You know what lucky is? Lucky is having a pal who's a lot more cultured than your own white-bread ass so you can get hip to a lot of cool stuff without having to spend the time it takes to get that way in the first place. You know who Lucky is? That's Steve Sando - Mr. Lucky himself.
Mr. Lucky is a sophisticated guy in the San Francisco Bay area who lives every hour of his day in pursuit of two things - the heppest music on the planet and the best booze he can lay his hands on. MisterLucky is a zine he publishes every month to hip us all to the latest and finest in suave music and debonair drinks. Apparently, he has no real life to speak of, but that's good for you and me, because by reading his right-on music and hootch reviews, we go straight to being cool and keep a real life to boot.
CDs really took a bite out of musical experimentation for most people. Who wants to take a chance when they cost 17 bucks a pop? That's where MisterLucky comes in. Sando flexes his lifetime's worth of record collecting and packs each issue with a good two dozen solid recommendations of what he calls "jazz-centric" music. Jazz-centric covers everything from early American jazz and bop to classic Brazilian music to blues to Keely Smith to basically everything that's too cool for just anyone to be up on. I know a fair amount about music, but I copped a load of serious CDs from leafing through a few MisterLuckys, and so far, I haven't bought one dud on Sando's picks. I'm usually of the view that anyone who calls himself a music critic should be pummeled with a tube sock full of dung, but Sando knows what he's talking about. Thirty bucks for a year of MisterLucky is money extremely well spent. And I've got to say, Sando's educated, witty, and downright friendly writing is a welcome relief from the usual bitter-loser-with-a-Kinko's-card mentality most zines seem to suffer from these days.
Written for those who would define the perfect state as "listening to great tunes while expensive and delicious alcohol drifts through your bloodstream," MisterLucky is the drinking person's guide to fine music.
MisterLucky: US$30 per year, $35 for foreign markets. Coconut Grove: +1 (415) 648 5803, fax +1 (415) 282 4394, e-mail coconutg@wco.com.
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