Summer Fun with The Dean x 3

1. The Dean lands ass first in, of all places, Billboard. Yes–a new column.

Anyone wondering how that guy who grades albums like a damn college professor got a column in the bible of the music business should consider one factoid. At 72, that guy has been covering what we’ll call rock and roll longer than anyone in America: 47 years, and not bored for five minutes running unless you count three to four hundred terrible opening acts.

(Three to four hundred? I’d have figured another zero would be in order there, but then, I turned off live shows before I hit 30.)

2. Radio New Zealand has posted an on-air discussion with RC.

3. Finally, and perhaps most critically, Christgau gives Bob Stanley (the British, born-in-’64 Bob Stanley, not the painter born-in-1932 Bob Stanley) the thoughtful (if not always on the mark) review he deserves for Yeah Yeah Yeah, over at Barnes and Noble. To wit:

As a rock critic who’s always thought “pop” both compliment and concept – who praised bubblegum in the year of Woodstock and Altamont, who covered the black singles market from the days when “soul” was branded “commercial” by “progressive radio” through disco’s rise and fall through the dark moment when CBS had to strong-arm “Beat It” onto MTV through the 12-inch burgeoning of old-school hip hop – I count myself neutral in this delusory affair. That’s because I also, damn it, get off on Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, the Allman Brothers, and Van Morrison, none mentioned in Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!, presumably because they’re not pop enough no matter how many hits they’ve had. But what exactly pop is remains elusive. As a fan of the term, I sympathize — it’s hard to pin down even allowing for sui generis exceptions. So I give Stanley credit for making a pass at it in a brief introduction.