Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.

The late, lamented, Hoon-led Blind Melon shows up on the cover of RS 669, rising like a gaggle of nude, hippie nymphs from the muck of LA’s post-Gn’R hair-metal scene. Or something. Kim Neely’s take on the band’s rise to prominence is thorough enough — but also frustratingly bland for a band that had a reputation for being a bit nutso. Good-natured bitching about living in the shadow of the Bee Girl’s success gives way to a term-paperish accounting of the band’s origins (short version: they all moved to LA and formed a band). Later, they threaten to vomit on a label exec, steal some artwork from a restaurant bathroom, and smash up a hotel room. But unfortunately all of the good stuff is buried after the jump, on page 82. Why? I have no idea. If Cameron Crowe had been dead in 1993, he would have been rolling over in his grave.

The rest of this workman-like issue is peppered with small joys: an item about Shaq rapping, an ad for one of those then-ubiquitous 1-800-Collect services (does anybody born after the year 1988 even know what calling collect even means?), a PM Dawn reference. Pearl Jam’s Vs. pulls a (much deserved, though my judgment might be clouded by personal nostalgia) 4.5 stars from reviewer Jim Bessman (“A lot of singers know how to convey emotion in a song, but few are capable of the kind of range or drama Vedder routinely imparts”), thus cementing their status as one of those bands who always gets a good review from Rolling Stone. There’s also a brave and well-crafted piece of gutshot journalism, written by a guy who was molested by a priest while growing up in Massachusetts. Doubly awful when you consider that it took nearly 10 more years before the Catholic church was called to any sort of institutional account.

Also: Glenn Frey gets a TV show, Elton John gets physical, and In Utero gets dissed…by Wal Mart.

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