Get ready to ramble: 21 shows you need to see before September

Music Features

The down low

A legacy of musical runts

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | April 30, 2009

Ronnie James Dio

Get shorty: Lady Sovereign hits new heights. By Daniel Brockman.

Lady Sovereign's first EP was named Vertically Challenged, she named her imprint Midget Records, and she's repeatedly proclaimed herself "officially the biggest midget in the game." At a towering 5'1", the S-O-V joins a long line of famous popular musicians who would probably have a hard time getting on a roller-coaster. Below are five of the more renowned Napoleonic frontpersons in recent history (in descending order, from tallest to shortest):

UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER OF ACCEPT (5'5") | This feisty German fireplug had, in his prime, the powder-keg lunacy of a man at least 5'8". Best known for the guttural adenoid bursts of the not-at-all-homo-erotic '84 hit "Balls to the Wall."

GLENN ANZALONE a/k/a GLEN DANZIG (5'4") | From his fronting the Misfits and Samhain to his solo work, the pissed-off Joisey lunkhead with the basso profundo that launched a thousand "whoa"s is living proof that you can make up in attitude what you lack in stature.

RONALD JAMES PADAVONA a/k/a RONNIE JAMES DIO (5'4") | Just as Napoleon Bonaparte (5'6") was able to crown himself emperor in an age when there weren't even phone books to sit on, so did Dio elevate himself onto the highest pedestal in metal history with not much more than a stunning voice, a wicked cackle, and a limitless ability to come up with ways to call women evil.

KYLIE MINOGUE (5'0") | Kylie proves once and for all that being a diva ain't about being tall. When the whole world is on a first-name basis with you and your hotness, you probably have a coterie of servants to get that bag of crisps off the top shelf for you.

RICHARD SHAW a/k/a BUSHWICK BILL OF GETO BOYS (3'8") | Bill and the Boys were easily the most aggressively vicious of the late-'80s gangster-rap crews, and some might speculate that Bill's nasty streak was his way of compensating for his stubbiness. Nevertheless, the venomous flow on cuts like "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" truly belies his size.

Interview: Glenn Danzig
There was a moment, while I was on hold on the phone as Glenn Danzig was being summoned by his publicist, where I was a tad intimidated. And not just because I was about to talk about one of the more legendary and divisive figures in the history of punk and metal.
Kylie Minogue | Aphrodite
Pint-sized Aussie sexpot Kylie Minogue's 11th studio album is titled Aphrodite , but if we're referencing Greek mythology, perhaps Sisyphus would be more appropriate.
Interview: Melissa Auf der Maur
Melissa Auf der Maur describes herself as "a good Boston Irish girl," born on St. Patrick's Day in 1972.
Photos: Kylie Minogue at Agganis Arena
Kylie Minogue | Agganis Arena | April 29, 2011
Kylie Minogue brings her long-running disco to Agganis Arena
Most talk in America regarding Kylie Minogue surrounds the mystery of her lack of popularity here: while the rest of the world regards the pint-sized Aussie pop diva as a multiplatinum stadium-filler, here she is little more than an import-only dance queen known mostly for her late-‘80s hit cover of “The Loco-Motion.”
JeknowwotI’msayin?
“People have this kind of problem with me,” says Lady Sovereign over the phone from her London home. “They think they know me, and they don’t know me — and it’s dis gustin ’.” Lady Sovereign, "Gatheration" (mp3)
Neo-new-what?
The real album of the year is a disc that probably didn’t cross many people’s paths in 2006, a Rhino comp titled Future Retro that pairs various DJs/electronicists (Richard X, Tiga, the Crystal Method) with classic new-wave tracks by the Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, and New Order.
Various artists, RUN THE ROAD VOLUME 2 | Vice
If Cam’ron is good enough to look for talent overseas and Jay-Z can nab Lady Sovereign, then Great Britain might just overcome America’s mainstream myopia. Vice believes it.
Get shorty
"It's not like Jay-Z saw me on the street and discovered me and made me into a superstar! I was doing my thing already."
Carnal knowledge
When I interviewed Nick Cave for the Phoenix three years ago and he told me — drolly, languidly, literarily — that his next writing project was about “a sexually incontinent hand-cream salesman” on the south coast of England, I assumed he was taking the piss.
Hits and missus
Give you a hint: one of them sizzled, one of them fizzled. Live grime’s a bitch, innit? The Streets and Lady Sovereign at Avalon, June 21, 2006
Less

Topics: Music Features , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Music Stars, More

| More

ARTICLES BY DANIEL BROCKMAN

THE CULT SURVIVES ROCK'S HIGHS AND LOWS | May 31, 2012
There is a difference between an unknown musical artist and a superstar, and that difference isn't necessarily musical — it's mythological.

RAZORMAZE ADDS FOCUS TO THEIR THRASH | May 15, 2012
For a kind-of goofy metal dude, Alex Citrone is pretty serious — especially when he talks metal, and especially when he's talking about his band, Boston shred titans Razormaze.

ZAMBRI | HOUSE OF BAASA | May 15, 2012
For those of us of a certain age who remember when school dances had a strict four-fast-songs-then-one-slow-one policy, the memory of bouncing around to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" with the anticipation of "One More Night" or "Take My Breath Away" still makes our palms sweat with hormonal anxiety.

CONFRONTING THE SWEDISH GLOOM OF IN SOLITUDE | May 08, 2012
When I am finally able to get through to the cell phone of In Solitude's tour manager, they have emerged from a massive dust cloud, their metal-mobile finding civilization after a long spell traversing the deserts of Arizona with no idea where they are going.

[R.I.P.] ADAM YAUCH AND THE BEASTIE BOYS | May 08, 2012
ADAM YAUCH, a/k/a MCA, was likely inspired to pen those words, that appear in a tossed off couplet in the middle of what would wind up being one of the band’s final singles, by his immersion in the world of illness.