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JULIE YOLLES ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

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here's just so much doggone music out
there. What to buy? What to avoid?
What's worth searching for?
Visible Ink Press, the creators of
VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever
and CyberHound's Web Guide, have now
rocked 'n' rolled into the music arena
with MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album
Guide.
So, just what's so essential about it?
It was January 1996 over a casual lunch
at Jacoby's in Detroit. Beverly Hills, Mich.-
based music critic Gary Graff and some of the
people at Visible Ink Press got together to talk

about — what else? Music.
Bruce Springsteen's concert
at the Fox Theatre, actual-
ly. Graffs seen the performer
more than three dozen times
over the years.
"The idea popped out of my
mouth to make a
record guide that
would be more like
1\'‘
a user-friendly buyers
guide than a critical
guide," says Graff, who's
had a nine-month crash course
on the publishing industry as
editor of MusicHound Rock.
"We wanted to answer that
eternal question, 'Well, what do
I get first?' That question comes
up in every conversation that I
ever have about music. Some-

body will say, 'Yell, I heard about this new
band, but what should I buy?' "
Good question.
"I wanted reading MusicHound Rock to be
like the experience you have at being at a
crowded record store — where you're kind of
jostling with everybody to get in to see what

"I start every driving vacation trip
that we make with [Bruce
Springsteen's] Born to Run," says
Gary Graff, who's interviewed more
than 1,000 musicians in his career.
"The first CD gets played, and you
try to time it so you hit the highway
just when that first swell of music
from 'Thunder Road' comes on."

Did You Know They're Jewish?

Who were the musical influences
on the following artists with Jew-
ish roots? Find out in Music-
Hound Rock: The Essential
Album Guide, for the rest of the
story.

Neil Diamond

Mountain (Leslie West,
born Leslie Weinstein)
"Leslie told me a great sto-
ry about being [upset] at
Woodstock because Janis
Joplin ate the last bagel,"
says Graff

Leonard Cohen

kiss

PHOTO BY BARRY LEVINE

Jefferson Airplane (Jorma Kauko-
nen)

Peter Flimmelman

Carole King

Steely Dan (Donald Fagen)

Kiss (Gene Simmons and Paul
Stanley)

Lenny Kravitz

PHOTO BY STEPHEN DANEL I

Michael BOlton

Blondie (Chris Stein)

Michael Bloomfield

Al Kopper

David Bromberg

Michael Bolton .

Simon and Gar-
funkel: "Paul Simon's
great story is about
how Art's bar mitz-
vah was standing
room only because he
was such a great
singer " says Graff.

w `M:

Jane's Addiction/Porno for Pyros
(Perry Farrell, born Perry Bern-
stein)

..".

WVP." .".:

odors

dolls Jackson

Spinal Tap

E Street Band (Max Weinberg)

Phish

The Ramones

Spirit

Was (Not Was)

Counting Crows

Ratt

To-to

Yo La Tengo (Ira Kaplan)

The Jayhawks

Rush

The Tubes