. "So Much For The Afterglow," Everclear's new Capitol Records release is due in stores Oct. 7. Produced by frontinan Art Alexakis and mixed by Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, Rage Against The Machine), the new album kicks hard with a melodic punk edge, in-MUSIC corporat- mg a vari-WOTcS ety of new instrumentation including organ, banjo, toy pianos, three-piece horn section, keyboards, cello, violin and slide guitar into Everclear's trademark sound.

"So Much For The Afterglow" is the long-awaited follow-up to Everclear's Platinum-plus breakthrough "Sparkle Fade," released in May 1995. The album's 13 tracks were composed by Alexakis and his bandmates, Greg Eklund (drums) and Craig Montoya (bass). All lyrics were written by Alexakis. "Liza in Concert," to the historic Pantages Theatre in Hollywood tonight and tomorrow. Minnelli, an award-winning performer who has received Oscar, Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe awards, kicks off her L.A.

appearances with a benefit for Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the nation's largest HIV AIDS medical provider. Minnelli, a longtime AIDS supporter, recently appeared on the Rosie O'Donnell Show on the AIDS Day of Compassion (June 20) where she sang an emotionally charged rendition of "Someday We'll Be Free," from the Broadway musical "Kiss of the Spider Woman." Uza Minnelli Show comes to L.A. Oasis member Noel Gallagher, right, talks to Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair during a reception at London's No. 10 Downing Street for showbusiness personalities. WhMK 8 p.m.

Aug. 1-2 WImmk Pantages Theatre, Hollywood Cost: $77.50, 52.50. 32.50 Call: (714) 740-2000 Clown Posse's "The Great Milenko," which was pulled by Hollywood six hours after it went on sale June 24. The Island version appears Aug. 12 with three songs removed from the Hollywood disc because of concerns over objectionable lyrics.

Scott Weiland's solo album, "12 Bar Blues," should be out by Christmas. Oasis may appear as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" in October. and "Hoop Dreams" directors Steve James and Peter Gilbert are planning a biopic of rap groundbreakers Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel. new album in two years and marks the 30th anniversary of his prolific songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin. Produced by Chris Thomas and recorded at Townhouse Studios in London, the album features 11 new JohnTaupin collaborations including the first single, "Something About The Way You Look Tonight," due for radio release Aug.

25. In other music news: Island Records has reportedly paid $1 million to Disney-owned Hollywood Records to acquire the rights to release Insane The 'Big Picture' in sight Elton John will release his new album, "The Big Picture," on Sept. 23, followed by a limited fall tour which begins in October. "The Big Picture," on Rocket Associated Labels, is John's first Phil Ochs' songs live on after his passing By John Rogers The Associated Press EW YORK When Michael Ochs talks of Greenwich Village circa 1962, a sense of awe drifts Novoselic reaches Nirvana with DGC group Sweet 75 By Steve Knopper Billboard matter what Krist Novoselic tries, no matter how much success he has as a rock star or political lobbyist, he will always look and act like just another guy in a cally in the country's beauty and strength. But Phil Ochs has been dead 21 years now.

His suicide at age 35 is occasionally noted by some as an invocation of the failed hopes of the '60s generation. But the music he left behind keeps finding a new audience. "Songwriters in general are lucky, because our bones can molder away after we die. But the songs just keep going," muses an old Ochs' friend, the folk music legend Pete Seeger. "Just the other day we had a big festival up here in Westchester County (N.Y.).

And people were singing some of Phil's songs." Many more could be ready to do that soon. A three-CD boxed set, "Fantasies and Farewells: The Phil Ochs Collection," is being released by Rhino Records this week. Meegan Ochs hears from people around the world who tell her how they have been moved by her father's music. One of them was a young actor named Sean Penn who called out of the blue one night in 1983 to tell her he hoped he could play her father in a movie one day. It's 14 years later now, and on a recent day Meegan Ochs is bouncing back and forth between phone calls from a reporter, from her old friend Sean Penn and from others.

She's answering questions about her father's life and finally putting together that movie deal. "As soon as possible we'll go into production," she says. through his voice. "There was so much going on, it was ridiculous," he recalls. "It was amazing." It was the dawn of the last great American folk-music renaissance.

And if you were lucky enough to have been in the Village back then, you saw it rising. On any given weekend, Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and Peter, Paul and Mary were performing somewhere. "Dylan was king of the hill," says Ochs. But there was another guy everybody said was just about as good, lie was the folk singer Michael Ochs had moved out from Ohio to see. He was Michael's older brother, Phil Ochs.

Like Dylan, Phil was just out of his teens and from the Midwest, all youthful energy and innocence. He was filled with a passion to change the world, and he seemed to write a new song aimed at doing that just about every minute. They were topical, satirical, angry, funny, romantic, often all at the same time. Some of them, like "Cops of the World," excoriated America for throwing its weight around the globe in those days. Others, like "Power and the Glory," reveled almost patrioti forward rock anthems; "La Vida," an upbeat Spanish song, contains an actual Herb Al-pert trumpet solo; and "Ode To Dolly" leans on an almost exaggerated country rhythm.

Though Novoselic and drummer Adam Wade make up a limber rhythm section, shifting from fast to slow and back, the set's main focus is Las Vegas' voice. She moans and howls constantly, like a cross between Alanis Morissette and Alice In Chains' Lay-ne Staley. It's an even partnership: Las Vegas' presence allows Novoselic to be Sweet 75's quiet, talented role player, and Novoselic's name helps land big shows, press clippings, and record company connections. "As much as the Foo Fighters are not Nirvana, Sweet 75 is not Nirvana," says Robert Smith, head of marketing for DGCGeffen Records, referring to former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl's band. "There will never be another Nirvana.

But no one's denying it. There's a fine line between acknowledging it and exploiting it. It doesn't say NIRVANA, with Krist Novoselic in tiny letters. This is Sweet 75, and Sweet 75 doesn't have much to do with what Nirvana was, except as a point of interest." Unlike Grohl, Novoselic retreated from rock-star prominence after his friend and bandinate Kurt Cobain committed suicide in April 1994. Grohl quickly formed the Foo Fighters, an act that has since had several hits, but Novoselic detoured into politics.

His political action committee, Joint Artists and Music Promotions Political Action Commute, continues to fight for musicians' rights and lobby against censorship. band. "Who am I anyway?" he wrote in a 1994 Internet message to his fans. "I'm the guy next in line at Safeway. I'm the person in the left lane of traffic who gets uptight when people won't get over." For the first time in four years, the ex-Nirvana bassist finds himself in a familiar position waiting for his band's new studio album to come out.

Sweet 75, which began three years ago with Novoselic collaborating spontaneously with Venezuelan street singer Yva Las Vegas at a party, releases its first combo of Latin rhythms and guitar-heavy American rock Aug. 26 on DGCGeffen Records. "It's a whole different ballgame right now," says Novoselic, who plays 12-sti ing guitar and bass in the trio. "But it's always exciting releasing a record. It was that way with 'In it was that way with it was that way with You just want people to like you, and you want to do well." "Sweet 75" sounds nothing like those albums, despite a certain rumbling lurch of bass and drums.

It opens with guitars, but they're bouncy and playful instead of loud and roaring. And just when the album starts to sound familiar, it quickly changes pace: "Red Dress" and "Poor Kitty" are straight PAGE 14FRIDAY, August 1, 1997.