rockcritics daily (phase 1)

Close Up With the Sign That Says We Never Close

The Anti-Blog Blogger.
"If you don't have anything nice to say, say it in a blog."

I suppose.

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Ian MacDonald

By Marcello Carlin, at The Church of Me.

Carlin on the piece--MacDonald's review of Bowie's Low--that helped turn him into a writer:

"This was writing aware of its history, writing which actually instructed the reader to take pop music seriously, writing which stayed with the open-minded reader for decades even as it described the closing of minds. Did we know that even then MacDonald was writing his own obituary?"

This Week's "Get Rich Quick!" Fantasy

Transcribe the entire text of Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic and replace the words "guitar" with "sampler," "faggy" with "shredding," and "Limey" with "incredible." Just to see what would happen.

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Klosterman Comes to Toronto

Speaking engagement on September 11: Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto (Simon & Schuster).

7pm at the Rivoli. Free.

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Was Lester Bangs...

The Best Rock Critic of the '70s? Question asked by Sasha Frere-Jones in Slate.

Also, check out Brian Eno: A Sandbox In Alphaville, a previously unpublished Bangs piece reprinted in the new editon of Jason Gross's Perfect Sound Forever.

Sick Of Being Me...

Is the debut novel by Sean Egan, published October 31 2003 by Askill Publishing. Described as "the alternately exhilarating and harrowing story of guitarist Paul Hazelwood, from his childhood on a London council estate where he nurtures his dreams of stardom to his agonising realisation on the cusp of his thirties that talent doesn't necessarily bring success."

A sample-sample here, and a blurb-blurb there...

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Phil Dellio Writes:

The Cute Puppy Dog Syndrome

Amy Phillips' comments [see below] about Canada remind me of one of the more bizarre sideshows in Bowling for Columbine. Yes, it's a living paradise up here. We don't even have to lock our doors at night--she forgot to mention that.

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Not Un-Proud To Be a Canadian, Part 2

"Gonzo and I spend the afternoon drinking Bloody Marys by the pool; we have decided to start the booze wing of Rasta and spread the truths of that to the unenlightened, hoping for an eventual migration of all the enlightened back to Seagram's Distillery in Waterloo, Ontario."

Lester Bangs, "Innocents in Babylon," Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste.

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Greg Tate...

Interviewed by Errol Nazareth in eye weekly.

"'Some things still rankle you,' [Tate] admits. 'You can look at the so-called wigga phenomenon and laugh at it, but it makes you sick at the same time. We're looking at the money this culture's generating for black people who would've never seen these kind of dollars in their lives.'"

[Tate will be in Toronto to speak at The Death of Hip-Hop panel, Aug. 30. How come no one ever tells me these things? I mean, when did hip-hop die?!]

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Not Un-Proud To Be a Canadian, Part 1

"Those crazy Canadians. They're so gay! As they should be. Really, why wouldn't you be gay if you were Canadian? You've got good music television, socialized medicine, legal marijuana, homosexual marriage, and a government that's not insane."

Amy Phillips reviews Broken Social Scene and Hidden Cameras in the Village Voice.

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Klosterwatch

I Like Trash
Chuck Klosterman wallows joyfully in cultural crap, while in the afterlife, Lester Bangs rises above it.
Jesse Berrett in City Pages.

[link courtesy of weisblogg, who opines: "very amusing to read people freak out about this guy, plying him with unsolicited advice (although i hardly disagree with their disagreements with him)."]

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I've Now Got a Comments Box

Finally. Hope it works.

I'm not sure how big a fan I am of Comments Boxes--not what they do, but how they do it. (Do people really click through and read these tiny things?) Anyway, I hope it doesn't deter some people from sending me comments to post in the main body of this site. This blog is useless so long as it's just me.

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Danny Says

Voting for the Kids
Danny Goldberg Is a Liberal. He Has a Tough Question for Democrats

Profile of industry honcho and author of the book, Dispatches From the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit. "Part rock-and-roll memoir, part political tract, it breezily recounts Goldberg's coming of age, as both pop music mogul and political gadfly." By Ann Hornaday in Common Dreams News Center.

[Link courtesy of Flaskaland.]

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Heated in Seattle

Rhymes with Brasshole
From Kathleen Wilson's "Some Candy Talking" column in The Stranger.

Quote: "The next night at the bar [Andrew Bonazelli] walked up to me and said, 'I had no idea what you were talking about until I got an e-mail this morning saying [Bob] Mehr had been fired and that [Michaelangelo] Matos would be taking over.' Having had the displeasure of meeting Matos a few years prior, I wished Andrew luck. I'd found his new boss to be a socially inept slob."

And if being a "socially inept slop" isn't bad enough, Matos (according to Wilson) un-ceremoniously canned Meltzer's column. Says Wilson: "I'm not saying Meltzer--old-guy rock critic and Lester Bangs crony--should be treated with kid gloves, but show a modicum of respect." Pfft--respect never got anyone a cameo in a Meltzer index.

[Also see: "Bob Mehr Writes" in the archives.]

Tracks

Music magazine snags investor, by Wendy Blake in Crain's New York Business.

"Tracks, which bills itself as a publication focusing on 'music for grown-ups,' is slated to hit newsstands on Nov. 18, with an initial circulation of 100,000. It will be published quarterly for its first year before moving to a bimonthly by the end of 2004."

[link courtesy of musicjournalist.com]

Psychotic Reactions Sweeps rockcritics Top 5 List; White Male Canon Critics Still Dominate

Updating the Top 5 Lists on rockcritics is a chore I don't much look forward to these days, but I'm always pleasantly surprised to notice that new people still occasionally post to the ones that are already there. While perusing the Five Favourite Rock Books list today, I figured some stats were in order--thus, I present to you the Most Popular Rock Books of All-Time as Selected by A Few Dozen People Who Filled Out a List on rockcritics.com (as of Aug 26, 2003, 4:49 PM):

1. Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung / Lester Bangs (20 mentions)

2. 4-way tie
Christgau's Record Guide (votes tabulated for any and all editions listed)
Mystery Train / Greil Marcus
Please Kill Me / Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain
Aesthetics of Rock / Richard Meltzer
(10 mentions apiece)

3. Stairway to Hell / Chuck Eddy (9)

4. England's Dreaming / Jon Savage (8)

5. 4-way tie
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones / Stanley Booth
Pop From the Beginning / Nik Cohn
The Book of Rock Lists / Dave Marsh and others (two editions)
A Whore Just Like the Rest / Meltzer
(7 apiece)

6. The Heart of Rock and Soul / Marsh (6)

7. 2-way tie
Stranded / Marcus (ed.)
Unsung Heroes of Rock & Roll / Nick Tosches
(5 apiece)

8. 2-way tie
Sweet Soul Music / Peter Guralnick
The Dark Stuff / Nick Kent
(4 apiece)

9. 3-way tie
Rock and the Pop Narcotic / Joe Carducci
Let it Blurt / Jim DeRogatis
The Accidental Evolution of Rock 'n' Roll / Eddy
(3 apiece)

I don't vouch for 100% accuracy here. My method was to scan through the page, and when I came across a title that appeared a few times or that I knew would be a popular choice, I word-searched ("Ctrl-F") first by partial title (i.e., "Psychotic" for Psychotic Reactions) and then by name ("Bangs"). Sometimes I stumbled upon a word that made me hone down my searches even further (gee, didn't think of "Xgau"). I only counted stuff that showed up in lists, not in the comments section. Some participants cheated with joke lists, multiple votes (thanks a lot, Bill from Melbourne!), and weird misspellings, which made counting that much harder, though I did not (repeat NOT) turn this into a painstaking process or anything--I'm not paid enough. Feel free to point out mistakes or omissions, should you be so inclined.

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Steve Hyden Writes:

re: Clobbering Klosterman

Personally, I thought the New York Press piece was garbage. And not only because I like Klosterman A LOT (though that has to have some influence). If you are going to commit a hatchet job on somebody, at least make it funny. I can laugh at people I love if the hatchet artist is mean-clever enough. But this Ames guy is just ranting here. He goes on forever and starts repeating himself almost immediately. If Klosterman's musings aren't your cup of tea, I can understand that. If you don't like his ideas, fire away. But Ames starts with this weird pedophile angle that makes absolutely no sense if you have ever read Klosterman's work. He also seems hung up on the back cover photo. (Hey man, if we're going to start ripping on appearance, I'm outta here!) Ames main (only?) critical technique is quoting a passage and then saying something along the lines of, "Hoo-wee, what a douchebag! I can't believe he wrote that!" His main beef is that Klosterman doesn't really believe what he says, but he offers no evidence of that. If anything, Klosterman's seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of mid-period Billy Joel suggests his love is genuine. (That chapter reminded me of the music chapters in American Psycho.) And I agree that Steely Dan was more subversive than the Clash and Sex Pistols, if only because they wrote twisted songs and got them on the radio.

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Hey! (Hey!) You! (You!) Get Off Of My Paradigm!: Clobbering Klosterman

The Flip-Flop King: On the Importance of Chuck Klosterman
By Mark Ames, New York Press

"Klosterman and his type are one of the reasons why I went into exile (I’m writing this from Moscow). I wanted out of a paradigm in which his type dominated the narrative when in fact his type should be rotting in a death camp, begging for a clump of grass to suck on. I understood 10 years ago that fighting against the Klostermans in America is utterly pointless: Klosterman is the metaphor, the designated heir of everything horribly American, precisely because he’s stupid, shameless and hokey."

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J.D. Considine Writes:

re: "I disagree with..." [rock critics writing about pop. Aug. 25]

While I agree with you that there's nothing worse than the condescension inherent in a feigned appreciation for mass pop, why do you believe there's no way a rock critic could actually like such stuff, ever? Do you think Christgau lied when he praised Elton John's '70s singles, or Marsh is merely striking a pose when raving about Stevie Wonder? Is it merely facile to recognize genius in the work of the Neptunes or Timbaland?

Me, I like pop. Not all pop--who does?--but a fair amount of stuff that, as a "rock critic," I'm supposed to disdain. The Corrs, for instance. Also Shakira, Kylie Minogue and Beyonce. While it's true I don't listen to those records the same way I listen to Coltrane or Messaien or Radiohead, the pleasure I get from them is just as genuine. (Moreover, it's something I don't get at all from such critic bands as Sleater Kinney, Guided By Voices or White Stripes.)

Am I in the wrong business? Or has the stereotype you're reacting to become so ingrained that even when rock critics like pop, they're (largely) unable to do so in a credible fashion?


[Scott: Well, I guess what I said was unclear because I certainly didn't mean to imply that rock critics should never write about pop music. I wish rock critics wrote about pop music with far more frequency (and the people you cite are people who have written well about pop, and there are dozens of others I can think of too). The point is that a lot (if not most) of what I read about pop music (especially in the Toronto dailies, where I imagine a certain amount of popular music has to be covered--the alt-weeklies don't really share that "responsibility") seems to be written by people who clearly don't enjoy sitting through Shakira concerts or who act all surprised when they realize that Justin Timberlake might--gasp!--actually have a bit of talent. I see the same words pop up all the time in these reviews: "puppets," "pre-fabricated," "cheesy." Sometimes these words are even used against themselves--"so-and-so is not merely a puppet"; "so-and-so's music may be cheesy, but who doesn't enjoy a slice of cheese once in a while?"--but the assumptions are built-in and the music is rarely examined as containing a world if you will, the way the Radiohead record almost always contains its own world in the mind of the reviewer (I'm using all sorts of straw figures here, sorry). In saying that rock critics shouldn't write about pop, I'm really only talking about critics who don't really like pop music (even if they may "admire" some of it); I'd rather read a gushing fan letter.]

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Links to Stuff By and About Ian MacDonald

Review of The People's Music, by Beppe Colli in Clouds and Clocks.

The Sound of the Eighties. A piece on Faust, from NME, 3 Mar 1973.

A bunch of blurbs and raves for Revolution in the Head.

Prokofiev, Prisoner of the State: An interpretation of the composer's relationship with the Soviet regime. [Not sure what the origin of this is, and I assume it's the same "Ian MacDonald."]

Another False World: Thinking about music with Brian Eno. Some more monologues recorded and compiled by Ian MacDonald. (New Musical Express, November 26th 1977.)

link posted by RCD 9:59 AM

Bangs review in Jersey Beat

By Jersey Beat editor, Jim Testa.

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I disagree with...

Most of what Phil Freeman says in this rant about Sasha Frere-Jones's Slate piece [see below], but that's nothing new. I've come to expect this from Freeman (whose blog I tune into on a regular basis), and the likelihood of me ever seeing eye to eye with him on the topics of music and music critics (I do often nod in agreement when he touches on matters of--for lack of a sharper definition--politics) is probably about as inevitable as the likelihood of Morbid Angel ever making a record as good as "Rock Your Body," or of the likelihood that I will one day be able to listen a free jazz record all the way through without deciding that the grass needs cutting instead (never mind that I live in an apartment). I'm sure Phil would be even less interested in my record collection than I am in his. So what.

But this quote actually makes weird sense to me:

"I think it's perfectly fair for rock critics to pretend pop artists don't exist."

I basically agree, if only because there is nothing drearier to read than a rock critic attempting to write positively about music he or she has little interest in and even less feeling for. I'd rather read someone try and explain to me what is wrong with Timberlake's music or even take funny cheap shots at him than read someone who is going to guide me through all the hype; or worse, hesitatingly come to the conclusion that it's good "for what it is." I see this all the time in the Toronto media--it's truly sickening. I think rock critics who dislike pop music or who set up weird dichotomies like rock-vs-pop are bizarre creatures to begin with, but so long as they exist and are holding down the jobs, it's probably better that they just stick with something they actually give a shit about. Feigning an "open mind" is the worst; I'll take the ignoramus-and-proud approach any day.

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The House at World's End...

Is Robin Carmody's blog (discovered via blissblog), which features an epitaph for Ian MacDonald that I can only describe as an urgent read.

"Revolution in the Head made me feel as though I was there, listening to the Beatles' records as they came out, exploring the moment and its possibilities, living the life. It enabled me to join the dots between several different cultural and artistic memes which were, in 1996, lazing in my mind unfulfilled because some had been placed there by film, others by literature, others by mere Top 40 music, and it needed a Big Narrative to bring them together."

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Critics vs. Other Critics vs. Justin

When Critics Meet Pop: Why are some writers so afraid of Justin Timberlake?
By Sasha Frere-Jones in Slate.

Quote: "['Cry Me a River'] got an obvious boost from gossip columnists reading it as Justin's kiss-off to his ex, Britney Spears, but less obvious was the response from New Yorker music critic Alex Ross: 'In the past year, rock critics found themselves in the faintly embarrassing position of having to hail Justin Timberlake's Justified as one of the better records of the year.' The embarrassment must be Ross', as the critics didn't exhibit much...But the New Yorker has a track record of approaching pop music with one hand holding its nose, so calling Timberlake an embarrassment is simply par for the course. Eustace Tilley has never been down with the kids."

[Link to the Ross piece in the New Yorker.]

[[And speaking of dumping on the New Yorker, an activity one should never tire of, I enjoyed this comment by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who was recently asked by blogger Josh Timmerman his thoughts about Roger Ebert: "Roger's a friend of mine, even though we often disagree about films. I feel far more alienated from someone like Anthony Lane who doesn't care about movies at all."]]

[[[insert your own comments about nose-holding Rosenbaum here...]]]

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PSA: Harp Magazine
From the Desk of Steven Ward...

I feel like I stumbled upon a treasure this weekend while trolling the music mag rack at my local Barnes and Noble. I discovered Harp, a magazine I think I read about once but had never seen.

What a wonder it is!

The first thing I did (the first thing I do whenever I pick up any new music mag for the first time) was check the masthead for names I might recognize. Check out these heavy hitters that are listed as contributing writers in the Sept 2003 issue:

Roberta Cruger, Jim DeRogatis, Jason Gross, Dave Marsh, John Morthland, Rob O'Connor (who is also the reviews editor), Marc Randall, Richard Riegel, Sylvie Simmons, Jaan Uhelski, Richard C. Walls, Bryon Coley and Holly George Warren. (Thank God someone finally decided to publish the miraculous musings of Riegel and O'Connor again on a regular basis.)

This issue has features on Guided By Voices, Sonic Youth, Wilco, a cover story about the Southern Rock Revival featuring North Mississippi Allstars, Drive By Truckers and others, Steve Wynn and an editorial by DeRogatis about the new Lester Bangs book and how the work of rock critics should be preserved somewhere.

I'm bored with Rolling Stone, Spin, and Blender; Harp is the first magazine that feels (this issue anyway) like it was specially created for me. (If that makes any sense.) Perhaps the highest compliment I can give it is that it reminds me of the now defunct Musician (minus the gear and tech stuff), my favorite rock magazine of all time.

I think Harp might be the type of magazine Alan Light wants to unleash unto the world at the end of the year (Tracks. A music mag Light promises will be for people in their 30s who love "good music." A weird sounding mission, although I think I know what he means--I'm going to turn 35 on Sept 12).

After looking at Harp, Tracks has a lot to live up to.

Best of all, Harp only costs $4.95. A bargain when you realize that my beloved British titles, Classic Rock, Mojo and Uncut cost $8 a pop.

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Bangs vs. Cohn

A quote from Don Waller's Mainlines review (in LA CityBEAT):

"As good a critic/writer as Bangs was--he was no Nik Cohn. (Who? Google him.) Matter of fact, Lester's original piss-takes on the MC5's Kick Out the Jams, the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, and Miles Davis's On the Corner are stupendously boneheaded. (He'd famously reverse his positions on all three discs.)"

This is an interesting comparison but with a curious built-in conclusion. Nik Cohn--at least in his 1969 book, Awop Bop A Loo Bop--displayed at least as much "boneheadedness" in his musical judgments as Bangs. Cohn, of course, is the guy who said Dylan was basically worthless, while pouring heaps of praise on "River Deep Mountain High" (if memory serves, he called it the greatest pop record ever, but this bloated track isn't even one of Spector's very best). Such judgments didn't make Cohn a worse critic, though, but a better one--a more engaging, lively, funny, and thought-provoking one (his Dylan chapter is a great argument against "poetry" if nothing else). And ditto for Bangs, though it should be noted here that he was 100% correct about Kick Out the Jams the first time; aside from "Rambling Rose" (or to be more specific, the vocal on that track), KOTJ mainly just blows. Badly.

Anyway, you can Google Nik Cohn, but there's not much to see. His presence on the web is minimal, and indeed he's the first (but not the last) critic that comes to mind when I think about who I wish we interviewed on rockcritics. (I say in past tense. We can still do this, of course, if anyone wants to hook us up...)

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The Last Ian MacDonald Interview?

I linked to Beppe Colli's e-mail interview with Ian MacDonald (in Clouds and Clocks) a couple weeks ago, but given the sad circumstances of MacDonald's recent death, it's worth another look for those who may have missed it the first time around. (I'm not familiar enough with MacDonald's work to offer any commentary, though I did enjoy Revolution in the Head quite a bit when I read it years ago.)

Revelations In The Head

Ian MacDonald 1948-2003

"The news that Ian MacDonald has taken his own life comes as a terrible shock, both to the colleagues who knew him and to the admirers--such as myself--who didn’t. His contemporaries from the great NME days of the '70s were perfectly aware that he suffered from depression, but no one can ever truly anticipate the decision to commit suicide. The fact that Ian’s collection The People’s Music had only just been published--to ecstatic reviews--only deepens the tragedy of his death."
--Barney Hoskyns, in Rock's Backpages.

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Waller Does Bangs

My Black Pages. Don Waller reviews Mainlines in LA CityBEAT.

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Richard Riegel Writes:

re: "Editor's footnotes," Aug 23

Au contraire, I was gratified when Cheetah Chrome compared me to a mailman, as the one he had in mind was his cousin, faithfully carrying the posts back in Cleveland, so it was solidarity time for all of us red-haired Buckeyes. Twenty-five years later, my hair's gone white, Cheetah's has gone south, and for all I know, his cousin's may have gone postal by now. In my previous note, I used Cheetah Chrome and Lemmy Kilmister as punk/metal archetypes the credulous public might find scary, but who were both fine fellows in their contacts with me. That said, it's true that I'm still under Cheetah's fatwa (issued in 1978) that he'll kill me if I reveal his "real" name in print, and while said handle can be found pretty readily on the Internet these days, you won't catch ME spelling it out.

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More Celluloid Cranks...

Chris deMaagd: "There's a scene in the film Singles in which a rock critic/reporter is interviewing Matt Dillon's character, 'Cliff Poncier,' about his band Citizen Dick, the band's latest single, 'Touch Me I'm Dick,' and the band's 'place in the Seattle sound.' I believe the song was actually performed by Mudhoney, whose 'Touch Me I'm Sick' is the source for this parody; as for the 'Seattle sound,' it was mere months away from being identified as such, and (over-)hyped to the world for the next several years. Also: I think the the person who played the reporter/critic in the scene in question might have been rock writer Tad Friend. Not sure about that, though (my memory of the scene, and the film, is a little fuzzy).

   "One more thing: Cameron Crowe, who wrote the script for Singles, also has a cameo therein."


Simon Reynolds: "The journalist in 24 Hour Party People is meant to be Paul Morley, the NME's great champion of Joy Division and all things Manchester, although in the movie they call him by another name. He was actually taken to see Ian Curtis's body by Tony Wilson, who also did say 'you should write the biography.'

   "Morley describes the scene from a different point of view in his amazing book Nothing, which is about his father--who committed suicide about a year or two years prior to Curtis. It's all about how Curtis was the first dead person he ever saw and how he never actually saw his father's body."

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Cereal Shillers
Barbara Flaska Writes:

You know, the action figure of the polevaulting minister Rev Bob Richards on the old Wheaties box always reminded me in some way of Dave Marsh striving always to achieve new intellectual heights and flights of fancy. And just the words "snap, crackle, and pop" inevitably brought Greil Marcus and his Mystery Train to mind, once I learned about him, that is. But just how Berkeley can you be? I mean Joel Selvin always reminded me of Mr. Peanut, this despite the fact that Mr. Peanut was not a cereal but a big neon sign above the San Francisco warehouse and even though Selvin was never known publicly for wearing a tophat or monocle yet he seemed to carry himself with that form of benign dignity, panache and elan.

We should turn these accountings of such burning pageturners into a regular "cereal." If so, Michael Goldberg's basic sturdy sense of doing the right thing, fairness, and respect for all human beings could easily transform him into the fellow on the Quaker Oatmeal box, yes?

Next Week's Assignment

Rock critics who remind you of figures on cereal boxes--you know, like the epistomological similarities between David Fricke and Frankenberry (i.e., both have an F followed by an R in their names, and a K followed by an E; that sort of thing). And vice versa. Now get to it.

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David Antrobus Writes:

It's TV, but Brigitte Fonda plays a music critic in The Chris Isaak Show, which is endearingly funny (for anyone who hasn't seen it). She ends up being his longest standing girlfriend, but the distrust/antipathy between performer and critic ultimately scuppers (is that even a word? It sounds all wrong) the relationship.

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Richard Riegel Writes:

Well, I defer to Steven and Phil on Jeff Goldblum's character's precise vocation in The Big Chill--it's been nearly 20 years since I've seen that movie all the way through, some details may be getting fuzzy. So Goldblum is "a celebrity-type reporter," and does "a profile of his college friend...the TV actor who has his own cop show" -- HOW IN THE WORLD could that have given me the idea that Goldblum writes for a Rolling Stone-like rag?!?*

In the meantime, I've thought of another music-journalist movie appearance, this time in a documentary (so it must be for real)--in Don't Look Back, the scene in which the "Science Student" attempts to interview Bob Dylan for his university newspaper, during Bob's 1965 tour of the UK. Dylan is his usual nasty-canasta self toward this hapless reporter, but the guy's task is further complicated by Alan Price, who's just jumped ship from the Animals, and gets in a snarl or two at the loathsome press. Speaking as someone who finally got to meet his r'n'r idols The Animals on their 1983 reunion tour, I must admit that Alan Price is one tough cookie, the toughest interviewee I faced in all my rockcrit forays--he made Cheetah Chrome** and Lemmy Kilmister (put together) seem like Winnie the Pooh by contrast. Don't Look Back's fortuitous pairing of two such irascible rockstars has made me think in recent years of a perfect stunt for Fear Factor: a rock critic has to interview Bob Dylan and Alan Price simultaneously, and he (or she) wins the competition by staying in the room with them for 5 minutes. The terminally-ironic punch line to the original incident is that the manhandled "Science Student" was none other than Terry Ellis, who went on to found Chrysalis Records and to make a fortune from the music biz, in a rousing demonstration of Nietzsche's famous No-pain/No-gain dictum.

Editor's footnotes:
*Lester Bangs: "See, the thing is, everything is turning into People magazine, like all the radio, all the press, all everything is turning into this...even the book industry."
**In what I'm assuming is the interview Richard refers to here, Cheetah Chrome insulted him by saying he looked like a mailman. Which is obviously much worse than looking like Cheetah Chrome!

More Music Critics in Film

"Citizen Kane ... Jed Leland and perhaps Kane himself."
--Steven Rubio

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Kurt Loder, Movie Star
J.D. Considine Writes:

I happened to remember seeing Kurt Loder playing himself in Fear of a Black Hat, and went to the Internet Movie Database to double-check. Turns out Mr. Loder has quite the filmography, appearing as himself in a number of movies (including Airheads and Dead Man on Campus), and acting in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and the now-forgotten Dr. Dre/Ed Lover whodunnit Who's the Man? (Loder plays a hitman in that flick).

Emboldened by my IMDB success, I typed in the names of several other critics, and found that Greil Marcus appears in two films as himself (Emma and Elvis, a.k.a. The Last Resort, and Elvis '85), Nick Kent in one (The Filth and the Fury, which someone else mentioned), Nelson George in several (as himself in Raisin' Kane, and as a newsreel reporter in The Hudsucker Proxy, to name two), and Ben Fong-Torres in one (Americathon, where his character is listed simply as "Chinese"). There's also a Dave Marsh who comes up as a cameraman in one film, and an Alan Light who acts in an obscure Australian flick, but I don't think they're the guys we know and read.

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Bud Scoppa Fired

From Hits Magazine. (Story in LA Times.)

Phil Dellio Writes:

A few film-critic turns in movies:

1) Charles Champlain has a cameo in The Player, sitting in a restaurant with Burt Reynolds.
2) Rex Reed has a cameo in Superman, and one line: "Hi, Clark." He's also heard being interviewed by Larry King over a clock radio in Lost in America's opening scene, the appeal of which to Albert Brooks probably resided in one of King's questions: "What is Rex Reed's modus operandi?" (I won't split hairs over the difference between "film critic" and "walking freak show.")
3) Kenneth Mars' character in What's Up, Doc? is supposedly based on John Simon, who used to routinely crucify Bogdanovich films (although most of those reviews would have come after What's Up, Doc?; I recall that his review of The Last Picture Show was more or less as positive as anyone else's).
4) The woman who hosts the weekend film retreat in Stardust Memories is based on Judith Crist. There are probably also fictional movie critics in the same film.
5) And there must be one or two in 8-1/2, too.
6) Ebert has over 20 credits listed on imdb.com, about five or six of which look to be actual films.

Art critics in movies? There was Jeffrey Tambor's excellent Clement Greenberg in Pollock; I only wish he had ducked out of character long enough for one "Hey now!"

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Still More on the Celluloid Cranks Front

From rockcritics daily inbox:

Anonymous e-mailer: "I can't think of any more movies with rock critic characters offhand, but I can think of two in which fictional bands sit around and read their fictional concert reviews aloud: One-Trick Pony and Singles."
       [follow-up e-mail]
"I take back what I just wrote about not being able to think of any rock-critic characters. Allison Anders' Things Behind the Sun has a rock-writer protagonist who harbors an ugly secret. I remember reading the script before it went into production, and it described the magazine this character worked at as being like an American version of Mojo. I wrote to her and said, 'So much for verisimilitude!' Talk about wishful thinking... "

Steven Ward: "Richard Riegel is wrong about Goldblum in the Big Chill. He played a reporter for People magazine but he was not a rock critic. The movie mentions two of his stories: a profile of his college friend Tom Berenger who plays the TV actor who has his own cop show, T.J. Lancer. And he has to call his editor from Kevin Kline's home to cancel the story he was on his way to: a profile of a blind baton twirler. (Though Goldblum's character does talk about how great music has been in the last 10 years, while Kline's charcter stupidly disagrees and waxes nostalgic about Motown and how no music is better than that.)"

Phil Dellio: "I think Richard's wrong about Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill; Goldblum's character is a celebrity-type reporter for a magazine based on People. I don't remember him as specifically being a music writer. It's not a film I like at all (what little humour there is actually has to do with Goldblum's job), so I'm going by having seen it 15 years ago. I'm going to try to come up with some films with movie critics: the first one that springs to mind is Play It Again, Sam, in which Woody writes for Film Quarterly (and, as Kael pointed out in Afterglow, lives in an apartment all out of proportion to what he would have actually earned from such a publication)."

Phil Freeman: "A Nick Kent character (called 'Dick Bent' in the credits) is seen getting his ass kicked by Gary Oldman's character (forget who he played, though) in Sid & Nancy.

Stanley Whyte: "There is also the young and quite drunk Nick Kent pontificating about somethingorother in The Filth and the Fury. And Simon Reynolds appearing thoughout Modulations talking jungle, 'ardcore, etc."

Steve Hyden: "I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but David Fricke and Greg Kot are both featured prominently in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. I like Wilco a lot, but the main weakness of the movie is that there are too many critics saying how great the band is and not enough showing on the filmmaker's part. I couldn't help thinking, D.A. Pennebaker didn't have to pull Paul Williams out in Don't Look Back to say how great Dylan was. Also, this is a stretch, but This is Spinal Tap has one of my favorite all-time put-downs of an album from a critic: 'Shit sandwich.'"

[Editor's Note: Speaking of Kael, no list like this is complete without George Lucas's Willow, featuring General Kael. And there's Masked and Anonymous, the new Dylan movie, which Greil Marcus writes about in his most recent Real Life Rock column; in it, Jeff Bridges plays a rock critic named Tom Friend, obviously a fictionalization with a name like that! Finally, three different people noted the TV show, Suddenly Susan, which apparently had a music critic in the cast.]

link posted by RCD 12:35 PM

XLR8R: The First Decade

"The life span of a zine is about a minute. So how has XLR8R hung around for 10 years? By keeping its feet on the underground." Profile of a dance mag by Neva Chonin, in sfgate.com. Here's the XLR8R web site.

[The life span of this blog is about a fraction of a milisecond with a minus sign in front of it.]

More Celluloid Cranks

From rockcritics daily inbox:

Joseph J. Finn: "Sadly, I've seen Perfect. John Travolta does not play a music critic, but a reporter sent out to do a story on health clubs." [A trip to AllMovie.com reveals that Wenner "plays himself."]

Marc Weisblott: Joe's so Mean to Josephine, "a movie that was filmed (and specifically set) at [Toronto's] eye weekly offices in 1995 (?)...I remember they'd papered the office with a bunch of rock posters at the time. Never saw it, never heard of anyone seeing it."

Richard Riegel: "Jeff Goldblum plays a music journalist in The Big Chill too--I guess he was starting to get typecast in that role by the early '80s. His Big Chill character is a pure Rolling Stone/Doonesbury type, from the liberals-with-wealth cohort, somebody who would probably like Little Feat even more than the Motown on the soundtrack when push came to shove. I've never identified too much with Goldblum's cinematic critic, for some reason. Actually, the movie that's always reminded me of what it was like to write for Creem is Repo Man."

[Editor's Note: I can't believe I forgot to mention Alan Zweig's Vinyl, which not many people outside (or inside, for that matter) Toronto have heard of. It's a good documentary about record collecting that features Tim Powis, Phil Dellio, and Rick McGinnis, all practising or former rock critics. Also, doesn't Nat Hentoff play an intrepid reporter in The Benny Goodman Story?]

link posted by RCD 10:45 PM

Inside the Inbox

re: When Bad Ebonics Happen to White Rock Critics

"...it would seem New York wasn't the only thing that blacked out last Thursday."
--Barbara Flaska

Steven Ward Writes:

re: Celluloid Cranks

"In Brown Sugar, a romantic comedy-drama, Taye Diggs plays the head of a hip-hop record label, and his lover, actress Sanaa Latahan, plays a hip-hop journalist for a Vibe-type mag.

"P.S. J.D. is right. Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner (daughter of Hart to Hart/Switch actor Robert Wagner) plays Caroline in High Fidelity, a music columnist at the Chicago Reader."

J.D. Considine Writes:

re: Celluloid Cranks

     "First, there was Jeff Goldblum as Max Arloft in Between the Lines, a film about a Boston Phoenix-like alt weekly. Arloft is the rock critic and it's a pretty meaty roll--he even manages to pick up girls on the strength of being a rock critic!
     "Second, although not quite music critics, there are music journalists in the interview sequence of A Hard Day's Night.
     "Third, I believe Vic Garbarini may be seen in segments of Bring On the Night, the Sting concert movie. But I've not seen the film and thus can't say for sure.
     "Fourth, there was a female rock critic with whom the John Cusack character in High Fidelity strikes up a flirtation. Can't remember her name, though."

Celluloid Cranks

Because there's nothing better to do right now (plenty on my desk at work, all of it mind-numbingly boring), I'm trying to compile a list of movies that aren't made-for-VH1 specials that feature scenes with music critics, real or imagined. It's a slim list, to say the least, including a couple that are far-fetched or hazy:

Lester Bangs (as played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) in Almost Famous. Also featuring Terry Chen as Ben Fong-Torres ("craaaazy!").

Chuck Eddy appears (un-credited) as himself for 1.7 seconds in Bowling For Columbine in the disingenuous Marilyn Manson montage.

I could've sworn there was a portrayal of Nick Kent in 24 Hour Party People, but I'm not finding much help on the web. This site's cast list notes a "journalist" (played by Simon Pegg), but I don't know if that's what I'm thinking; probably I'm just hallucinating.

There's a bespectacled character in the house party sequence of Ghost World (the scene with all the blues buffs) who's a dead ringer for Greil Marcus, though I'm pretty sure it's just a cheeky nod by director Terry Zwigoff, who himself is apparently a blues buff. No dialogue from this character that I can recall.

There's the classic scene in Don't Look Back where Dylan confronts the writer from Time magazine.

There's a funny sequence with a Rolling Stone reporter in Annie Hall. I imagine there are lots of movie scenes from the late '70s and '80s with "Rolling Stone reporters," though I can't recall any off hand, and I've never subjected myself to Perfect, which I doubt has anything to do with music critics anyway.

Some more may come to me...Can you think of any that I missed?

Here's an excerpt from the Annie Hall sequence:

FEMALE REPORTER: I think there are more people here to see the Maharishi than there were to see the Dylan concert. I covered the Dylan concert...which gave me chills. Especially when he sang "She takes just like a woman And she makes love just like a woman Yes, she does And she aches just like a woman But she breaks just like a little girl." Up to that I guess the most charismatic event I covered was Mick's Birthday when the Stones played Madison Square Garden.

ALVY: (Laughing) Man, that's great. That's just great.

REPORTER: You catch Dylan?

ALVY: (Coughing) Me? No, no. I--I couldn't make it that ni--My--my raccoon had hepatitis.

REPORTER: You have a raccoon?

ALVY: (Gesturing) Tsch, a few.

REPORTER: The only word for this is trans-plendid. It's trans-plendid.

ALVY: I can think of another word...

REPORTER: [commenting on the Maharishi, who has just exited the bathroom] He's God! I mean, this man is God! He's got millions of followers who would crawl all the way across the world just to touch the hem of his garment.

ALVY: Really? It must be a tremendous hem.

link posted by RCD 1:28 PM

When Bad Ebonics Happen to White Rock Critics

From Now magazine, August 14/03:

Get Philly crunk, y'all
"North Philadelphia DJs Diplodocus and Lowbudget crack out the geeky 80s new wave jams, crank up the 808 rattle and drop in some Southern bounce flava to get crunk gully-style on the devastating Hollertronix...Never Scared (Turntable Lab) party mix. Load up on shrimp hoagies and ketchup chips, get your Henn 'n' OJ on and watch your white-belted poindexter pals start booty bumpin' with the iced-out neighbourhood thugs."
--Tim Perlich, from "Perlich's Picks"

[From the headline to the closing "iced-out neighbourhood thugs," I'm still trying to figure out if this is a reckless parody or simply the most Ludacris ludicrous Tim Perlich review of all-time (if you're from Toronto and tear through Now magazine every week in search of quotable guff, you'll understand the gravity of such a statement). Frankly, I'll be surprised if this doesn't generate a letter or two in the next issue. I'll keep all y'all posted.]

Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Quoted?

Exhibit A
JOHN LYDON: "It's so mad, it's so daft, it's so off the wall--it's thoroughly enjoyable..."
INTERVIEWER: "But you don't think he's completely wrong?"
LYDON: "No, he's not wrong."
--Lydon on Lipstick Traces (from blurb on LT jacket, 1990 paperback edition)

Exhibit B
"I’ve tried to say this for years now--in no way am I connected with a bunch of French lazy-arse intellectuals sitting on the West bank pontificating. These authors who have written books about me and the days I was in the Sex Pistols have an agenda before they write their book. They tried to fit me into their agenda. The language these guys use is absolutely despicable."
--Lydon, 1994

Phil Dellio Writes:

re: "More Blackout Tracks"

"Now that I'm officially part of the rockcritics daily posse...I have some more!

"I don't know how I missed the Lurkers' 'Out in the Dark,' one of my favourite first-era punk songs--I've taped it for loads of people. I also love 'Lights Out' and 'Wait for the Blackout': punk and blackouts were made for each other. ('Lights Out' is technically about poking your eyes out with a fork, but it still applies--as you may have read, everything started on Thursday when a power plant worker in Cleveland tried to poke his eyes out with a fork, missed, and the fork went into a wall socket and set off a rapid series of power surges.) Also, Parliament's 'Flashlight'--can't remember how that goes--and another song called 'Flashlight' by Fuzzy, an excellent power-pop thing Rob* once taped for me (and that I put on a mid-90s Top 10)."

*[Editor's Note: The "Rob" in question here is either: a) Zombie; b) Sheffield; c) Lowe; or d) Base--all of whom are known for their fabulous mix tapes. Phil was unavailable for further comment.]

More Blackout Tracks

re: Aug. 17 post

The Damned, "Wait for the Blackout"

The Youngbloods, "Darkness, Darkness"

Angry Samoans, "Lights Out"

Scorpions, "Blackout"

Mekons, "Only Darkness Has the Power"

Bee Gees, "(The Lights Went Out in) Massachusetts"

[Thanks to Phil Dellio, Mark Boudreau, and S. Jeffries for paying attention.]

link posted by RCD 9:32 AM

Lesterpalooza!

Triple play from Creem Online:

Mentor. Editor. Lester. A Personal Appreciation, by Jeffrey "Firebird" Morgan.

Brian J. Bowes's review of Mainlines.

Bring Your Mother to the Gas Chamber: Bangs's Black Sabbath feature from June '72 (reprinted in Mainlines).

link posted by RCD 12:04 AM

Thus Quoth...

Johnny Ramone, 1980

"John Rockwell's a shithead. Nobody should read the New York Times."

New Blog Alert

David A's Damaged in Transit.

"If there are is to be any theme at all, it is the loosely braided rope of childhood, trauma and music. A rope can get you out of a bad spot. Or it can hang you 'til you're dead.

"(Y)our choice."

Take a Load Off Mannie

Hip-hop journalist gets personal in three essays. Joshunda Sanders reviews Kevin Powell's Who's Gonna Take the Weight? Manhood, Race, and Power in America.

"Powell poetically fuses the political and personal with the deft wit of a rapper or preacher, which is uncommon in hip-hop culture these days."

(From sfgate.com.)

Post-Blackout Long Weekend Ketchup

{Thanks to: Flaskaland, Weisblogg, Matos, S. Jeffries, and K. Tellerman for links and feedback.}

More on the Voice's re-design and "re-structure" (from the New York Observer; scroll down to second item).

Faithfully, a Look Back in Wonder, by Mike Wise. From the New York Times. [Arrived in my inbox with the subject line, "Klostermanism," though "sub-Klostermanism" might be more apt.]

If music be the food of love, play on: Powerful music turns us into holy fools, Ray Robertson says, making us do and imagine foolish things. (From the Globe and Mail's Books section.)

Lester bangs the gong one last time. By Alan Niester in Globe and Mail Books.

Top of the pops: Paul Morley's brilliant disquisition Words and Music may be eccentric, pretentious and exasperating, but Steven Poole defies anyone to dismiss it. (From the Guardian.)

His eyes have seen the glory: Kitty Empire is impressed by Barney Hoskyns' Ragged Glories, a fine analysis of US music--or one strand of it. (From the Guardian.) [Er, how many books does Hoskyns have out right now? Is this sort of thing allowed?]

Soundtrack
"The Night the Lights Went Out (in New York City)" (Trammps)
"The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" (Vicki Lawrence)
"Light Bulb Blues" (Shadows of Knight)
"Lights Out" (Peter Wolf)
Shoot Out the Lights / First Light / I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard & Linda Thompson)
"Power in the Darkness" (Tom Robinson Band)
"Darkness on the Edge of Town" (Bruce Springsteen)
"Electricity" (OMD)
"Darkness and Doubt" (Mekons)

link posted by RCD 1:36 AM

The Non-Event of the Day...

Is right here.

Where Were You in '82?

Marcello Carlin had his ear perched to Radio One (or maybe it's the BBC--whatever is the main transmitter of pop in the UK--er, Top of the Pops then?), and 21 years later, he lives to tell.

Quote: "By way of explanation, the following is a list of capsule reviews of, and impressions on, every single to make the UK Top 40 during the year of 1982. The date of entry is followed by the artist and title; the number in brackets is the highest chart position that single reached. And yes, I owned, and still own, all the singles mentioned. Why 1982? Because the first half of it was the apex of New Pop; because in particular the chart for the week ending 29 May may well be the greatest Top 40 singles chart ever; most importantly, because I was 18, in my first year at university, and everything felt deeper and more colourful than it has done before or since."

[Carlin also wrote what is, by a long shot, the wildest piece of pop criticism this year. Filled Spectre absolutely outraged me when I first read it--visions of Goldman and Dworkin dancing in my head--until someone pointed out to stupid old me that it may, in fact, be an elaborate parody. Honestly, I still can't tell, and maybe it's better that way.]

Britney's Belly-Button Drives Man Over Cliff

Skimming Past Rolling Stone. By Jack W. Hill in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

[Guy who's been subscribing since '68 finally sends in cancellation notice. What makes this piece valuable, I suspect, is the informative roundup of the competition he provides at the end.]

I Only Get My Pop Off While I'm Dreaming

Chad Bowar interviews Martin Popoff in Suite 101. (More metal interviews by Chad Bowar here.)

[Popoff is the author of the recently published tome, The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time. A couple of years ago, he talked to rockcritics.]

George Smith...

Writes for the Village Voice and a million other publications. His home page is called The Crypt Newsletter. He's always wearing shades.

Frame by Frame

An interview with Peter Frame

In 1999, Beppe Colli conducted an interview with the founder of Rock Family Trees for the Italian publication, Blow Up. It's now reprinted on his web site, Clouds and Clocks. (I had no idea that Frame was also the founder of Zigzag; here's an interview he conducted with Captain Beefheart.)

Sonic Youth Wear Marc Jacob

...on page 47 of the new Vanity Fair. This is news. Sort of. I expect there will be the inevitable chorus of "how could they?!" (cf. Liz Phair--remember?), but really, I only mention it here because it's a fantastic looking ad. I was on a coffee break, looking in VF to see if there was a Bangs review (I had heard that one was coming, or maybe one already happened, not sure), but I stumbled on that instead and my day's probably better for it (or not as bad as it's been, anyway). (No link, unfortunately.)

Lester X 2

Rock 'n' roll could use Lester Bangs today. By John Mark Eberhart in the Kansas City Star.

The Big Bangs: An Austin friend delivers an expansive anthology of work by the legendary rock critic. By Joe Gross in American-Statesman.

link posted by RCD 8:46 AM

Virus Alert

My PC was recently destroyed by a virus of fairly severe proportions (I don't have a working computer at home right now; I'm pretty sure this qualifies as "severe"). Neither my existing virus protection program or the one I just purchased to try and quash what I assumed was a minor issue served as a defense--even they were screwed. I'm telling you this because:

If you've ever received e-mail from me before, you may have recently received something from me with a funny looking attachment (or something). Needless to say, if you have, and you haven't opened it yet, DON'T. Just trash it. I sincerely hope I haven't messed up anyone's system because of this.

It's safe for me to receive e-mail now, because I'm doing it externally, from work. However, I may not get back to you for a while if you write me.

If you've written me something about the site recently--sent me a link or something--and I didn't respond, try again. I may have missed you the first time. I will not e-mail anything back until I'm 100% certain that my new system is properly protected. (And to play it safe, I'll continue to mostly send e-mail from work.)

link posted by RCD 8:38 AM

Blog and Site Alerts and Updates

The Turntable is the very cool blogging arm of Todd Burns's Stylus. Ostensibly a D.O.B. (dance-oriented blog), it also examines the process of reviewing itself, in a genuinely probing (as opposed to merely navel-gazing) way. And hell, one blog entry's entitled, The Problem with Jim DeRogatis--so how can you not look?!

I'm also pleased to note that Aidin Vaziri continues to quietly go about the business of being one of the funniest pop interviewers on the planet, for which he's apparently earned enough money to purchase his own domain, which is almost as good as buying your own house. Here's Aidin in top form interviewing Bjork:

Q: If you made so many records, then what else did you do with the past 10 years? You probably didn't have too much time to do anything else. Maybe in 1997 you took a break to fly a kite or go whale watching?
A: You may have a point.

link posted by RCD 10:33 AM

Latest Roundup of Lester

J. David Santen in the Oregonian.

Juan Rodriguez in the Montreal Mirror.

link posted by RCD 9:34 AM

Writing About Writing About Music

Didn't realize when I linked to the metal piece below that the SF Bay Guardian had an entire section on different facets of music writing. Not sure I'll even bother clicking through on the one entitled, "So you want to be a rock 'n' roll writer? One reluctant music journalist dissects the so-called craft." (Honestly, I wish these "reluctant" types would just leave us "so-called" craftsmen alone.) (Note: heavily ironic if not completely disingenuous use of "us" in previous bracket.)

[Link courtesy of Flaskaland.]

Maerz on Bangs

Lots of Masturbation in Lester Bangs Reader. By Jennifer Maerz in The Stranger.

Out Through the Out Door

Word of the beast: In defense of metal writing.
By Will York in SF Bay Guardian.

"If you're a music journalist, writing about metal is a bad career move."

That's Like, So 2002

The mash-up revolution
Destiny's Child vs. Nirvana! Britney vs. Chic! The Ramones vs. ABBA! How pop's hottest DJs are creating those wild bootleg remixes--and why they're so hard to find. By Roberta Cruger.

A love song to bastard pop
In the bizarre and wonderful world of mash-ups, bootlegs and remixes, racial and musical boundaries disappear--and the joy that's missing from so much of today's pop is back. By Charles Taylor.

I link these Salon cover stories as mere curiosities more than anything. While I'm against the idea, at least in theory, that the music press should always be on top of every new trend as (or before) they happen, I can't imagine that any other model would actually work. (When the Clash sang, "You have to deal with it/it is the currency," they were helping to summarize how pop music and pop music criticism actually work.) Nor would I necessarily prefer the inverse: that every magazine should suddenly turn into MOJO, a great-for-what-it-does publication that since its first issue in the '90s has featured Kraftwerk (pardon me, I meant the Beatles) on more covers than any other artist--by a huge margin, I bet.

Anyway, here's Salon jumping onto a trend--mash-ups or mp3 bootlegs--that not only occurred almost two years ago, but which, even its most fervent devotees (i.e., me) would have to admit has receded into the background following an awesome if short-lived spurt of inspiration. I know, I know, big deal, but I still can't help but chuckle at those lead-ins, from the exclamation-marked "Destiny's Child vs. Nirvana!" (no way! I simply don't believe it!) to the cliched (and largely unexamined) idea that bootlegs dissolve "racial and musical boundaries" (something hip-hop itself has never done, of course) and the always silly, if not downright insiduous, notion that bootlegs bring back "the joy that's missing from so much of today's pop." (And all this time I assumed that was Vanessa Carlton's job!)

Hell on Bangs

The Right to Be Wrong
On the Occasion of a New Lester Bangs Book, Punk Pioneer Richard Hell Remembers the Late, Great Rock Critic.
[From the Village Voice.]

"I have to interrupt and confess how I'm struggling to resist taking revenge on rock critics. I was a musician and I've thought a few times of rating the critics the way they do the artists. But I'm really really going to try to restrain myself. How petty would that be, if I were to go after them? Not only have they generally been real good to me but my life is more fun than theirs. I must try to be large I must try to be large. I don't want to be a jerk. I'll just say that I believe Lester deserves his supreme popularity (he liked me the most)."

Musto

I've never seen The Black Table before, but discovered it today via Gawker, which I also only recently stumbled upon. The latest BT features a chat with Michael Musto, the Voice columnist who admits (how much you wanna bet they didn't even have to pay him to say this?), "I honestly feel the paper has a healthy balance between the light and the weighty. Though I mostly read my own column."

Smart People Got No Reason to Live

Is Everybody Who Writes for Pitchfork Really This Stupid????

Is Everybody Who Edits the Village Voice Really This Stupid?

The Village Voice thinks you're stupid

Is it The Village Voice? The Village Voice? Or the Village Voice? Stupid question, I know.

link posted by RCD 8:17 PM

New Blog Alert

John Cunningham's Seaworthy Southeast Thesaurus. Updated about once a week, with a mainly-music focus. Check it out.

Pull My Trigger I Am Bigger Than

Today marks the re-launch of Freaky Trigger: New look, new content, new logo, new format.

Says Tom Ewing in his introduction to all this newness: "Where Freaky Trigger used to be made up of articles and a daily weblog all about music, it’s now made up of articles about anything we fancy, and five daily weblogs, each with a different focus."

The Electric Review...

"...is an on-line book and music broadside dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts. The magazine will offer monthly critiques of recent book and music releases, offering readers a broad sampling of material while presenting writers and musicians of all genres a more equitable chance for publicity."

[Link courtesy of Barbara Flaska.]

Vibe-ology

After Ten Years, Magazine Still Has Good Vibes. By Larry Dobrow in Media Daily News.

The Prince of Ponce

Sarah Hughes interviews Paul Morley in the Manchester Indie.

On his new book, Words and Music: "I do think that music is all about the myth as much as about what actually happened. People have often accused me of making things up, so to counter that I do have a lot of facts in the book.

"But the key to it, I feel, is to create a credible alternative history so that you are not sure which bits are true and which bits are fiction."

[And while we're on the subject, here's an interview Morley conducted with Morrissey in Blitz magazine in '88, and a piece in the Guardian about the death of the single.]

D-word Alert!

CNN's Meriah Doty interviews The Source's David Mays.

Thus Quoth...

Bobby Kimball, Toto (1983)

"The critics come to our show and we provide them with a set list, and they stay for two songs and then go home and write their reviews. Some of the points they make are valid, but they just kill us after two songs. I once critiqued our critics in a song I wrote... it had a line that went, 'The critic is a legless running teacher.' Point closed."

From the Desk of Steven Ward

You have to read this wonderful post-obit piece on Harold C. Schonberg, the chief classical music critic of the New York Times from 1960 to 1980, by NYT classical critic Bernard Holland. It's excellent, and it makes some great points about the power of music criticism.

By the way. If you are ever in the mood to read some great classical music criticism, Bernard Holland is probably the best the NYT has to offer these days. They fired the legendary Paul Griffiths. I have no idea why. I'm on a classical music kick right now. I've just discovered some great romantic-sounding Wagner stuff and a Sony recording of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein performing Brahms' second and third symphonies.

De-Evolution in the Head

Is There Life After the '60s? An interview with Ian MacDonald, by Beppe Colli in Clouds and Clocks.

"Jazz and classical music have both declined drastically over the last thirty years and there would be few commentators in those fields who would not agree with this. Why, then, not in the pop/rock field?"

The A-Sociology of Rap

It may be time for a Feminem: Sarai is white, female, talented and determined. She's also a rapper trying to make it in a black male world.
By Nekesa Mumbi Moody (AP, reprinted in the Toronto Star)

Quote: "Eminem has disproved the notion that white boys can't rap. White girls, on the other hand, have had almost zero impact on the genre in its 30-year history."

Comment: Typically, all those white girls who buy the records don't count.

More Than a Blog...

The High Hat is a full-fledged magazine (remember those?). I haven't read any of it yet, but it certainly looks ambitious. Featuring a piece on Bangs (William Ham's Infomercials For Myself) and another one entitled The Golden Age of Hip-Hop is Now. Sounds promising.

[Link courtesy of Phil Freeman]

How to Review a Book Before Actually Reading Much of It

I've just started making my way through the new Bangs compilation, and in lieu (for the time being anyway) of a full-fledged review, here are a few quick thoughts (in point form because I'm not in the mood to cohere):

1) Any sort of follow-up to Psychotic Reactions is perhaps doomed to unfavourable comparisons, given that the Marcus-edited volume contains so many classic pieces (you know what I'm talking about, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves," "Peter Laughner," "The White Noise Supremacists," "New Years Eve," etc.). In other words, so much of the great stuff has already been covered, a point Morthland concedes in his introduction, calling Marcus "a mighty tough act to follow."

2) Which is not to say that Psychotic Reactions is the be-all and end-all of Bangs (it isn't) or that Morthland doesn't unearth some wonderful pieces (he does), but if Psychotic Reactions is the Velvet Underground and Nico of rock books, Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste is, perhaps, the Loaded or The Modern Lovers or The Marble Index of rock books--offbeat variations on a master stroke (a strained metaphor, perhaps, but hey, at least it's not fucking Berlin).

3) My main criticism here is that Mainlines lacks an Index. This is not a minor point, especially for a writer with the breadth of Bangs. Randomly flipping through a few pages of the book right now, I spot references to: Alice Cooper, Neil Young, Sirhan Sirhan, Fad Gadget (Fad Gadget!), The Love Boat, Billy Preston, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Woody Allen, Perry Mason, Nixon, the Shangri-Las...I could go on for hours. Obviously, it's what Bangs does with these references that matters--some are no doubt just throwaways--but if you need to find out quickly just where Grizzly Adams fits into all of this--for your school project or whatever--good luck. (Okay, I'll give you that one--it's on p. 395.) Myself, the first thing I always check in a book like this is the Index. I'm the co-author of a book that doesn't have one, and it's always been a bit of a sore point for me.

4) "Punk is saying fuck punk rock." (p. 338)

5) Jim Derogatis writes: "As Lester's best friend and strongest editor, Morthland should have provided more personal reflection in the introduction and more context for the pieces that he chose. At 400 pages, this tome still doesn't give you all the Lester you need to read. (There are none of his lyrics or poems, and there are still a considerable number of wonderful articles that remain uncollected, including, inexplicably, a few that Bangs earmarked for inclusion in the two proposals that he wrote for his own collection.)"

I liked Morthland's introduction a lot precisely because it is so personal, though he could've gone a little more in-depth about his relationship with Bangs, it's true. What mystifies me more about DeRogatis's review, though, is the idea that Mainlines "still doesn't give you all the Lester you need to read." I dunno--as I hinted above, I think the new book risks overkill as is, and when I read, for instance, Bangs's piece on Emerson, Lake & Palmer (reprinted here) a few years back in an old Creem, it struck me as fairly rote, and certainly not Bangs at his best, though maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised when I read it again in this context. (What made the ELP piece work in Creem was the layout, the captions, and the headlines, something that can't be fully conveyed in book form.) And though I don't know what articles Bangs "earmarked for inclusion" which aren't in either volume, it's a little suspect, as a critic, to value too highly what someone makes of their own work; in other words, I probably trust Marcus and Morthland on Bangs more than I do Bangs on Bangs (which isn't to ignore the possibility that Bangs himself may have put together a better book than either of them). (And no, I'm not anxous for a third volume.)

6) That said, there are a few pieces I'm surprised didn't make it, especially the free-jazz-punk-rock piece from Musician (1980) and part II of "The roots of punk" from New Wave (the first part is included), which, if memory serves (my brother actually has a copy of this obscurity) contains some of Bangs's flat-out funniest stuff. One half-sentence I've never forgotten: "And while I'm not going to pull a Dave Marsh and tell you what a gifted artist Mr. Peter Gabriel is..."

7) Late Lester, the music-despising crank, is almost always both dead wrong and dead right at the same time: wrong in his conclusions (music didn't suck more in 1981 than it did in 1977 or 1965), but hitting the mark again and again in laying out the symptoms. As an unabashed (doomed?) lover of pop junk, always and forever, I shrunk a little after reading "Every Song a Hooker," a lethal exposition of "hooks" in the form of a Kim Carnes essay. How often have I resorted to such cliches when trying to explain my attachments to a particular song!

Okay, I lied about being "quick." And I still have about 340 pages to read. More later--maybe (not likely).

Bangs review

Critic Stands Test of Time. Leanne Potts on Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste in ABQjournal.

Meltzer on Liz Phair, sort of (with apologies to Meltzer and Paul Revere)

"Historical explanation is not necessarily 'reductionist'--though it is, to be sure, when in the hands of boobs [New York Times critics] who think they can understand something merely by placing it in a 'tradition.' Historical reductionism is merely one facet of the general problem of analogy, which is a two-way relationship of both similarity and difference. The great filmmaker and rock lights man David Flooke has regarded the Rolling Stones' Between the Buttons [Liz Phair's Liz Phair] in its entirety as hinting that the Stones [Liz] are [is] on the verge of sounding like Paul Revere and the Raiders [Avril Lavigne]. This can be twisted around rightfully if anyone feels like it to provide an analogy that would make Paul Revere [Avril Lavigne] and the boys [and her boys] feel pretty good to sound like what the Stones [Liz] just might be on the verge of sounding like. Or dissimilarity, pushed to total difference, can be emphasized."

[From The Aesthetics of Rock, footnote, p. 11]