The Mooney Suzuki (file)
Photo: Andrew Shapter

When the Mooney Suzuki's A&R man asked the bandmembers who they'd like to produce their major-label debut, frontman Sammy James Jr. gave him a list of classic names, including former ELO frontman Jeff Lynne (who produced albums by Tom Petty and George Harrison). The record company man glanced at the list, paused and shot back, "How would you like to work with the Matrix?"

The ultra-pop songwriting team, which has landed radio hits for Avril Lavigne, Hilary Duff and others, wanted to stretch its wings and work with a real, down and dirty rock and roll band. So the Mooney Suzuki reluctantly agreed to fly to Los Angeles and test the waters by spending three days writing songs with the Matrix.

"I was curious," James explained. "What they represent, that hitmaking-machine thing, always seemed like the antithesis of what we do, which is to sit around with your dudes and jam out songs. It felt like the enemy was inviting us over for tea."

At first, the Mooney Suzuki were as baffled and uncomfortable as high school freshmen sitting in on an advanced-level college French course. The Matrix were brimming with enthusiasm and loaded with ideas, but everything they suggested made the bandmembers cringe.

"The first day was a nightmare," James recalled. "Every second was like, 'How do we get out of here? I'm never going to make it through today, much less three days of this.' They'd be totally excited about something they'd written with us in mind, then they'd sing it to us, and it sounded like something I'd hear on [mainstream pop] radio, but it was nothing that I was gonna do. They were so nice and so cool, and it was really difficult to keep shooting down their ideas."

Songwriting session number two was a little more productive. Since the band nixed 90 percent of the Matrix's pitches, the songwriters kept coming up with new melodies, which gave everyone more to work with. Similarly, the producers rejected so many of the Mooney's ideas that the rockers kept plugging away. On their third day together, the band recorded demos of three of the songs they had co-written, two of which made it onto Alive & Amplified, due August 10 (see "The Matrix Clean Up The Mooney Suzuki's Garage").

"We reached a point where I could imagine doing the whole record with them," James said. "That was kind of unsettling, because I knew I would have to shift creative gears in a major way. When we got back, our A&R guy said, 'So, how did it go?' And I went, 'If we do the record with them, it's either gonna be [like Michael Jackson's] Thriller or [Lou Reed's dissonant electronic-noise album] Metal Machine Music. So of course he said, "Great, I like Metal Machine Music."

On the surface, it might look like the Mooney Suzuki worked with the Matrix because they wanted to create pop hits that could be played on the radio. But that's not really the case. While the band certainly wanted to escape the garage-rock ghetto into which it had been cast, its goal was not to become superstars, but to create something different than it had ever done. "There's that joke in [the film] 'This Is Spinal Tap' about the amps going to 11 for a reason," James explained. "There's only so much you can turn up the volume and there's only so much you can jump around onstage. And we had done that. We were as loud as we could be and as high-energy as we could be. So we did something we thought would take it to the next step."

The Mooney Suzuki spent six months working on Alive & Amplified in Los Angeles. Half of the songs were written in the studio with the Matrix and the rest were penned by the band, then brought to the Matrix for refinement. For the bandmembers, spending more than a few days writing and recording a song was an experience they cherished, and one that allowed them to let their true colors shine.

"We never picked up our guitars and said, 'Let's be MC5 or the Stooges,' " James said. "We wanted to be the Who or Led Zeppelin, but we were never able to afford a studio for more than a week or so, so we could never realize that goal. We'd just rehearse the sh-- out of our songs so that we had it tight, and then go in and play as if we were doing a live set. Then in the last half hour, we'd throw down some vocals and a tambourine track. To spend three months on a record and try different things and use different instruments was really incredible."

James and his bandmates are pleased with the album they've created, which combines Hendrix flash, Nuggets rumble and classic rock rhythms with insistent pop hooks. However, the Mooney Suzuki aren't so thrilled about the process it took to create the final product. With each new song they worked on, the Matrix would push radio pop melodies and the band wanted to just jam until something good happened.

"I felt bad for them because they're used to working their way," James said. "They'd say, 'We have a template. We have a system.' And that works very well for them, but not always for us, so there was a lot of horn-locking, which led to the final product."

The Mooney Suzuki may have never been able to create songs like the jaunty, handclap-filled "New York Girls" or the Hendrix/ Temptations/ Kiss hybrid "Legal High" without the help of the Matrix, and they may have needed the pop songwriters' alternate perspective to push them out of the garage. But now that it's over, the band has vowed never to return to the Matrix's studio.

"Doing this record was an aesthetic war," James said. "I'll never do a Mooney Suzuki record with them again. I love them and I love hanging out with them but it was f---ing war doing this album. We were looking to be forced out of the box, and we were, and I'm not looking for that experience again any time soon."

• The Mooney Suzuki

The Mooney Suzuki (file)
Photo: Gammon Records

Sometimes, the heaviest rock can coexist with the purest pop.

When garage-rock band the Mooney Suzuki started out in 1997, all they wanted to be was an ass-kicking group that paid homage to the Stooges, the Stones, the MC5 and the Nuggets box set. Then, in 2002, they got a taste of success with their roaring sophomore record, Electric Sweat, and suddenly they wanted more — way more.

So the New York band hooked up with the Matrix — the production team that has worked with Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera and Hilary Duff (see "Mooney Suzuki Save Jack Black's Butt, Plan To Work With The Matrix"). The move was a risky one: Diehard fans are easily rattled when artists sign with major labels (in this case, Columbia), let alone collaborate with pop songsmiths. And since the Matrix had never worked with a grimy rock band before (the closest they came was with Liz Phair in 2003) the results could have been disastrous. They're not: On Alive & Amplified, which comes out August 10, the Mooney Suzuki and the Matrix play off of each other's strengths without stepping on each other's grooves.

The band still sounds heavy, retro and sweaty, and its music still swims with gritty rhythms. But instead of relying on raw power, the Mooney Suzuki draw from the producers' encyclopedic knowledge of pop music to create songs with more finesse.

"New York Girls" features acoustic strumming and a jaunty electric piano that could be from a Bob Seger classic. Halfway through the song, all the instruments drop out except for the drums, vocals and handclaps; then they all gradually return to the mix as production effects morph and twist the sound. Throughout the album, the band piles on dense rhythmic layers and multi-tracked solos, and each time the Matrix retain the musical chaos without losing control.

The album's first single, which will hit radio early in the summer, is the propulsive "Legal High." The track begins with a verse that's a cross between the Temptations and Jimi Hendrix, and evolves into a rousing chorus reminiscent of early Kiss. The band is currently deciding on a director for the track's video.

Throughout the album, the Mooney Suzuki match their urgent, sexually charged music with lyrics about getting down and dirty: Song titles include "Loose 'N' Juicy," "Messin' In the Dressin' Room," "Naked Lady" and "Love Bus."

• The Mooney Suzuki

Mooney Suzuki
Photo: Andrew Shapter

A couple of years ago, a crazed Mooney Suzuki fan bum-rushed the band during a show and squirted mustard on singer/guitarist Sammy James Jr.'s fuzz box guitar pedal. The guy was apparently pissed that the garage rockers had "sold out" and signed with tiny indie label Estrus Records for their 2000 debut, People Get Ready, so he shouted, "Why don't you have Estrus buy you a new one!"

If that's how he felt then, things could get much uglier next year when the band releases its as-yet-untitled third album (see "Mooney Suzuki: Guitars, Girls & The Garage"), the first under its new deal with Columbia Records. Not to mention the fact that it's also pairing up with a crew of increasingly popular producers.

"Most people only do a few songs with them, but we're doing our whole record with the Matrix," said James. Yeah, you heard right, the Ricky Martin/Avril pop hitmakers (see "Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne Fall Into The Matrix") are getting their hands dirty with the garage rockers for the follow-up to last year's Electric Sweat, and James couldn't be more excited.

"When our A&R person brought it up I was totally psyched because I'm fascinated by the Avril thing," James said. "I thought those songs were great. If 'Sk8er Boi' had been written by Ric Ocasek it would have been a great Cars song." James realizes that the hookup might further inflame the band's underground fans, but he's not sweating the expected heat.

"People would have reservations about who we worked with no matter who it was," he said. "Once more than one person knows you exist, there's nothing you can do that will please everyone. People got pissed when we bought a van! We just want to make something that our fans will enjoy. Fact is, a lot of people who like that raw, filthy garage-y music have a pop fixation, too. And, it's not like we're going pop."

The band flew out to hang with the Matrix for three days in June, emerging with three new songs. "I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the first day," James said. "The second day was much better and by the third day, I could really see working with these guys." Part of the appeal was that both parties felt like the project was a totally unexpected move, with each side moving toward the other as the sessions went on.

"These guys are the real deal," said the Matrix's Scott Spock. "They're as credible as the Who or [T. Rex leader] Marc Bolan in their day. It's an honor to work with them."

The Matrix wrote and recorded 10 songs with Avril Lavigne for her debut (five of which made the final album), but this is one of the first times Spock could remember recording an entire album with an artist.

Though known for their slick production of songs by Liz Phair, Britney (see "Who's Been Hooking Up With Britney? We Got Em' To Talk") and Ricky Martin, the Matrix — which also includes husband-and-wife team Lauren Christy and Graham Edwards — have no interest in turning the Suzuki into pop tarts.

"We were a little frightened at first because we thought, 'We have this reputation of doing these soulless pop joints,' " Spock said. "But we're not cookie-cutter machines. They have a good sense of what they want to do. We take the best parts of an artist and magnify them so the public can lock into it."

Mooney Suzuki will bring a dozen songs into a Los Angeles studio this week, but James said the group is prepared to spend the first of the scheduled six weeks writing new tunes with the Matrix. Among the songs members plan to record are three new ones they performed on Lollapalooza this summer, "Primitive Condition," "Messin' in the Dressin' Room" and "Back at the Shack," which were inspired by the three-day writing session in June.

"After working with them I was very inspired, because they obviously know how to write a hit song," James said. "They gave me lots of insight and ideas, so I locked myself in a room for a week and said I'd write a song a day using that Matrix energy." Another song that could make the cut is a blues jam James wrote before meeting the Matrix, called "Honeybee."

The as-yet-untitled album is due out in early 2004. Meanwhile, the band can be heard on the title track to the new Jack Black flick, "School of Rock." The majestic rock anthem was a collaboration between the band and the movie's screenwriter, Mike White ("The Good Girl"). "They sent us the screenplay and a sheet of lyrics Mike White had written and I switched around all his grammar so that it was incorrect," said James, who called the opportunity to work with "Dazed and Confused" director Richard Linklater a "fantasy," akin to writing the end credits song to "Revenge of the Nerds."

The nod to Suzuki came after Black and Tenacious D partner Kyle Gass struggled to come up with a song that had the right gravity. "I tried to write all the songs and then I failed," Black admitted. "It took me and Kyle 10 years to write our album, so it wasn't like I was going to be able to crank out all the music in the movie in four months." In search of a big finale, Black said he was inspired to tap Mooney Suzuki after seeing them open a show for the Strokes earlier this year. "We still didn't have the big finale song [and the Mooney Suzuki] were so high energy and funny and rocking that I asked them afterwards if they would be interested. They said 'Yeah, yeah, we will write a song.' And they did and it was kick-ass. They saved the day."

• The Mooney Suzuki

The Hives' Pelle Almqvist
Photo: Wire Image

SEATTLE — President Bush may enjoy record-high approval ratings, but that doesn't mean he's immune to coup attempts. During their Friday set at the Showbox, Swedish garage-rockers the Hives announced their intention to overthrow the Land of the Free.

"We took the liberty of changing your flag," singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist said, pointing to a backdrop of Old Glory done up in black and white to match the band's mod outfits. "We thought it needed changing, like a lot of things in [this] country. For example, I'm your new president."

Humble, the Hives are not. But considering their mission is nothing short of rerouting rock from its nü-metal and teen pop course onto a road of amped-up freneticism based on nothin' but good times, humility wouldn't do them any good.

In the 40 over-caffeinated minutes they spent onstage, the five-piece outfit whipped the crowd into a sweaty mess with a set culled largely from their recently re-released 2000 album, Veni Vidi Vicious ("Swedo-Latin" for "We came, we saw, we conquered," according to Almqvist).

The band was itself a sweaty mess. Rhythm guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem contorted his face as if he were perpetually falling down the first drop of a massive rollercoaster while fresh-faced lead guitarist Nicholaus Arson (looking like Sweden's answer to "Spider-Man" star Tobey Maguire) wriggled and writhed during "Die, All Right!" like he'd just been bitten by some radioactive bug.

The spotlight belonged to Almqvist with his Mick Jagger pout, Roger Daltrey mic swings and Freddie Mercury marching. Leaning forward, with one foot on his monitor and his eyes locked on some distant point in the future, he looked like some stylized figure from a Soviet-era government poster — propaganda for the New Garage Order. He expertly rallied the masses to the cause on songs like "Main Offender."

"This is our contribution to world peace," he said, intro'ing the insistent, Stooge-y single "Hate to Say I Told You So." "Turn my back on the rot that's been planning the plot," Almqvist sang, with half the dancing crowd hollering right along with him.

Along with other high-octane, retro brigades such as the (International) Noise Conspiracy and the Soundtrack of Our Lives, the Hives have earned Sweden the mantle of hot new scene. Veni Vidi Vicious is sitting at #3 on Billboard magazine's Heatseeker chart for new bands. Six months ago, the band played their first-ever Seattle gig opening for T(I)NC at the 500-capacity Graceland. Demand bumped Friday's sold-out headlining show from that venue to the twice-as-big Showbox.

Representing the other in-scene du jour were New York's the Mooney Suzuki. Prominent movers in the Big Apple rock revival, the band's 35-minute set owed more to the wigged-out energy of 1960s Seattle bands like the Sonics and Wailers than to the CBGB sounds of the '70s, though the band's deepest allegiance lay with the late-'60s Detroit scene that spawned the MC5. The combination of singer Sammy James Jr.'s beefy vocals, Graham Tyler's gonzo guitar leads and the showman theatrics of the entire band may be as close as most folks will ever get to the storied over-the-top rock shows of the Motor City's Grande Ballroom.

While much of the crowd was there to measure the Hives against their hype, the Mooney Suzuki made more than a few converts. On the title song from their latest release, Electric Sweat, Tyler shook his wavy hair and babystepped his way across stage like AC/DC mainman Angus Young. During "In a Young Man's Mind" (and several other songs, to boot) drummer Augie Wilson got so overcharged he had to stand up to play his kit.

What separates the Mooney Suzuki from many of their garage-rock brethren is a sharp awareness of what made their heroes great. Songs like "Oh Sweet Susanna" revealed the rare but right-on understanding that the MC5 were an R&B band on overdrive, rather than a rock group with some interest in soul.

It's a lesson the band hopes we'll learn sooner rather than later.

"We do not have time to mess around," James said. "We have right now."

For more sights and stories from concerts around the world, check out MTV News Tour Reports.

• The Hives
• The Mooney Suzuki

The Hives
Photo: Warner Bros.

To many music fans, mainstream rock has become bloated.

For them, its crystalline production, arena-suited posturing and cross-genre collaborations have relegated qualities like gritty emotion, raw power and a sloppy swagger — the foundation upon which bands like the Who, the Stones, the MC5 and the Ramones build their monumental rock — to the back seat.

When the essence of the music gets lost in the shuffle for mainstream success, it usually signifies the end of a genre's lifecycle and a shift toward the leaner and meaner. This cyclical process traces back to rock's origins, when the prefab pop of the late '50s and early '60s gave rise to the experimental psychedelic era, when '70s arena rock begot punk and when exorbitant hair metal fostered grunge as a response.

The shift toward a more bare-bones approach has already started in the formative underground, where bands like New York's the Strokes and Detroit's White Stripes have paved a path to mainstream-media attention for similarly stripped-down rockers the Vines, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Catheters, the Mooney Suzuki and the Hives, the last two of which will kick off a tour May 26 in San Diego.

The three-week trek is one of the most anticipated for the raw-rocking set since the Strokes embarked on their national jaunt last year, fostering observations that a neo-garage movement, for lack of a better term, is coming up for air. Veni Vidi Vicious, the second album by Swedish headliners the Hives, was given a major-label reissue by Sire Records, a Warner Bros. imprint, May 7, spurring playlist additions for the single "Hate to Say I Told You So," which also appears on the "Spider-Man" soundtrack.

The Mooney Suzuki have had New York's "next big thing" label attached to them since their second album, Electric Sweat, came out last month. Sydney, Australia, quartet the Vines will release their debut album, Highly Evolved, July 16 on Capitol Records after a hype-filled bidding war. And the YYY's lead the pack of unsigned or indie bands attracting the attention of major labels.

Need more proof? E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt hosts a syndicated, two-hour Sunday night radio show based on his periodic New York concert series, Cavestomp!, where he spins music from such garage-rock pioneers as Them and the Electric Prunes and contemporary groups like Swingin' Neckbreakers and the Greenhornes (see "Kurt Loder On 'Little Steven's Underground Garage' " ). Since the show's launch on April 7, affiliate stations carrying the show have grown from 27 to 41. (Archived shows are available in streaming media at www.hardrock.com.)

"I think some people are discovering that the rap-rock and the nü-metal aren't any good," Hives guitarist Nicholaus Arson mused on the upswing of stripped-down rock. "I'm not saying that I don't like it. I sometimes like really bad music — you can learn from its mistakes. There's just so much music, and there's music that I like a lot more. To me, it just makes sense that people would like the same music as I do because the music that I listen to is very good."

Like any organic movement, the burgeoning neo-garage scene is a result of like-minded musicians dissatisfied with contemporary commercial music and coming of age to do something about it. While their sound certainly has retro appeal, lifting riffs from dusty surf tunes, psychedelic freak-outs and below-radar punk bands, it's not a pure reflection of collective influences like the Sonics, Seeds and 13th Floor Elevators. These revivalists aren't content to simply turn the clocks back. With each backward glance is a unique vision that gives a distinct personality to the Hives' volatile, AM-radio punk and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' ramshackle, treble-heavy come-ons.

"It's just a matter of playing stuff we like," Mooney Suzuki guitarist Graham Tyler said, "whether it's soul or straight-up rock and roll or garage stuff. With any kind of artistic medium, whether it's painting or drawing or music, you're going to run it through your own body and put your own stink on it, anyway. It will come out [with] your own style no matter what."

While punk was a reaction to the puffed-up progressive rock of the mid-'70s, and grunge clashed with hair-metal's debauched frivolity, neo-garage comes at a time when rock fans — finding mainstream music a blur of played-out angst and crossbred buffoonery — have all but given up hope on being excited by something new.

"Everything is a reaction to something else," Arson said. "I liked Mudhoney (the nearest to garage of the Seattle scene), but the way we dress was sort of a reaction to grunge. We started wearing suits instead of flannel.

"First of all, it looks better," he continued. "Second of all, ... when we started out, we were a punk band. When you're 14 and have a punk band, what you do is sort of fool around. When the [other] punks didn't like us wearing suits, we wore suits even more. It was just a funny way of getting a reaction. It was punk."

Looking sharp onstage is another throwback to which many bands — the Strokes and Mooney Suzuki included — adhere. Suits, even crumpled ones with skinny ties, stem from a time when it was expected that bands look their best when performing. While such mid-'60s groups as the Standells, the Remains, and the Chocolate Watch Band dressed snappy enough for Dick Clark's TV show, their reckless, disaster-tempting music would have left his American Bandstand in ruins.

While much of their music mainly fell on deaf ears at the time, renewed interest came in 1972, when rock writer Lenny Kaye, who would later play guitar for the Patti Smith Group, compiled a comprehensive cross-section of garage for the double album Nuggets. The legendary collection, which later spawned two Rhino box sets and dozens of similar compilations, became a prime example that those bands, deemed "punk rock" years before the Ramones ever left their Queens, New York, neighborhood, didn't need to play as proficiently or sound as refined as what AM radio offered. What mattered was not giving a damn and rocking out anyway.

"[It was] a time when nobody seemed too sure of what was happening but never let that get in the way of enjoying it to the fullest," Kaye wrote in the album's liner notes. "Most of these groups were young, decidedly unprofessional, seemingly more at home practicing for a teen dance than going out on national tour. The name that has been unofficially coined for them — "punk rock" — seems particularly fitting in this case, for if nothing else they exemplified the berserk pleasure that comes with being on-stage outrageous, the relentless middle-finger drive and determination offered only by rock and roll at its finest."

"Initially the term 'garage' was used to describe the American teenagers that were so enthralled with the British Invasion bands that they tried to copy but they didn't do it that well," Mooney Suzuki singer Sammy James Jr. said.

"But they did it very honestly and with a lot of spirit," his bandmate Tyler added.

"The spirit and the energy is what gave it its ..."

"Charm and appeal."

Following the late '70s/early '80s heyday of punk, which adopted a similar, uneducated approach as garage, Crypt, Estrus and other indie labels harbored a punked-up garage scene a decade later by releasing early singles by bands like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, New Bomb Turks and Thee Headcoats, all of whom most of today's garage rockers cite as influences.

While mainstream rock was dominated by self-obsessed mope music and pissed-off grunge, the swell stayed mainly underground, though Spencer's woozy punk blues allowed for some modest mainstream appeal among hipsters in the late '90s. Now, however, these former castaway groups are being heralded as the real revivalists by their successors.

A key component that garage bands both old and new possess is a raw, huffing-and-puffing vitality, which makes for club shows that pack the wallop and spectacle of a pyrotechnic arena-rock blowout. It's nearly impossible to listen to a song by any band of this ilk without envisioning a performance as a complement, a testament to the music's irresistible energy.

"We wrote the music around what we could make most explosive live," Mooney's James said.

"Touring live is the Mooney Suzuki," Tyler added. "You can't have one without the other."

And it's at these live gigs where industry buzz on upstart bands almost equals the level of the music's agitated volume. Downtown dives are now playing host to more suits than an uptown dry cleaner, an obvious sign that labels, both major and larger indies, are jostling for position on the cutting edge.

On the heels of the Hives' reissue and the Vines' signing, Chicago's Touch and Go Records will give a five-song EP the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released on a Brooklyn-based indie in 2001 the reissue treatment in July, as major-label A&R execs court the band for their debut full-length. Recent New York showcases by Tampa, Florida's the Washdown, and Philadelphia's Burning Brides and the Capitol Years had industry ears perked; as does the buzz surrounding New York's Girl Harbor, Sweden's Division of Laura Lee, and Detroit's the Von Bondies and Dirtbombs.

"I would say that a few years ago [signing with a major] would seem like an impossibility," said James, whose New York City quintet's Electric Sweat was released on hometown indie Gammon Records. "But today it seems that it may not be such an impossibility and we're always looking for the next exciting thing to try. I just don't feel as closed to it now."

Hives/Mooney Suzuki tour dates, according to the Hives' publicist:

• 5/26 - San Diego, CA @ The Scene
• 5/27 - West Hollywood, CA @ Roxy Theatre
• 5/28 - West Hollywood, CA @ Roxy Theatre
• 5/29 - San Francisco, CA @ Slim's
• 5/30 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
• 5/31 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
• 6/1 - Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
• 6/4 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
• 6/5 - Chicago, IL @ Metro/Smart Bar
• 6/6 - Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick
• 6/7 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom & Tavern
• 6/8 - Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus (formerly Warehouse)
• 6/9 - Montreal, QC @ Club Soda
• 6/11 - Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Club
• 6/12 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
• 6/13 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
• 6/14 - Philadelphia, PA @ Transit
• 6/15 - Washington, DC @ Black Cat

—Joe D'Angelo, with additional reporting by Iann Robinson

• The Hives
• The Mooney Suzuki
• The Strokes

• The Mooney Suzuki

Does the world need another rap/rock act? The latest band to break into the genre is Quarashi, an Icelandic outfit that could pass for the children of the Beastie Boys and Limp Bizkit, if that were biologically possible. They've already made a name for themselves with their single, "Stick 'Em Up." Their U.S. debut, Jinx, hits stores this week.

Hoping not to get jinxed by - Jinx are the Mooney Suzuki, a four-piece garage band (and crowd favorite at this year's South By Southwest) from New York City that derived its name from those of former Can singers Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki. They've just issued their second full-length album, - Electric Sweat.

If you're more MTV than MTV2, no doubt you're familiar with Heather B., the tough-talking, dog-walking cast member of the first season of "The Real World" ... and the "Real World" reunions ... and the "Real World/Road Rules Challenge." She's stepping back into the spotlight with her first love, music. Heather's third album, - Eternal Affairs hits shelves on Tuesday. Just like reruns, the title suggests she'll probably be around for an eternity.

Out Tuesday April 9:

• 40 Below Summer - Invitation to the Dance (London/Sire)
• 764-HERO - Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere (Tiger Style)
• 98 Mute - After the Fall (Epitaph)
• Angelic Upstarts - Bootlegs Live and Rarities (Cleopatra)
• Arcturus - Sham Mirrors (The End)
• Avoid One Thing - Avoid One Thing (Side One/Dummy)
• Azure Ray - Burn and Shiver (Warm)
• Heather B. - Eternal Affairs (SAI)
• The Baldwin Brothers - Cooking with Lasers (TVT)
• Jeff Beck & The Yardbirds - Yardbird Years (Remastered, Fuel 2000)
• Big Country - Live in Cologne (Cleopatra)
• Braxton Brothers - Both Sides (Peak)
• Lane Brody - Pieces of Life (Scream)
• Guillermo E. Brown - Soul at the Hands of the Machine (Thirsty Ear)
• Brute - Co-Balt (Widespread)
• Jimmy Cavallo - The Houserocker! (Blue Wave)
• Bill Charlap - Stardust (Blue Note)
• Choobakka - My Time.(Numillenium)
• Consonant - Consonant (Fenway)
• Crispy Ambulance - Scissorgun (Darla)
• Crown - Crowned in Terror (Metal Blade)
• D-Tension - Contacts & Contracts (Landspeed)
• DJ Hiro - Local Underground Disc One (Vitamin)
• DJ Victor Dinaire - Timeless Trance: Morning Sessions (Logic)
• Dark Day Dawning - Nothing That I Wouldn't Give (Resurrection A.D.)
• Bobby D'Ambrosio - Here I Am (Definity)
• Guy Davis - Give in Kind (Red House)
• The Detachment Kit - They Raging, Quiet Arm (Self Starter Foundation)
• Die Form - Confessions (Reissue, Metropolis)
• Die Form - Ad Infinitum (Reissue, Metropolis)
• Diversiti - Diversiti (Orpheus)
• Dixie Dregs - 20th Century Masters: Millennium Collection (Mercury)
• Dokken - Long Way Home (CMC Int'l)
• Dolly Varden - Forgiven Now (Untertow)
• Down By Law - Punkrockdays: Best of DBL (Epitaph)
• Steve Earle - Sidetracks (E-Squared/Artemis)
• Earth - Extra-Capsular Extraction (Reissue, Sub Pop)
• Paul Elliot - Coming Home (AO!/Black Scorpio)
• Drew Emmitt - Freedom Ride (Compass)
• Face to Face - How to Ruin Everything (Vagrant)
• Familiar 48 - Wonderful Nothing (MCA)
• Mark Farina - Connect (Om)
• Rachelle Ferrell - Live at Montreux(Blue Note)
• Frankie Bones - Pro.File: Turntable Specialist Volume 2 (BML)
• Freaky Flow - Keep it Live (Moonshine)
• Eliza Gilkyson - Lost and Found (Red House)
• Gloria Record - Start Here (Arena Rock)
• Goo Goo Dolls - Gutterflower (Warner Bros.)
• Gravediggaz - Nightmare in A Minor (Empire Musickwerks)
• Patty Griffin - 1000 Kisses (ATO)
• Djamel Hammadi - Medina (Milan)
• Matt Harris - Slightly Elliptical Orbit (Leon Russell)
• Haywood - We Are Amateurs, You & I (Self Starter Foundation)
• Helloween - Treasure Chest (Sanctuary)
• David Holmes - Come Get It, I Got It (Thirteen Amp)
• Tommy Hools - Shut Up! Early Works & Remixes Volume 1 (K7)
• Imani - Break of Dawn (Numillennium)
• Imperial Teen - On (Merge)
• Informatik - Nymphomatik (Metropolis)
• Teddy Jack - Teddy Jack (Leon Russell)
• Japancakes - Belmondo-Bliss Out Volume 19 (Darla)
• Jaz-O/Immobilarie - Kingz Kounty (D&D)
• Will Johnson - Murder of Tides (Undertow)
• Bill Jones - Turn to Me (Compass)
• K7/Ty Bless - Love, Sex, Money (Select)
• Chris LeDoux - After the Storm (Capitol)
• Life Without Buildings - Any Other City (DC Baltimore 2012)
• The Long Winters - Worst You Can Do Is Harm (Barsuk)
• Mad Happy - Feel Good Music... for the Broke Middle Class (Bar/None)
• Masters at Work - Our Time Is Coming (Tommy Boy)
• Masters of the Hemisphere - Protest a Dark Anniversary (Kindercore)
• Meat Puppets - Live at Maxwell's 2.08.01 (DCN)
• Medeski, Martin & Wood - Uninvisible (Blue Note)
• Mellow Man Ace - From the Darkness Into the Light (X-Ray)
• Metta Quintet - Going to Meet the Man (Koch Jazz)
• The Mingus Big Band with Elvis Costello - Tonight at Noon ... (Dreyfus Jazz)
• The Mooney Suzuki - Electric Sweat (Gammon/Telegraph)
• Gary Moore - Best of the Blues (Virgin)
• Moth - Provisions, Fiction & Gear (Virgin)
• Motörhead - Hammered (Sanctuary)
• Must - Androgynous Jesus (Wind-up)
• Nina Nastasia - The Blackened Air (Touch & Go)
• The National Trust - Dekkagar (Thrill Jockey)
• Oppressor - Solstice of Oppression (Crash)
• Oxymoron - Best Before 2000 (GMM)
• Oxymoron - Feed the Breed (GMM)
• Portable - Only If You Look Up (TVT)
• Pretty Girls Make Graves - Is It Broken Doctor (Lookout!)
• Quarashi - Jinx (Columbia)
• The Queers - Pleasant Screams (Lookout!)
• Rain - Get It Right (Taqa/True Life)
• Bonnie Raitt - Silver Lining (Capitol)
• Ralph's World - At the Bottom of the Sea (Mini Fresh)
• Rasputina - Cabin Fever (Instinct)
• The Reputation - The Reputation (Initial)
• Mike Rizzo - NYC Dance Party (Surge/Warlock)
• Patti Rothberg - Candelabra Cadabra (Double on Tundra)
• Leon Russell - Moonlight & Love Songs (Leon Russell)
• Rusted Root - Welcome to My Party (Island)
• Saloon - This Is What We Call Progress (Darla)
• Semiautomatic - Resident Genius (5 Rue Christine)
• Sarah Shannon - Sarah Shannon (Barsuk)
• Luke Slater - Alright on Top (Mute)
• Slick Shoes - Slick Shoes (Tooth & Nail)
• Soulmotor - Revolution Wheel (Sanctuary)
• Soul Center - Soul Center III (Mute)
• Soulive - Turn It Out (Velour)
• Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Plastic Fang (Matador)
• Superchunk - Art Class EP (Merge)
• Swayzak - Groove Technology (K7)
• Ty Tabor - Safety (Metal Blade)
• Templars - Reconquista 1994-1998 (GMM)
• Ten Years After - Anthology 1967-1971 (Hip-O)
• Thick Di-- - Tribal Seduction (Subliminal)
• Erik Truffaz - Mantis (Blue Note)
• Undercroft - Evilusion (Crash)
• Junior Vasquez - Earth Music (Tommy Boy)
• Vital Information - Show 'Em Where You Live (Tone Center)
• Eamonn Vitt - Old Wave New Ride (Self Starter Foundation)
• David Wilcox - Live Songs & Stories (W.A.R.)
• Winds - Reflections of the I (The End)
• Won-G - Explosion (Orpheus)
• Neil Young - Are You Passionate? (Reprise)
  Read about it ... Neil Young Returns With Passion
  

• Various artists - "1 Giant Leap" soundtrack (Palm Pictures)
• Various artists - The Jam Band Tribute to the Allman Brothers (CMH)
• Various artists - Night Grooves 2 (Narada Jazz)
• Various artists - Perfecto Collection (Perfecto)
• Various artists - Shellac Presents: All Tomorrow's Parties 2.0 (All Tomorrow's Parties)
• Various artists - Soma 10th Anthology (Soma)
• Various artists - Still Phishin': A Bluegrass Tribute to Phish, Vol. 2 (CMH)
• Various artists - The String Quartet Tribute to the Cure (Vitamin)
• Various artists - Victory Style Five (Victory)

  April 23:

  • Naughty by Nature - Iicons (TVT)
    Read about it ... Naughty By Nature, 3LW Save The Day
    

  • Tina Novak - Been Around the World (Arista)
  • Q-Tip - Kamaal the Abstract (Arista)
  • Sneaker Pimps - Bloodsport (Tommy Boy)
  
  
  

  April 30:

  • Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow (MCA)
  • Donell Jones - Life Goes On (Arista)
  • Various artists - "Spider-Man" soundtrack (Columbia)
    Read about it ... 'Spider-Man' Theme To Come Courtesy Of Aerosmith
  
  
  

  May 7:

  • Grandmaster Flash - Essential Mix (Warner)
    Read about it ... Grandmaster Flash Brings Back '70s, '80s Beats On Essential Mix
    

  • Musiq Soulchild - Juslisten (Island/Def Jam)
    Read about it ... Musiq Soulchild Croons Conversation Pieces On Juslisen
    

  • Various artists - Family Values Tour 2001(Elektra)
    Read about it ... Aaron Lewis Assists STP, Linkin Park On Family Values CD
  
  
  

  May 14:

  • Atticus Fault - Atticus Fault (Island/Def Jam)
  • Various artists - Now Presents Urban Hits (Columbia)
  
  
  

  May 21:

  • Breeders - Title TK (Elektra)
  • Tommy Lee - Never a Dull Moment (MCA)
  • Raphael Saadiq - Instant Vintage (Universal)
  
  
  

  May 28:

  • Eminem - The Eminem Show (Interscope)
    Read about it ... The Doc's Diagnosis: Eminem Still Crazy
  
  
  

  June 4:

  • Lil' Romeo - Game Time (Universal/No Limit)
    Read about it ... Lil' Romeo Battles His Evil Twin On B-Ball Court
  
  
  
  Related Artists
  • Quarashi
  • Goo Goo Dolls
  • The Mooney Suzuki
  • Neil Young
  • 764-Hero
  ]]> http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453327/20020408/quarashi.jhtml News Article http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453327/20020408/quarashi.jhtml 9 Apr 2002 07:56:00 EDT The Mooney Suzuki - 99%

  99%

  • Artist: The Mooney Suzuki
  • Label: Elixia Records
  • Album: Have Mercy [Unreleased V2 Version]
  ]]> Videos http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1211748&vid=160422 http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1211748&vid=160422 3 Jul 2007 12:00:00 EDT The Mooney Suzuki - Alive and Amplified

  Alive and Amplified

  • Artist: The Mooney Suzuki
  • Label: Red Ink/Columbia
  • Album: Alive & Amplified
  ]]> Videos http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1211748&vid=35763 http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1211748&vid=35763 24 Sep 2004 12:00:00 EDT

  MTV Exclusive: The Mooney Suzuki Photos

  Related Artists
  • The Mooney Suzuki
  ]]> Photos http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1471352 http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1471352 17 Apr 2003 06:18:40 EDT

  SXSW 2003 Highlight Photos

  Related Artists
  • D4
  • Death Cab For Cutie
  • The Flaming Sideburns
  • Idlewild
  • Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
  ]]> Photos http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1471178 http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1471178 10 Apr 2003 04:28:12 EDT