9/30/2003
Skull Kontrol
A couple weeks back in the Voice, Chuck Eddy mentioned Jeff Dahl's "Rock and Roll Critic," which he called "definitive," and which I'd never even heard of, so naturally, I had to try and find myself a copy online. No luck--not yet anyway--but what I did find, by entering the words "rock critic" on Soulseek was a great, snotty 1999 punk song called "New Rock Critic" by Skull Kontrol, who I've also never heard of before. My guess is that they're American (California maybe?) guys who love the Fall and think Pavement are wimps. Aside from the obvious oft-repeated refrain of "What this town needs is a new rock critic" (and what jaded reader among us hasn't echoed that sentiment a hundred times?), the words are hard to make out here--they fight for space against the tightly wound clamour of the drums and guitars--but the one line I can hear loud and clear, and which I really love for some reason (maybe because it's the sort of line you can add your own context to, completely) is "I was there for 10 years or so." (And what aging writer among us hasn't echoed that sentiment a hundred times?) (never mind that your "10" equals something closer to "2").
Lotsa Swell Links...
Posted tonight at musicjournalist.com. Among the goodies:
Sample riff: "This year the nominees include Prince, Jackson Browne and John Cougar Mellencamp, all of whom will probably make the cut. (Stay tuned for that memorable jam session: Prince riffing away on 'Here Come Those Tears Again' and Jackson singing the leads on 'Little Red Corvette.' Classic.)"
Where Were You in '52?
Hope I'm not jinxing anything by calling this to your attention so early on, but Tom Ewing (UK) and Michael Daddino (U.S.) have taken on the Herculean task of reviewing and rating every #1 single on their respective country's pop charts, from November 1952 (Tom) and January 1950 (Michael) until...well, conceivably forever (I'm not sure why they chose those starting dates). This is a project I intend to follow, especially as they assess the various eras, phases, and one-shots that have meant something to me over the years (on the American side, for instance, I have a peculiar fondness for 1961, which is maybe my favourite pre-Beatles--and pre-birth--pop year, though it's not like I've done a very close study in the #1s of the period).
Anyway, this is a terrific idea, and it's off to a great start. Good luck to both of them.
Antville
Aka, Close Your Eyes, on Ian MacDonald: I hope I'll never end like that.
How Much Chuck Can a...?
No Feelings: Midwestern rock critic and greatest living American writer defeat their designations.
Nick Catucci in the Voice reviews the latest books by Chuck Klosterman and Neil Pollack.
Two Bangs Reviews...
That are short, sharp, and critical. [Cue crazed party noises and stock footage of rockcritics daily staffers doing cartwheels and high-fives.]
9/29/2003
Three Out of Five Star Blues
Blender Magazine Reviews Its Owner's Live Blues Album--Very Carefully
By David Carr in the New York Times.
[Funniest string of words in this article: "primary artistic medium is poetry."]
9/26/2003
So You Want To Be a Rock 'n' Roll Critic
Case Study #1: Neil Tennant
Soft Cell: The Art of Falling Apart (Some Bizarre)
With all the loose ends tied up, the new Soft Cell sound is epic and detailed, weaving trumpets and pianos into a backdrop of synthesizers. Pretty tunes flutter out of a hard mix while Marc Almond's vocals sound both charming and malevolent. One might miss the enthusiastic looseness of their first LP but to be able to put over with such conviction the teenage angst, excitement and traumas of everyday life is no mean achievement. (8 out of 10)
David Bowie: Rare (RCA)
If you've always longed to hear Bowie croon "Space Oddity" in Italian, then this is the album for you. It's a collection of old B sides like "Holy Holy," curiosities like "Helden," the German version of "Heroes," and a couple of singles which have never appeared on an album. All in all, a useful if not thorough compilation for fans." (81/2 out of 10)
[From Smash Hits, 1983...Damn, can't find the issue where he reviews 1999 and calls Prince either a "black Gary Glitter," an "American Gary Glitter," or a "black American Gary Glitter." Door #3 is my guess.]
9/25/2003
And Speaking of Elvis Costello...
(who, by the way, I don't look like at all) (though I wouldn't mind doing so, come to think of it) what's with the inclusion of his Vanity Fair piece in the new Da Capo collection anyway? Yes, he has a pretty good record collection (pretty good, I said), and it's all charming in a get-to-know-your-heroes-better kind of way (for many years of my life, he was exactly that, no question about it). I'd even venture that some of his stuff about classical music could be called vaguely enlightening to those of us unenlightened in such areas. But does this really qualify as one of year's best pieces of music writing? Does his inclusion not completely smack of, let's get a famous guy in the book? Not worth losing sleep over, true. Just a little irritating when you consider all the better pieces from the last 12 months that either got passed over or went unnoticed completely. Maybe one day I'll even snap out of my state of walking somnambulism to tell you what some of them are.
Larf of the Day
"...[Elvis Costello's] North suggests that the songwriter should score the next Disney animated feature. The arrangements--provided by key sideman Steve Nieve and the Brodskys, among others--ebb and flow appropriately, circling the songwriter like cartoon animals perching by the riverbank. You can see the squirrels winking at moose as they dutifully gather winter rations and head underground to hibernate. Maybe Costello should follow them."
--Kate Silver reviews the new Costello album in Seattle Weekly
Go-Kart Mozarts
Don't believe the hype
Greg Sandow from his blog entry of Sep. 23/03 (hosted by ArtsJournal.com):
"I'm not saying, by the way, that all pop criticism is good, that some of it isn't elementary, or badly done, or so overintellectualized that it stops being useful (and sometimes even stops making sense). But I will insist that it's very often on a higher intellectual plane than classical music criticism, because it deals with larger, more important social and cultural issues. It deals, at its best, with the meaning of the music it talks about..."
blogarhythms
Talkin' my language
The buzz around Mercury Music Prizewinner Dizzee Rascal began on fan sites. Jim McClellan looks at the influence of the music blogs.
(From the Guardian.)
[Er, Blissblog is the new AF?]
Bangs Reviews Leave Blogger Scrambling for Headline, Brain
I don't know about you, but I'm increasingly weary of even skimming through reviews of this book right now. If anyone knows whether or not I'm missing something really special in the links below, please advise. (And by something special I don't mean different ways of saying: "where are all the Lester Bangs's today?"; "it's all about marketing now"; "Lester would never be allowed to say what he said then if he were alive now..." What I'd prefer to see: someone grasping the things that are wrong about the collection as well as right, why some of it is so boring and what makes the good stuff so special.) I'll probably end up reading the Kramer piece (which I could've sworn I read a few years ago; am I psychic, deluded, or right?) because I've probably enjoyed the pieces that reminisce about Bangs from the inside more than I've enjoyed the actual reviews. It shouldn't be that way.
9/24/2003
Asleep at the Wheel
Me, that is, and Da Capo--or anyway, the person who writes their press releases--for missing the terrible gaffe in this chapter listing for their upcoming anthology (pointed out in the comments box by Bret):
City Still Breathing: Listening to the Weakerthans (Geist)
A profile of Winnipeg, Ontario, through the music of local stars the Weakerthans.
Forget my previous "Ouch!" This ouch! takes precedence.
Ouch!
In my attempts to simplify the "custom design" of this blog (really, I took one of Blogger's basic templates and just mucked around with the code a little), I appear to have fucked up some of my archives--so for instance, all of early September right now (anything not on this page) is unreadable. No idea why. I find Blogger sites do go weird now and then, so hopefully it's just a blip. (I don't think this is the sort of site where archives even matter--unless you just happened to stumble upon it and want to flip backwards--but I still hate it when shit like that happens.)
9/23/2003
Zagat Rocks...
with First-Ever Music Guide
Sub-head 1: 10,000-Plus Music Fans Rate 1,000 Top Albums
Sub-head 2: 53% of Surveyors Download Music From Internet; 55% Burn Their Own CDs; Music is everywhere: Surveyors Listen 24 hours a week, at Home/In Clubs/Commuting/Working/Exercising
New Blog Alert
Gozblog
"Grok-ing Gozdecki: All the Steve you'll ever need. And then some.
"This site is devoted to my writing and blogging on three main topics:
Unpopular pop music
Progressive politics
A dash of sports, mainly baseball and football..."
Da Capo Comp Update
An anonymous source writes to inform me:
"re: the Washington Philips piece in the Da Capo Book:
The author's name is spelled Corcoran. I'm amazed Da Capo didn't correct the proof if it's still wrong in the ToC in the final copy..."
From My Vast and Intimidating Collection of Rock-Oriented Literature
"You really don't know what [Iggy]'s saying because he slaps himself in the face, but I think he does that for the audience's reaction because, you know, I think he isn't really slapping himself but really slapping them, and don't forget he's wearing those silver gloves and that's quite a different slap."
From "Iggy Stooge--The Magic Touch," a conversation between Warhol "superstars" Rita Redd and Jackie Curtis. One of the few bright spots in a laughably dated collection from '71 (edited by Jonathan Eisen) called Twenty-Minute Fandagos and Forever Changes (hey, seemed like a good deal for three bucks).
9/22/2003
Reasons to Scroll Down #12 & 35
Marc Weisblott was kind (or maybe it's insane) enough to send links for many of those Da Capo pieces listed earlier, so have a preview on us (I tried to stick to "official" publications only here, and not unauthorized reprints).
Steve Gozdecki Writes:
Re: Celluloid Cranks
--Christian Bale plays a journalist in Velvet Goldmine, though it may be that he's not specifically a rock critic.
--Also, Jeff Daniels plays some sort of journalist in that awful Bob Dylan movie, Masked & Anonymous. I've blocked most memories of the flick out, but he does interview Dylan's musician character.
Movie Blogs
Something tells me these haven't spread the same way music blogs have, though I really don't know (yeah, yeah, Google, I know). Can anyone out there recommend any particularly good ones? I'm open to looking at just about anything, but in general I'm interested in reading movie blogs with a) a strong critical voice; b) a sense of humour; and c) an openness to all movies, from blockbusters to foreign/sub-titled. I'm asking for personal interest only, though if I come across any that are really great you'll hear about them here too. Drop me a line if you know of any, or post something in the comments box.
Here's the Da Capo list...
I hinted at earlier (pieces included in the upcoming collection, Da Capo Best Music Writing 2003):
A fantasy wherein the universe is reimagined if Van Halen were an obscure bar band and the Ramones a household name.
NWA and the making of Straight Outta Compton.
How to manufacture a pop star.
City Still Breathing: Listening to the Weakerthans (Geist)
A profile of Winnipeg, Ontario, through the music of local stars the Weakerthans.
"Viva Morrissey!" (Spin)
Meet Morrissey’s most devoted fans: heterosexual Latinos.
"The Music Is" (Tin House)
A history of Detroit R&B.
"Play It Like Your Hair’s On Fire" (GQ)
Profile of Tom Waits.
"Mack McCormick Still Has the Blues" (Texas Monthly)
Profile of an incredible archivist of the Blues.
Life and Death on 'The Late Show' (American Spectator)
Covers Warren Zevon’s weeklong appearance on Letterman and the songwriters fight with terminal cancer.
37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead in Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster (The Onion)
Satirical piece.
Exhuming the Legend of Washington Phillips (Austin-American Statesman)
Tracking down the myths that surround Washington Phillips.
Mr. Brown: On the Road with His Bad Self (New Yorker)
Profile of James Brown.
Post-War Jazz: An Arbitrary Road Map (Village Voice)
Jazz map through the century.
"A Lone Star State of Mind" (Magnet)
Consideration of the life of Doug Sham.
"The Master of Everything (and Nothing at All)" (Esquire)
Profile of Beck.
"Not Bad for a White Girl" (Spin)
White, female rappers.
"The Congo Sound" (New Yorker)
How a record store in Paris became a center of Africa music.
In the Secret Country (Los Angeles Magazine)
Walter Mosely, Doo Wop, and ‘50s LA.
"White Man at the Door" (New Yorker)
Profile of the founder of Fat Possum records.
Math Destruction (Village Voice)
Profile of Greek composer Iannis Xenakis.
"Rocking Around the Clock" (Vanity Fair)
24 hours of what Elvis would listen to and why.
[Book in stores October 2003]
Notes on My Current Top 5
(A brand new sidebar feature of rockcritics daily; ain't this exciting!)
1. "Sometimes," My Bloody Valentine, as featured in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation:
As with The Virgin Suicides, which used pop songs as well as any movie ever made, music features prominently in Lost in Translation, though not much of it sticks. "Just Like Honey" is kinda sweet (and closing the film, it makes a nice bookend of sorts to "Be My Baby" which kicked off Mean Streets with the same "Bom-Bom-Bom, Thwhack!"), and there are snatches of other shoegazey type tracks here and there (and a few vapid housey beats; is this what Mr. Bloody Valentine has been up to for the last 13 years?), which may or may not hit me harder on a second viewing. And while the oft-discussed karaoke scene is a very good scene, it's still karaoke; no one has explained to me yet what's so incredible about Bill Murray's version of "More Than This" (I found the young Japanese guy's re-working of "God Save the Queen" funnier and more moving). But "Sometimes" has always been my favourite track from Loveless, and there are cars involved in the scene. In other words, it couldn't possibly go wrong (except that she could have let it play out a little longer).
2. "Why Can't I," Liz Phair: I like the album, though this track didn't do much for me until some recent hearings on the car radio, where it jumps out of the speakers in a way that Avril Lavigne's whiny "Complicated" never does, even if the only discernible difference I can make out in the arrangement is that Avril's is the sort of song you shake your shoulder sideways to whereas Liz's is the sort of song you bang your head back and forth to.
3. "Mesmerizing," Liz Phair: For the shakers, mainly.
4. "Jaya Shiva Shankara," John Fahey: His stuff is all new to me, and I imagine that like a lot of pretty instrumental music it will fit into my life perfectly at very specific times, like sitting at my desk on a Sunday night, sorting through the usual clutter of papers and bills. This track's all jangly-like, but with a sharp edge to remind you that guitar strings can slice open your fingers if you're not careful.
5. "21 Questions," 50 Cent featuring Nate Dogg: I liked "In Da Club" for a while--specifically, I liked the stripped-down simplicity of Dr. Dre's beat--but I quickly change the station when it comes on now. Nate Dogg's vocal does wonders here, though I guess that's like saying one way of improving the taste of Kool-Aid is to add some water.
Matt Groening
Is the Guest Editor of the upcoming Da Capo music writing series, following in the footsteps of previous Guest Editors Peter Guralnick, Nick Hornby, and Jonathan Lethem (heavy shoes to fill, considering that the combined weight of those three is somewhere around 427 lbs). Only one early tip thus far about which pieces made the cut: Bill Tuomala's Best Band in the Land, a "secret history" of Van Halen (from his fanzine, Exiled on Main St.). To wit:
"1980's Women and Children First showed the strain of commercial failure. It was a bummer from the start, signified by the distorted electric piano that begins 'And the Cradle Will Rock...' There were no attempts at even trying to win over the public, mostly the album was a dark exploration of eventual dead-ends. Some of the songs went over the four minute barrier, and most of those tended to not have much form--the band created magnificent noise while Roth improvised over it. It was a noisy, arty album that dared you to like it. As Dave Marsh wrote: '...finally: white rock's answer album to There's A Riot Goin' On.'"
This bodes extremely well for the series--can't wait to see what else is in there.
(Groening, by the way, is described in the Da Capo bio as a "recovering rock critic," and in case you missed this back when I posted it a few months ago, he had this to say in 1993 about his stint as a rock writer: "I inherited a column called 'Sound Mix' in the Los Angeles Reader and soon found I was digging myself into the horribleness of rock 'n' roll writing. I would write about marginal groups that never sold any records. I would review a band called Grandpa Becomes a Fungus and then go to their little dungeons the following weekend, and it was the same five people as the week before, cowering while the ceiling leaked on them.")
9/21/2003
Hi and Lois
Or, the Globe and Mail reviews Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. (By Tabatha Southey.)
[Weirdest sentence: "The result is exhausting, not convincing, certainly not worth refuting..."]
Writer Profile: Daniel Garrett
Daniel Garrett's book reviews have appeared in American Book Review, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and World Literature Today. Garrett has published reviews of the Afghan Whigs in Hyphen, Matthew Sweet in Option, and various bands on the website of Frictionmagazine.com. Garrett's essay "The Force Behind the Power: Jazz, Joy, and Social Vision in the Work of Diana Ross" was published by WaxPoetics.com, and also published in the Opinion section of AllAboutJazz.com.
Daniel Garrett on:
[Editor's note: If you want to reach some readers through this site, and can follow a format something like the above--a short writeup about yourself with a few well-chosen links demo-ing your work--e-mail me. I can't promise that I'll post it, but I'll do my best. Provided this blog doesn't implode anytime too soon.]
The History of Rock...
Is Written by the Losers. So says the Onion, in a piece that really isn't funny enough to be a parody or sad enough to be the horror story I think it's supposed to be. But anyway, there it is, draw your own conclusions.
Observe This
Observer Music Monthly is a brand new supplement from (duh) Britain's the Observer, and very impressive looking indeed, with features on: Dizzee Rascal, Billie Holiday, Hear'Say, Blur, a search for the "world's oldest music," hip-hoppers and their vehicles, and "life as a pop chick" (women writing about music). Can't say I've read any of these yet, but certainly intend to at some point (and thanks to Flaskaland for bringing this to my attention). This whole thing actually reminds me a little of the Rock & Roll Quarterly supplement that used to run in the Voice back in the late '80s and early '90s--a great idea that died prematurely.
9/20/2003
Blog Alert II: danceblogga
Dennis Romero's blog. "I'm basically a newspaper reporter and feature writer who has been writing about dance music since Los Angeles' rave-o-lution days of '91-'92, when I penned a few pieces on the phenomenon for the Los Angeles Times. While I continue to pay the rent writing 'hard' news, I also continue my love affair with dance music coverage, most often at my home paper, LA CityBEAT, a 100,000-circulation weekly where I write a dance music column called groundswell. I plan to post dance music news, when there is some, and some of my thoughts and criticism about the music and club scene."
Blog Alert: Tim Riley
blog riley is the page of Tim Riley, author of, among other things, Tell Me Why, a song by song analysis of the Beatles, an American counterpart of sorts (though I believe it came first) to Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head. Tell Me Why is actually one of the more readable books on the subject (just don't ask me to tell you why right now), if not quite as entertaining as Mark Shipper's Paperback Writer (though really, what is?).
Epic Article Alert
"The Kids Aren’t Alright...They’re Amazing: Why what was old and lost and a bit odd is young and new--and exciting--again."
By Jay Babcock in LA Weekly.
9/19/2003
*
9/16/2003
Myrtle, We Have a Winner!
I honestly didn't expect anyone to take the bait, but Phil Freeman in Mostly Weird went ahead and answered almost all of my first 21 questions (except the one about my car, but hey). I welcome more (and will post some here if you ask nice).
I Almost Broke Down...
And purchased a magazine today. The new Wired has a great Timbaland cover as an accompaniment to a story on today's superproducers, written by Robert Levine and Bill Werde. (Profiled: the Neptunes, Nigel Godrich, the Matrix, Timbaland, DFA, Dan the Automator, Felix Da Housecat, and--are you ready for it--Butch Vig!)
It struck me upon spotting this that I think I've only ever seen maybe a handful of pictures of Timbaland before--and never a cover shot on a major or even mid-level music publication that I'm aware of. Not that I would expect to, given that he's a) primarily known as a producer, and therefore b) not exactly video-identifiable (I don't believe his collaborations w/Magoo did so well--correct me if I'm wrong). Still, this leads to a question (#36 if you're keeping score): Are non-music publications capable of covering music in a more interesting way now than music-only (or music-mostly) mags? I mean in the sense that, without the same specific pop market concerns for genres and demographics (which isn't to suggest that they don't have their own constrictions) do magazines like Wired or Interview or ArtForum actually have more leeway to explore areas that mostly-music publications wouldn't be allowed to? At least so far as their publishers--if not their editors--are concerned? (Then again, maybe I'm just the wrong guy to be asking this; as a DJ-before-Critic, I've always been an adherent of the Cult of the Producer. I'd buy Keyboard with Timbaland on the cover before I'd buy Vibe or Rolling Stone with Missy Elliott on the cover. Call me crazy.) Anyway, I may yet purchase Wired, but it'll be for the pinups of the Matrix and Dan the Automator; it's a bit flimsy on the wordage.
More Questions
22. Is it all worth it for the free records?
23. Do "free" records still exist?
24. Can the term "genius" ever usefully be applied in a record review?
25. Do rock critics say "I" too much or not enough?
26. Is hero worship still predominant in rock criticism?
27. If so, is this a bad thing necessarily?
28. What makes for a "masterpiece"?
29. Can a piece of criticism outlive the thing it's criticizing?
30. Is criticism itself an art?
31. If every critic in the world stopped criticizing the thing they're criticizing and went to work in soup kitchens for the needy would the world be a better place?
32. Is that the stupidest question asked by anyone ever?
33. Is there anything interesting left to say about the Beatles that hasn't already been said?
34. Is the bigger problem with the so-called canon the fact that there are too many albums in there that shouldn't be or that there are too many albums that aren't in there which should be?
35. Do music critics need to take more or less drugs?
9/15/2003
21 Questions
[To be rhythmically spoken--or "rapped"--over top of any Grover Washington Jr. b-side from 1974 - 1977.]
1. Is the primary readership of rock criticism other rock critics?
2. If so, is there something wrong with that?
3. Is the concept of "community" antithetical to the ideals of rock criticism?
4. Outside of discussions of geometry, does the word "angular" mean anything?
5. Should rock critics force themselves to listen to music they wouldn't listen to otherwise?
6. Would the world be a better place if the term "rock critic" was replaced by "music critic" or "pop critic"?
7. Are diminishing word lengths in record reviews really a bad thing?
8. If so, for whom?
9. Is it necessary--or even helpful--for rock critics to know something about music (technically speaking, that is--i.e., music theory)?
10. Is it necessary or helpful to know the biography (or the "back story") of the artist you're reviewing?
11. Does a record's popularity (or lack thereof) have any bearing at all on how it actually sounds?
12. Is it a rock critic's job to try and sell a particular artist (or their records) to the reader?
13. Will people still want to pay to read rock magazines in 5 or 10 years time?
14. If "everyone's a critic" is no one a critic?
15. Is the phrase "osmotic tongue pressure" really as abstract as it sounds?
16. Do critics limit themselves when they write with a particular readership in mind?
17. Should rock critics be "in touch with" what younger people are listening to? (Or for that matter, anyone not part of their immediate peer group?)
18. Are any musicians truly "beneath contempt"--and therefore not worth consideration by critics?
19. Is the idea that a great recording can come from anywhere just an urban legend?
20. In terms of genre, is it better for music magazines to be locked into a particular niche or should they jump around all over the place?
21. If I went back to a Hoopty from a Benz, would you poof and disappear like some of my friends?
NME Newzzzz
Pop mags--the rivals.
"The launch of a new-look NME this week means the end for the music newspaper--now they are all magazines."
Ciar Byrne of the UK Guardian talks to NME editor, Conor McNicholas.
Holy Greil
Don't know how I missed this, but here's an interview Chris Nelson did with Marcus in Seattle Weekly, done around the time of the EMP Conference. (I missed it = nobody told me.)
Marcus: "I really used to believe, and I haven't any reason to think differently, that in the '50s and '60s, with clear exceptions that you find out about later, for the most part the best records did break through, did get heard. There were exceptions to that, but the cream did rise to the top--I think that's true. Nobody can make that argument today. You simply cannot make an argument that the top 10, the top 20, the top 40 on the Billboard charts of any given week represent the most adventurous, the most challenging, the most creative, the most surprising music being made today. It would be a ludicrous joke to try to make that argument today. It's been a long time since the most striking work was showing up in those kinds of charts."
Billboard Top 10 Singles Chart (issue dated Sep. 20)
1. "Shake Ya Tailfeather," Nelly, P. Diddy & Murphy Lee
2. "Baby Boy," Beyonce Featuring Sean Paul
3. "Right Thurr," Chingy
4. "Into You," Fabolous Featuring Tamia Or Ashanti
5. "Frontin'," Pharrell Featuring Jay-Z
6. "Get Low," Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz Featuring Ying Yang Twins
7. "Crazy In Love," Beyonce Featuring Jay-Z
8. "P.I.M.P.," 50 Cent
9. "Where Is The Love?," Black Eyed Peas
10. "Unwell," matchbox twenty
Billboard Top 10 Albums Chart
1. Hilary Duff, Metamorphosis
2. Mary J. Blige, Love & Life
3. Alan Jackson, Greatest Hits Volume II And Some Other Stuff
4. Beyonce, Dangerously In Love
5. Evanescence, Fallen
6. Various Artists, The Neptunes Present...Clones
7. Chingy, Jackpot
8. Coldplay, A Rush Of Blood To The Head
9. Soundtrack, Bad Boys II
10. 50 Cent, Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
No comment. (Yet.)
9/14/2003
Beppe Colli Writes:
re: Ian & Ian (Sep. 12)
Just finished reading the Ian Penman pieces about Ian MacDonald and I can't say I'm happy about them. First things first: I didn't personally know him, nor did I read the NME in the '70s. I just read those books [Revolution in the Head and The People's Music], mostly.
When MacDonald died, I wrote to a friend of mine (who's an English musician): now all those who are in search of an easy route will project the way he died unto the things he wrote, avoiding to seriously discuss the points raised by his RITH intro and which, to me, are really serious. (I jokingly added: we depressed people who do our work in the open cannot even commit suicide!) Maybe 'cause my background is in social sciences, I'm used to judging a work by looking at its "soundeness"--to hear someone define Max Weber's work--and conclusions!--as "the work of an extremely depressed man" will only make me laugh. (By the way, I dunno whether this Penman is the same one who writes for The (UK) Wire; if so, judging from his 4 CD Coil review in the September issue I have to say that his idea of what "music criticism" is is pretty different from mine.) More than a few points made by MacDonald are shared by many musicians I know--most of them people who work in (let's call them like this for ease of use, ok?) new idioms using computers and the like. So, what's the problem? That he was not enthusiastic about new music, or that he didn't listen to any? This to me is not really clear.
(By the way, from what I've understood he was already severely depressed in his first year at the University, so...what's new?)
I really think that to write
"...one on Dylan {marred only by a bizarre dismissal of Blood On The Tracks which could only have been made by someone who knew very little of affairs of the heart and loins, of someone cut off from men and women and the things--good and bad--they do to one another, so that the resonance of those bloody raw tender Tracks just didn't fall around him natural as a suit made of clouds the way it does 99% of people who hear it)."
is beyond rude--and explains nothing (does Keith Moon's "lunacy" explain his drumming style?).
I also found the passage you quoted:
"e.g.... as Danny Baker once said to me, every generation thinks IT'S NME was the best, and every generation loses its HEART to ITS strange new music. And I really don't think it was beyond the capability of such a ruthlessly intelligent man as IMac to see this: I think he rather flat out REFUSED to see it, admit its truth, a healing truth not a drowning truth, because he didn't want to see it, because it suited his isolate high eyrie position {like some Cambridge don of music crit} not to acknowledge the HEART-felt truth of something like: a stray track on an Underworld lp may touch some young kid today with as much devastating tenderness and strangeness and truth as a Dylan track did for him back in 1966 ..."
to be quite bizarre.
First, let's put the hypothetical bullshit ("...he rather flat out refused," etc.) out of the way. What are we left with? Maybe that "every generation has its likes and dislikes"? Is this new? And: what has this to do with music criticism? Are we supposed to have a "peer jury" review this month's CDs? (In a way, people already do: they buy, download and watch TRL.)
BUT: can we say that a severely decreased level of literacy makes most songs today trite, elementary, with almost no geographical connotations? Can we say that the music of the "laptop glitch reductionist brigade"'s refusal to consider structure and its looking at the "poetry of the fragment" go hand in hand with our ever-increasing perception of a world as being without logic and meaning at all? Can we say that somebody who praises to the skies (in good faith!) the new one by Ken Vandermak has in all probability never listened to an album by Roscoe Mitchell or Evan Parker? Can we say that having experienced music mostly from record has deprived some writers of the possibility to really see through certain groups?
By the way, there are engineers and producers who--right now--are discussing how to make digital attain the level of "warmth" that analogue had. These are the same people who engineer today's music (I mean, those who care--others are perfectly happy to deliver shit c/w that winning video).
Sorry, but I think Penman's tools are too primitive to be useful here.
[See Beppe Colli's interview with Ian MacDonald, which appeared last month in Clouds and Clocks.]
Green
Is the colour of Kate Silver's blog. Also the title. Check it out.
Two Links...
Courtesy of Flaskaland:
By Scott Rappaport in UC Santa Cruz Currents.
(From I-94 Bar.)
9/13/2003
Bet They Can't Wait 'Til Iggy Goes Down Dept.
Headline seen running across CNN late last night: "Ring of Fire." (The story was Iraq.)
(What next? "Three's Company" for a story about the Axis of Evil?)
The Klosterman Weeknight
Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, spoke in Toronto recently and Weisblogg was there.
9/12/2003
There Will Be Much Ink Spilled Over the Next While...
About the life and music of Johnny Cash, but few will probably say it as eloquently as Steven Rubio (posted on Steven Rubio's Online Life).
Q&A: Chuck Klosterman
"For this Spin writer, life's all about sex, drugs, and breakfast cereal."
By Chris Gage in mediabistro.com.
Ian & Ian
Ian Penman's complicated feelings about Ian MacDonald, from his blog, The Pill Box. (This stretches down beyond the first entry...it's a loooong piece, marvelous, if not exactly a quick scan--i.e., I'm still making my way through it).
I've been flipping through Revolution in the Head again this week, and it really is a fantastic book overall. It takes a great writer to make you completely re-hear (and re-think about) one of your all-time favourites, which is exactly what MacDonald does with "I Am the Walrus" (aahh, a blueprint for "God Save the Queen," right on). Naturally, I agree with most of MacDonald's critics re: RITH'S it-all-died-after-the-60s thesis (give or take a Nick Drake or Henry Cow), though I haven't in fact read anything else by him, so I can't say whether this turned him into a bad writer or not. This crippling anti-here-and-nowism didn't exactly rot Bangs's or Meltzer's prose--it possibly had the opposite effect--though it does enforce a certain inevitability when reading anything by Meltzer on music now. Speaking of which, I couldn't help but think of you-know-who when reading this bit from Penman on MacDonald:
"...as Danny Baker once said to me, every generation thinks ITS NME was the best, and every generation loses its HEART to ITS strange new music. And I really don't think it was beyond the capability of such a ruthlessly intelligent man as IMac to see this: I think he rather flat out REFUSED to see it, admit its truth, a healing truth not a drowning truth, because he didn't want to see it, because it suited his isolate high eyrie position {like some Cambridge don of music crit} not to acknowledge the HEART-felt truth of something like: a stray track on an Underworld lp may touch some young kid today with as much devastating tenderness and strangeness and truth as a Dylan track did for him back in 1966..."
9/10/2003
Pre-Famous
Cameron Crowe's website, The Uncool, now collects over 100 of his articles (mostly from the '70s) for Rolling Stone and various other publications.
Bangs x 2
Increase Your Length
Kyle Gann on Censorship by Word Count. (Scroll down a little.)
My Day Job...
Has more or less prevented me this week from posting daily updates. I'm away from my desk on course today and tomorrow, so I'll probably be posting erratically for the next few days as well. (Truthfully, I just haven't felt like attending to this from home; at work I don't dwell on things like "the point.") I'll sneak in a few links now before heading off to the grindstone.
Also: if you happened to send me anything for the site yesterday between the hours of 3 and 7:00 EST, I didn't get it; I was robbed of fours worth of rockcritics mail for some reason. Just so you don't think I'm rude or something...
9/05/2003
Takin' Care of Business
Publisher That Went Bust Is Hoping to Go Boom Again.
By David Carr, New York Times.
re: Future Network USA's purchase of Guitar World.
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Beppe Colli Writes:
Always funny to notice how much Bangs still matters to a lot of people. He's obviously worth the attention, but I wonder how much people miss those times--I mean, when heated discussions about music went on as if those things really mattered, in magazines still somehow willing to have those pieces in their pages, for readers who were somehow--somewhat--engaged. Really unconvinced by the Andrew Leonard argument re: "Lester's Website." Nowadays people donwnload, rip and burn even CDs by pennyless indies--who would pay to read Lester's pieces? (OK, you and me for sure, but...)
9/04/2003
Followups to Last Week's Thrashings
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Rickey Wright Says...
Given all the chat about Bangs' Anne Murray review, it's more than worth remembering his short essay on bubblegum music in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. It's hilarious and also heartfelt: "The basic bubblegum sound could be described as the basic sound of rock & roll--minus the rage, fear, violence and anomie that runs from Johnny Burnette to Sid Vicious...[T]he wonderful irony was that it worked." And the Banana Splits' theme song, "with its strange imagery--'Four banana, three banana, two banana, one/Five bananas playin' in the bright blue sun'--will be in my head unto the grave."
I agree with you; forgetting or questioning this side of Lester's passions says more about the commentator and the times than it does Lester himself. The "noize" in "noize boys" came from a lot of different places.
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Richard Riegel Writes:
Thanks for linking Roberta Cruger's memoir of Lester from Salon--lots of good words from her, some interesting comments from the musicians Lester confronted. I wanted to address the question now as to whether Lester admired Anne Murray's music--he certainly did, that was no ironic pose. My wife, who, unlike me, is a good singer and plays the piano, and thus is in a position to judge music qua music, has always told me what an amazing vocalist Anne Murray is, and I think Lester was responding to that authenticity--he didn't care whether her genre was nominally MOR--as well as to Ms. Murray's erotic hold on him. I've already sent the anecdote below about Lester & Anne to both Jim Testa of Jersey Beat, and John Eberhart of the Kansas City Star, as they had questioned Lester's commitment to Murray in their respective reviews.
So, to address the widespread skepticism that Lester really meant it in that quote about Anne Murray--he DID, this is something I know about first-hand. Lester had a huge crush on Anne Murray around 1973-74, and that's reflected in his review. When I went up to Birmingham, MI, to meet Lester in person for the first time, in June 1974, we hung out at his house, as it was the weekend and the Creem office was closed. Lester wanted to show me the office, but had lost his keys [no smirking!]--he considered calling fellow editor Ben Edmonds to borrow his keys, but finally decided not to wake him up (it was Sunday morning), so we just drove by the office and Lester pointed out his window on the 2nd floor, with Anne Murray's Christmas card displayed above his desk--he was really proud of her acknowledgment of his critical overtures that morning. I think Lester's interest in Ms. Murray gradually faded out in the next few years, but it was at its peak when I first met him, definitely the real thing. And I had forgotten his "voice like molten high school rings" simile for Anne Murray until I read the Mainlines anthology--that's just about a perfect Bangsism.
So, Scott, take your countrywoman Anne Murray to lunch today on Lester Bangs's dime, it'll give him a real grin up there on his bedsitter cloud.
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Letter of the Day
To Toronto's eye weekly from Mowey (scroll down that page) in regards to last week's Errol Narareth column, Culture Vultures--Nazareth's interview with Greg Tate. I linked to that piece last week, primarily just to note the presence of Tate, but it rankled me too, and anyway, Nazareth has been repeating the same story over and over again for years (admittedly, I don't have the same media access he does to do the broken record routine, so take that for what it's worth). Even more tiresome than Nazareth's occasional need to question white people's capacity to enjoy (and perform) rap is his ceaseless berating of commercial r&b and hip-hop acts for committing crimes of (and not against) the capital--i.e., for getting funky and making money. Sort of a younger, slightly more tolerant (he lives in Canada, what do you expect?) Stanley Crouch, and just as humourless if not as forceful. Anyway, Mowey says it more thoughtfully than I could:
"I have been a fan and an active participant in hip-hop for a long time, and the entire time I have known that I'm not much more than a visitor. This is fine by me. I have no need to take on the black man's burden (and no way to do so), but I do take it on myself to educate myself and become aware of the struggles that black North Americans have endured for the last few hundred years at the hands of white people before me. I thought that was the point. Of hip-hop, I mean. To some it is, but to others, it's a lifestyle, a sport, a way to get girls, a reason to drink and wild out, a party and a competition."
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Not a Review of Bangs...
But an enjoyable memoir of sorts, written by Roberta Cruger, a former Creem staffer. From Salon.
"Lester's hysterical wit, goofy good nature, flash and flair brought ballast to the household and office. (Yeah, his room was a chaotic sty--but he did actually do the dishes.) I witnessed those all-night binges to reach a deadline, typing furiously to keep up with his thoughts and substances, to drown out the inner anguish. Our tastes diverged and I wasn't a huge fan of his writing. Today, 21 years after his death, I read it now with new eyes."
Cruger also talks to a few musicians for her story, including Canada's own Anne Murray: "'I'm grateful to Lester,' Murray says today. 'He gave me his seal of approval, which came from a place where most people would not expect it.'"
Interestingly, a few reviewers of Mainlines have commented on the apparent oddness of Bangs enthusing over a singer like Murray (he calls her "the real thing" and a "hypnotically compelling interpretix" with a "heavily erotic vibe")--with at least one writer assuming it was a joke--which I think says less about Bangs (or then) than it does about them (or now).
9/03/2003
Bylines No. 1: Steven Rosen
[The first in what could just end up being a new rockcritics daily feature.]
By Steven Ward
Veteran rock writer Steven Rosen has been traveling with musicians and profiling them--mostly guitarists--since the early '70s. He has written for just about every rock publication under the sun. Here, Rosen reflects on five magazines that stand out to him.
Rolling Stone
Maybe the crowning jewel in my literary kingdom. I pitched them a story on Bad Company. This was maybe the first time the magazine printed a story before the album was even released. I received an advance copy of the first album and knew it was going to be a monster. I was right. This was probably a 2,000 word story and I never pored over every comma and colon as much as I did on this one. I was proud of this--it took two years of phone calls ingratiating myself to the editorial staff--pitching them on ideas that constantly got turned down. I believe I dealt with Abe Peck. He was great--guided me through the process, helped me via telephone on re-writes. A story in Rolling Stone--I was cool!
Creem
From a distance, I dealt with Lester. I have one of his rejection letters written on a little piece of Creem stationery. I did several stories for them--Deep Purple and some others I can't remember. Creem required an antithetical voice to the one I used with Rolling Stone. They wanted you to riff, improvise, toss out lines and insights like automatic gunfire. Rolling Stone required methodical, and perfect word use. I can't remember the other people I worked with there--maybe Jaan. I loved the Creem beer can/car page.
Guitar Player
My first major pieces. In fact, the first story I ever wrote for them became my first cover. A company called Gibson & Stromberg were 'rock' PR company at the time. They handled everyone from The Stones to Dr. Hook. They took a liking to me and opened up their roster. Lydia Woltag, one of the great women working at the office (that building just about on the corner where La Cienega rises up to meet Sunset Boulevard), liked me. She even found me a place to rent in Laurel Canyon--$75 a month. She asked me if I wanted to interview Jeff Beck. She should have asked me if I needed oxygen to breathe. Beck was God, he was king. I was a guitar player who'd played his licks--messily--for years. She set it up and I spent two days with him at the--then--Continental Hyatt House--talking and hanging. An hour into the interview, I happened to check my batteries and oh Jesus God, they were dead. I turn to him, my head hung in shame, my career over before it even began. "Jeff," I muttered, sheepish, cowering, embarrassed, "My batteries ..." Before I could finish he said, "Come back tomorrow, we'll do it again." I came back the next day and he was perfect. Everything I wanted him to be. I brought a guitar I had because I thought he'd dig playing it. He loved it and said he wasn't going to give it back to me. I probably would have given it to him. And that interview became the first of 16 covers I'd do for Guitar Player. I dealt with editor Jim Crockett and after he left, Don Menn. They were my mentors, helping me to hone my interviewing skills--how to extract the most out of a guitarist. Guitar Player was the bible for guitarists and I became associated with them. Over the course of six years, out of 72 possible covers I wrote 16 of them. I owned that magazine. Many great experiences there--Frank Zappa, Ron Wood, Jimmy Page (I toured with the band in 1977 for 9 days), Ritchie Blackmore. This is probably my favorite time of writing. The money would have made a McDonald's employee laugh--they paid me $150 for the Page cover and said this was the most they'd ever paid a writer. I didn't care. I remember seeing Guitar Player in the library once--I read an article on Dickie Betts and I remember saying to myself, "I can do this." I loved that period--1973 through 1979.
Guitar World
Began writing for them around 1984 and became known as the Edward Van Halen connection. Edward had become a friend and I always had access to him before anyone else. I did three covers on him and the second cover, July 1985--still stands as the definitive story on him. Noe Goldwasser was the overseer and a very insightful editor. I did seven covers for GW between 1984 and 1987. My writing was improving and the stories seemed to resonate with readers. But Noe got weird--he wanted other writers to cover Edward and this pissed me off. I wasn't told about it. And the stories were simply rehashes of the pieces I'd earlier written. A great magazine nonetheless and a very fun time.
Circus
I tried for a long time to get a piece in Circus. I read their stories which were filled with metaphor and hyperbole and colorful description. I eventually did several stories for them--Jethro Tull, Robin Trower (for their sister mag, Circus Raves), and some others. Joe Walsh. Circus and Creem were pretty much the same periodical--they covered the same types of artists and the writing style required for both was the same. A very delightful ride...
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Bangs Quote Apropos Nothing
[From the essay, "Bad Taste is Timeless," reprinted in Mainlines.]
"I asked my friend James Marshall if he thought the current dismal state of music was likely to improve. 'No,' he said. 'It's got to get worse, because everybody's into their own thing and doesn't wanna know. Pretty soon every band will have no more than three fans, and nobody will even have any friends. Then after that you'll start resenting the other guy because he likes the same thing you like: it's your turf! How dare he encroach? So then people will start killing each other for appropriating each other's musical tastes and thus infringing on the neighbor's hipness space. How can you be smug about being the only person in the world cool enough to appreciate some piece of New Wave shit, or a blues band or [an] arcane jazz artist for that matter, if you find out somebody else likes it? Don't dare tell 'em! Don't even tell your wife or girlfriend! Keep it safe inside your Walkman!'"
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Bangs in Salon
Some sliver of authenticity from the truckloads of stinking garbage. Andrew Leonard reviews Mainlines in Salon.
In answer to the question, where would Bangs ("this poor man") be published today, Leonard suggests:
"Lester would have the best blog of all time.
"The Web, without timid editors, without word-length restrictions, without censors, would be Lester's playground. How would he pay the rent? you wonder. Surely we, his readers, would find a way to keep him afloat. We'd have to, because Lester's blog would be essential to our cultural sanity. Enough with the ironic detachment, enough with the breakdown of pop into minuscule niche categories, populated by their own commodified demographics..."
Hmm, "would find a way"? Out of the goodness of all "our" hearts?
9/02/2003
In His Own Right: Ian MacDonald
Rock's Back Pages presents an interview that Ian MacDonald did in 2001 with Paul Gorman for his book, In Their Own Write.
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Livin' in Shame
Salon readers respond to Tom Bissell's recent essay "Freddy, Jason, Megadeth and me."
Bissell's essay here: "I'm a young, cultured New Yorker who reads Gaddis and Ishiguro. But I can't stand indie rock, I love speed metal and slasher movies, and I refuse to be ashamed anymore!" (I haven't read this.)
9/01/2003
Makin' Lists...
Is now a whole lot more meaningful thanks to Acclaimed Music. This is a rather astounding page, a once-you-get-going-you'll-never-want-to-stop sort of thing. Or as proclaimed on its introductory page, "You mean you don't want to sit in a dark, smoky bar with friends debating the fact that The Velvet Underground are the 8th best Albums Band but only the 425th best Singles Band?" Acclaimed Music is put together by Henrik Franzon.
