Archive for July, 2011
Ewing on Stone Roses
Posted by s woods on July 29, 2011
Tom Ewing, refreshingly sane on one of the more puzzling phenomena of Brit-pop: the (cue hushed tones among folks of a certain vintage and haircut) first Stone Roses album. (Weirdly, I probably give more credence to the quiet-pretty-folky parts of the Roses than Ewing does, though I’d still rank the album a 6 instead of a 7.)
You know how people always talk about how in the Old Days you used to buy a record and really concentrate on it and absorb it. I did that with the first Stone Roses album and I strongly remember WANTING to have my life changed by it. The whole narrative around music was to do with hearing these life-changing records, so you felt like you were doing it wrong if you didn’t have those sort of experiences on a regular basis. For indie boys reading the NME was kind of like how reading Cosmo must have been for teenage girls sometimes, except for “Oh god why havent I had an orgasm yet?” read “Oh god why haven’t I heard a Life Changing Record yet?”. But the Stone Roses album doggedly refused to morph from a Pretty Good record into a Great one.
(Ewing‘s entire name-a-band-any-band feature is a fun read.)
Posted in Record Reviews | Leave a Comment »
Jeff Pike on Rob Sheffield
Posted by s woods on July 29, 2011
Jeff Pike reviews Rob Sheffield’s Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
It’s hard to read in places—anyone who has ever lost anyone can expect to find Sheffield probing painful places one way or another. But it’s amazingly light-hearted too, even as it never shrinks from anything. In the end, Sheffield does a good deal toward making something substantial out of what too often seems among the most inconsequential and silly career choices imaginable: the rock critic. He makes something substantial out of it, and brings the dignity too.
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Genesis vs. The Dean
Posted by s woods on July 28, 2011
Ward-bait!
Christgau has at Genesis; Genesis fans have back at Christgau.
I know, har-har yeah-whatever, tell-me-something-I-don’t-already-know (er, you do know where you are now, right?) but it’s funny reading this in light of a comment I posted on the architecture site recently by pre-Yo La Tengo rock critic, Ira Kaplan (from a great review, actually, of the first Christgau guide; someone mailed me a photocopy of it years ago, though the publication and date were missing… anyone know what ‘zine it’s from?).
Posted in Xgau | 8 Comments »
On Hating the F*&%ing Eagles
Posted by s woods on July 28, 2011
Steven Hyden revisits the Eagles greatest hits collection (AV Club):
One of the most influential rock critics of the last couple of decades doesn’t write for Rolling Stone, Spin, or Pitchfork; he’s not a writer at all, actually, or even a real person. You could call this figure the man for his time and place. Even if he’s a lazy man — and this person is most certainly that, quite possibly the laziest in Los Angle-less County, which would place him high in the running for laziest worldwide — sometimes there’s a man, sometimes there’s a man…
I’m talking about The Dude here. Specifically, I’m talking about The Dude hating the fucking Eagles.
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Punk’s Prophet
Posted by s woods on July 28, 2011
Tim Marchman revisits Marcus’s Ranters and Crowd Pleasers.
Posted in Book (P)reviews, Greil Marcus, Punk | Leave a Comment »
More on Nu-Creem
Posted by s woods on July 28, 2011
Rock Chronicle Inspires Battle Over Its Legacy, by James C. McKinley Jr., NYT.
For five years, Mr. Matheu said, he struggled to get Creem off the ground again. He started an online edition, hired freelance writers and assembled an archive of back issues. But the enterprise never made a profit. “We were doing all of it without any advertising support,” Mr. Matheu said. “I continued to do it because I wanted to keep the brand alive.”
I keep going back to the same question, though: why? And who cares? I don’t mean that rhetorically or snidely — I sincerely am asking, “Who cares about seeing a newsstand replica of something which was great 35 years ago?” (And the tenor of which is over-covered currently on something called the internet.) I know it must sound crazy, maybe, what I’m saying here, suggesting that the world doesn’t need another music magazine, especially given just how few there currently are to choose from out there, but — yes, that is what I’m saying. Truth is, I’m as excited about Nu-Creem as I was about the Stooges reunion that happened several years ago, i.e., not at all (though at least with the latter, the right people were involved and presumably getting paid for their efforts; I don’t at all begrudge Iggy and his cohorts from reaping in the rewards denied them in their heyday, I just don’t personally find it that interesting). On the other hand, all this Nu-Creem talk is content for me to cover here; it gives me something to harp on about every couple weeks. I’m not unaware of that contradiction, trust me.
Posted in Creem | 5 Comments »
Galway Horse Racing
Posted by s woods on July 28, 2011
I’m not usually one to play the ponies, but just try and guess who I’m placing odds on in the Galway Races, happening now.
Apparently, I’m not alone.
Posted in Blabbin' | Leave a Comment »
What is a Music Critic’s Life Really Like?
Posted by s woods on July 27, 2011
At Houston Press, Chris Gray and Craig Hlavaty swap stories
But I agree with you, it’s a lot of work, brain work. We aren’t crushing rocks in a mine or digging ditches, fighting fires, or working in an ER seeing lives flash before our eyes. We somehow have to make sense of things, especially with live reviews, that aren’t so easily described. Like, there have been times where after a show, like Britney Spears a few weeks back, where I sat in front of the monitor shrugging and stressed that I had to intimate the normalcy of something that should have been grand.
So yeah, it’s fun and physically easy, but the fights in our own minds are like torture. But a torture that you will have to pull from my cold dead hands.
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Paul Nelson Wins ASCAP Award for Rod Stewart Profile (1979)
Posted by s woods on July 26, 2011
Posted in Archival, Paul Nelson | Leave a Comment »
Because the Book Publisher, Rosie, Just Gave Me a Big Advance
Posted by s woods on July 26, 2011
(More from Billboard via Google Books, Nov. 1981)
Posted in Archival, Dave Marsh | Leave a Comment »
Lester Bangs in Billboard
Posted by s woods on July 26, 2011
Not something one comes across every day. (Sadly, one of my singles-reviewing heroes, Ken Barnes, is sliced by a scanner.)
Posted in Archival, Lester, Zines | Leave a Comment »
First Feature Article on Rap in a Mainstream Music Publication?
Posted by s woods on July 26, 2011
Couldn’t say for sure (although maybe it’s mentioned in one of the rap histories out there), but this Billboard piece from November 1979 by Radcliffe Joe and Nelson George surely must be a contender. (Also: woo-hoo, Billboard now on Google Books!)
Posted in Archival, Zines | 2 Comments »
Rockwrite Top 10
Posted by s woods on July 26, 2011
The Stash Dauber’s top 10 music books list includes good writeups on titles by Roxon, Cohn, Greg Tate, Ben Watson, et al. Can’t argue with any of these, really.
Posted in Book (P)reviews | Leave a Comment »
Michael Azerrad on ‘Retromania’
Posted by s woods on July 25, 2011
When the Music Stops: Michael Azerrad reviews Simon Reynolds’s Retromania in the Wall Street Journal.
So, I’m reading this review, thinking it’s fine, balanced, all the rest, but then this paragraph jumped out at me:
“Another big thing that Mr. Reynolds is forgetting: 9/11. That happened at the dawn of the 2000s, precisely when he believes pop music really began to atrophy. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the only people sanguine about the future were manufacturers of airport-security equipment.”
What exactly is Azerrad saying here? That following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center musicians were no longer interested in innovation, or in “the future”? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around — you know the old cliché, hard times beget inspired art? And how long does the “aftermath” of this event last? Is Azerrad suggesting that 9/11 has scarred pop music with a permanent sense of atrophy? I’m asking partly rhetorical and not very useful or intelligent questions here, probably, but there’s something about the 9/11 referencing in that paragraph that really throws me for a loop. It’s so fraught with assumptions — assumptions, above all, about the long term impact of that event — that I just kind of wish an editor had demanded elucidation. I’m not saying Azerrad is wrong in his assumptions, or that 9/11 as a subject should be off limits here — I’ve often been curious myself about the connections that exist, in some form or fashion, between the events of September 11, 2001, and the creation or reception of pop music following that particular day — but in this case it feels like a shortcut to make a point (which is…?), and it feels unsubstantiated, perhaps even specious.
Posted in Book (P)reviews | 2 Comments »
Elwy Yost, R.I.P.
Posted by s woods on July 22, 2011
He’ll only be recognized here, I suspect, by Canadian movie lovers, but his impact can’t be dismissed: for 25 years, from 1974-1999, he hosted TV Ontario’s “Saturday Night at the Movies,” a showcase for so many classic, brilliant films of all genres and eras and persuasions (during the ’80s, especially, I practically had my VCR set on automatic record every Saturday night at 8:00).
Jay Stone in the National Post writes:
He was no critic: He seemed to relish everything, and his interviews with filmmakers and movie stars were breathless — not to say gushing — encounters. Elwy could hardly wait for the subject to finish the answer before he was saying how marvellous or interesting it was. It was that pure joy that made Elwy such a reassuring and refreshing TV presence.
True enough, “he was no critic,” but his show certainly provided a critical function of sorts; it was a repertory cinema in your living room, basically (sans commercials; TVO is publicly funded). Also, he did interview movie critics, including Kael. (There are clips from that interview in this documentary on the auteur theory.) I e-mailed a program director at TVO several years ago, not long after Kael died, asking if they might consider replaying the entire interview, but I never heard back. It’d be great if it came to light at some point.
Posted in Kael, Movie Critics, Obits | Leave a Comment »
Waiting in the Sky
Posted by s woods on July 22, 2011
Dwight Garner in the NYT reviews Paul Trynka’s new Bowie bio:
David Bowie: Starman is a better-than-average rock biography, but just barely. It’s patient and respectable without being quite likable, without ever quite becoming your friend. When you put this heavy thing down, it doesn’t call out to be seized back up again quickly. You may begin to circle its bulk warily.
Bowie biographies (like Elvis Costello biographies) are, by and large, a useless if not downright depressing sub-genre. It’s a really curious thing, especially given just how adored these guys are by white, male rock critics. I’ve read two Bowie bios (one-and-a-half, actually; I had to put one of them down it was so dull), spent at least one afternoon in a library many years ago flipping through two or three others, and I’ve distrusted the notion that it could be done ever since. Trynka’s sounds like it’s probably better than the others, but the bar ain’t exactly high.
Posted in Book (P)reviews | 5 Comments »
Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead
Posted by s woods on July 22, 2011
Neil Strauss, interviewed by Andrew McMillen:
Firstly, I want to talk about the final chapter of the book [Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead], and the epilogue. I thought it was a very touching note to end on; it wrapped everything up nicely. It made me wonder; was that section about Paul Nelson always going to close the book?
No. I don’t think any book is ever planned. It always sort of just happens. I guess I knew I wanted the last section to be about family and mortality, and I felt I put so much heart and time into the Paul Nelson piece, it seems like a fitting epilogue for the book. And it rolled so nicely into the actual epilogue. I knew that each section was going to have a theme, and the last section was really going to look at mortality around different angles, in a parallex way. That got more appropriate there. It just sort of landed there.
I just received a copy of Strauss’s book, and may have more to say about it at some point. It’s not normally the sort of book I gravitate towards (hard to explain why, and I’m not being dismissive, just noting that I am very limited in my scope in some regards when it comes to music books), but I certainly look forward to the Nelson chapter, which Steven Ward and Kevin Avery both mentioned in our earlier podcast.
Posted in Book (P)reviews, Interviews, Paul Nelson | Leave a Comment »
Surfin’ Bird
Posted by s woods on July 22, 2011
You know, if I’d taken more time to think of better questions when I interviewed Richard Meltzer back in 2000, I’d almost certainly have asked him, “Why did you open The Aesthetics of Rock with the lyrics of ‘Surfin’ Bird’?” I’ve since, and often, hypothesized about this very thing:
1) he liked the song
2) it came on the radio one evening while he was stoned out of his gourd and working on the text, and — hey, why the hell not?
3) it was his way of insisting on the relevance-equivalence of crudity-profundity (i.e., you’ll understand Bob Dylan much better if you also understand the Trashmen, and vice versa) (though I think what Meltzer does is take it further than Trashmen-Dylan, he goes Trashmen-Plato)
4) it’s a (p)review of what follows, “Well-a everybody’s heard” suggesting the already past-tenseness of the moment Meltzer’s trying to summon forth, and providing a nice setup for his own first self-penned sentence in the book, “This is a sequel…”
Today, I can add a fifth “what-if” to the pile. In “Along Comes Maybe,” his editorial in the fourth (1966, month unknown) issue of Crawdaddy!*, Paul Williams writes: “Nobody used to take rock ‘n’ roll very seriously. The newsmagazines would get a kick out of printing the lyrics to ‘Surfin’ Bird,’ the fans would debate over who was greater, Elvis or Fabian (who?), the deejays would play any record that was backed up by the old payola, and the listeners would be only too happy to run out and buy it…” Hmm, was RM’s printing of the lyrics to “Surfin’ Bird” perhaps his way of turning the tables on Williams’s words, to begin to collapse altogether the distinctions Williams is (implicitly) insisting on (i.e., setting up a serious vs. trivial divide rather than collusion)? In other words, to set up a counter-argument with Williams (his first publisher) by suggesting that those “newsmagazines” were pointing to something worth taking seriously — inadvertently, of course, maybe even counter-intuitively, which makes it no less true — by splashing Trashmen lyrics across their pages? Maybe, maybe not. Coming across that sentence, though, in the very least, it struck me as a highly interesting coincidence (and my instincts tell me it wasn’t one, hence my reason for this babble in the first place).
* Highly recommended: The Crawdaddy! Book, a compendium of the earliest issues of that ‘zine.
Posted in Blabbin', Richard Meltzer | 1 Comment »
I came across a cache of old photos…
Posted by s woods on July 22, 2011
I don’t even recall what this was in regards to exactly, but I’m glad I saved it — funniest Drudge headline ever (at least if you’re a Pet Shop Boys fan).
Posted in Archival, Politics | Leave a Comment »
