At the book’s heart lies the notion that any kid with a dream could escape to New York and became a star, even a minor one.
Hank Thompson died Tuesday (11/6/07) of lung cancer. His combination of Honky Tonk singing and sentiments with Western Swing backing made him a country music superstar.
A legendary post-punk band from Athens, GA, PYLON is more than just historically important (an obvious and frequently acknowledged influence on R.E.M., among others). This is great music, highly original at the time.
The Cult’s painfully disappointing Born Into This can’t simply be the result of an aging band out of touch with a musical landscape they once electrified in decades passed.
The sound is a bit heavier, rhythms a bit stronger. That added heaviness is balanced, however, by the addition of female vocals.
So far this year, not from any great personal endeavor but just from circumstances, most of my favorite albums have been keeping fairly low under the radar.
La Otracina journeys back three decades to the days when interstellar explorers traveled on waves of guitar riffs, propelled through space and time by hard-hitting drum juggernauts.
This hugely underrated 1979 post-punk debut LP from Bristol, England’s ironically named The Pop Group appears for the third time on CD, having finally acquired a bonus track.
One of the stranger albums to reemerge in the freak-folk revival of psychedelic artifacts.
THURSTON MOORE played guitar with YOKO ONO for a few songs, thus paying tribute to an underrated and massively influential artist.
One of the great outsider creations finally makes it to CD!
I highly recommend seeing Sicko and furthermore, I hope that its ideas resonate with those who may not have considered them before.
Despite a focus on the weighty and the wistful, the Opposite Sex’s debut full-length still has a vibrant violence that makes the band’s post-punk stylings so intriguing.
On the four lengthy tracks, the effect is both hypnotic and transcendent. For variety, halfway through there’s the brief “Clouds Collapse,” a sparely constructed array of plucks and plinks that achieves a Zen-like intense focus on pure sound, the perfect palate cleanser.
The musician Stew makes his first foray into theater and delivers a winning rock/ballad/funk/punk/electronic/afro-baroque/avant-garde/cabaret musical.
All the thrumming tunefulness and enigmatic lyricism returns (the lyrics filled with even more foreboding and dread now), with some new twists.
Meg Baird of Espers has made a solo acoustic album in the vein of the traditional English folk that has been such a major ingredient in the sound of her band.
With Book of Bad Breaks the group has its third winner in as many albums.
This year the films included many that I was interested in seeing, those daily-life considerations made me end up seeing just 8 films.
The band that almost makes Boredoms sound mellow by comparison returns with another aural assault, their first album of new material in four years – now with added theremin!
If you want a true San Francisco treat then put down the Rice-A-Roni and pick up this stellar album instead.
The rough, gritty and realistic feel could make one believe that it was in fact a documentary.
If Henry Fool sounds far-fetched, it’s absolutely nothing compared to its sequel.
I would highly recommend seeing this film if you’re a fan of NIRVANA or KURT COBAIN.
Jazz/world music clarinetist/saxophonist TONY SCOTT died on March 28, and as so often happens, that prompted me to see what of his I had to listen to. It turned out that I had very little of his early recorded output, so I bought two recent compilations of his ‘50s material to do some belated catching up.
Not only is this some of the best funk of the period, and historically important as the root source of what in a few years would become the Washington D.C. Go-Go scene, it includes one of the most heavily sampled breakbeats around, from the instrumental “Ashley’s Roachclip.”
It took 36 years for this to be officially released; it’s worth the wait.
Guitar Romantic doesn’t have a shred of ironic, detached cool; instead it’s about some kids being completely and totally in love with rock and roll.
Hissing Fauna is the artistic representation of a breakdown. Importantly, though, the sound of the album is not the stereotypical doom-and-gloom.
What Sharp did was take Monkish attributes and emphasize them even further.
This is an odd but fascinating compilation of three very disparate items. The title piece, for ten electric guitars and drums, is previously unreleased; a 31-minute Glenn Branca work from 1981 finally appearing is enough reason in itself to acquire this disc.
This is an engrossing set of spacey free improvisation, as much psychedelia as jazz, as African as it is Philadelphian.
If you’re holiday shopping for a box set to give to a jazz fan, consider this exemplary new compilation. Weather Report was one of the most influential electric jazz bands, setting fusion trends and then moving beyond them to set new ones.
“You can thank old time record collectors for the music that is left because the record companies didn’t give a damn about any of that stuff. They threw all the stampers out.”
The London shows (the same 17 songs on successive nights) find them in their most helter-skelter, confrontational punk vein as they play their first and second gigs as a quartet. In NYC the following year, most of the set comes from Chairs Missing.
The cracked majesty of her singing, sounding so raw and vulnerable yet actually imbued with subtle craft, recalls BILLIE HOLIDAY in her final years. An acquired taste for some, but for many there’s an immediate attraction.
What we have are some truly special releases…this new one as much as the others, or possibly even more so.
When the album was originally released, Smith was only allowed to sing on two tracks. Now we get to hear his vocal demos of all 10 original tracks and an additional four songs, plus two instrumentals.
Quite simply, they played one of the best, most jaw-dropping shows I’ve ever seen in my life!
The beauty of this compilation has been its role in introducing me to so much new and cutting edge music—spare synths that suck you in, electric guitars that slice and aurally eviscerate—this is a record that begs to be listened to alone, in the dark.
25 years after the Slits’ previous recording, original members ARI UP and TESSA POLLIT re-team for a three-song EP.
Low guitarist delivers a collection of dark, frightening landscapes turned to sound, pushing listeners to really focus on the emotional, physical quality of timbre and the way it can create a sense of space – or, on occasion, a claustrophobic lack of space.
On Suite XVI you hear something of its own identity. It’s safe to say Hugh Cornwell’s ghost has finally been put to rest.
This footage depicts a downtown Manhattan far removed from the expensive, trendy place it is today. Instead, it was dirty, carefree and cheap, attracting many artists, including many who are still active today.
Buckner’s words are evocative yet enigmatic; he describes situations so specifically, at such a fine level of detail, that paradoxically their definable meaning cannot be pinned down—and yet, the mood is communicated perfectly through his world-weary singing.
This souvenir from 17 years ago catches Dr. John in action at a beloved New Orleans nightclub. The ten-song program’s a nice mix of Rebennack-penned classics, New Orleans standards, and blues/R&B warhorses infused with Nawlins goodness.
This year, Heartbeat Records is marking “50 years of Jamaican music” by spiffing up its catalog of Clement S. Dodd’s many Studio One recordings with remastering, bonus tracks, and new compilations.
While JAY-Z’s 40/40 Club is not my usual haunt, I decided to go there after being invited to the “Suiting Up” fundraiser, for the good cause (and the free booze).
