Jay Babcock at Arthur magazine has information about an upcoming documentary about Robert Palmer (w/video trailer) and his time spent with the Master Musicians of Jajouka. To coincide with Blues & Chaos, an upcoming compilation of Palmer’s work.
Archive for October, 2009
Robert Palmer, in print & on screen
Posted by s woods on October 28, 2009
Posted in Books, Robert Palmer | 1 Comment »
Jo Jo Dancer, Your Profession is (Still) Calling
Posted by s woods on October 22, 2009
Some of you may recall “The Rock Critical List,” a xeroxed (read: actually photocopied, on paper) screed about the state of rock criticism that made the rounds ten years ago via various record stores in North America and the U.S. postal service (for a short time, it was also available on SPIN’s website — it was in fact one of the first things on the web I ever linked to). Thing set off a brief firestorm, resulting in a three part Village Voice feature [1, 2, 3] and much sniping among insiders about the true identity of the list’s anonymous author, “JoJo Dancer aka The Gay Rapper.”
In Same as it Ever Was, Daniel Nester marks the tenth anniversary of JoJo’s rant with a lengthy recap of the story along with interviews with some of the key players involved.
What follows (after the jump) are some comments I sent to Nester about the “RCL” after being asked for my two cents on the matter (I’ll spare you the jokes about the value of two cents CDN when placed up against the mighty U.S. penny). Unfortunately, the “RCL” itself is nowhere to be found online, though a badly formatted version of the list section (which is only one portion of the entire piece) can be found here.
Posted in Blabbin', Links | 2 Comments »
Meme of the Day: Lester Bangs Wannabes & Imitators
Posted by s woods on October 9, 2009
- “The question [Bruce] Sterling brings up here has nagged Bangs-the-original and Bangs-wannabes since the first rush wore off: It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it, but is it art?”
- Ray Davis - “Too many [Pitchfork writers] are Lester Bangs wannabes, though each has less than half of Bangs’ talent for being interesting while not actually talking about music.”
- miguelsanchez - “Though [Chuck Eddy's] Lester Bangs wannabe style is slightly interesting, as a guide to picking music this guy is strictly an amateur who I can’t take seriously.”
- Amazon customer review of Stairway to Hell - “For nearly twenty years, the word ‘indie’ has been used by record company executives and pseudo-intellectual Lester Bangs wannabes, to the point that it’s lost all meaning. Since the term was originally used to describe punk rock, ‘indie’ should apply to all of its diminutive forms, but it doesn’t.”
- samhuddy, What is Indie - “IMHO, it’s populated by a bunch of how’s-my-hair Lester Bangs wannabes who are better qualified to write reviews of the latest slim-cut jeans.”
- VicAjax on Pitchfork’s decade-end list - “This Chicago-based online apparel store relies upon the collective creativity of its diehard members to produce quirky t-shirt designs. The ‘Music Snob’ tee name-checks faux music genres (children’s hardcore or Dixieland techno, anyone?) that’ll trick any Lester Bangs wannabe.”
- Rea McNamara, Gifts that Click (Eye Weekly) - “I’m not confused like you, twit
You Lester Bangs wannabe
There’s something wrong with you
There’s nothing wrong with me
There’s nothing wrong with me”
- Lyrics to Of Montreal’s “There is Nothing Wrong With Hating Rock Critics“ - “United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI) is Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and a Lester Bangs Wannabe“
- A Health Dirge Night: President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band (Must click link to see best doctored Sgt. Pepper cover ever) - “Quite frankly, who needs us anymore? Do you honestly need to follow a Lester Bangs wannabe to tell you what’s cool when the entirety of music history is immediately available on Myspace, Wikipedia and your average MP3 blog?”
- Impboy, message on Boing Boing post - “I could make up some metaphors involving edged weapons to describe the guitar work of John Reis and Rick Froberg, and some bludgeoning similes to express the crashing assault of Gar Wood’s bass and Mario Rubalcaba’s drums. But I’d just come off looking like a Lester Bangs wannabe, and quite frankly, what’s the point when I could just repeat what I said about the Camden Underworld gig and be done with it – Hot Snakes kick the shit out nearly every punk rock band you’ll see this year.”
- Nick Cowen review of Hot Snakes - “In short, we’re fans and collectors (well, I’m the collector) who like to pass along information about the artists we enjoy. We’re not Lester Bangs wannabes out to shock and awe, and we’re not too-cool-for-school music snobs that lambaste everything in sight. There are plenty of sites that nitpick musicians and authors, so we’ll let them do their thing, and we’ll keep doing ours.”
- “On Negative Reviews and Turkish Rap“ - “As a wannabe Lester Bangs for the teen section of the local paper, I kept my feet still, listening for the beat. Roth, too, remained steady, his neck grooving slowly with the rhythm, his lips softly mouthing along the words. ‘Isn’t this amazing?’ squealed the girl next to me. I nodded. This was good.”
- Robert Costa, “Asher Agonistes: The Suburban Rise of Asher Roth” (PopMatters) - “Morthland, for one, disagreed with my assessment of modern rock critics being sorry Lester Bangs imitators; he said the imitation was much more prominent in the 1970’s, when there was less of an established tradition. ‘It’s really common for rock critics of the last couple decades to say they were heavily influenced by Lester, tho’ I’ll be damned if I can see it in their writing.’”
- “The Ghost of Lester Bangs“, by Ethan Stanislawski (Perfect Sound Forever) - “I am always perplexed by the fact that, whenever anyone weighs in on Lester Bangs, they feel the need to do a horrible Lester Bangs imitation. While it appears Mr. Leonard has been doing yeoman’s work covering the many different ways the Man is trying to keep you from your Internet, both his style and his interests seem out of synch with commenting effectively on L. Bangs, particularly a work of essentially speculative fiction on the subject of L. Bangs and what he might think of music today.”
- Squiny McGuinty, “The New Ships“ - “And while there have been plenty of Bangs imitators over the years, Let It Blurt proves that there was only one Lester, whose stream-of-consciousness gonzo humor and drug- and drink-fueled prose was balanced by a rare thoughtfulness.”
- Jim Walsh, Blurt review
Posted in Lester, Meme of the Day | 14 Comments »
Weekend Reads (and Listens)
Posted by s woods on October 2, 2009
Haven’t done a roundup-y sort of thing in… well, forever far as I know. A random bunch of things (via Twitter, mainly) to kick off your weekend house parties:
- New York Times podcast featuring Nik Cohn and Ben Ratliff discussing (the newly remastered) The White Album.
- Decade-end listmaking is well underway: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, etc.
- Info from Sasha Frere-Jones about an upcoming compilation of Ellen Willis’s rock writing.
- Info from Robert Hilburn about his just-released compendium of reviews, etc.
- 800 + pages of Manny Farber, also now available in good stores everywhere (except, apparently, Toronto). Early review here by Ken Tucker.
- Page flip through this Amazon link to get to the Table of Contents for the newest in the Da Capo Best Music Writing series. Guest Edited by Greil Marcus (w/Series Editor, Daphne Carr).
- Hours of critical fun here: Can you name the winners of the Pazz and Jop Critics Polls?
- Chris de Burgh hates our kind. (And to think of all the times I endured “Lady in Red” at weddings on his behalf. You think I’m kidding…)
Posted in Blabbin', Links | 1 Comment »
