Category: Book (P)reviews

Book (P)reviews, Chuck Eddy

“American Pie” and 1972 (zoomcast)

Phil Dellio’s new book, Happy for a While: “American Pie,” 1972, and the Awkward, Confusing Now, is the subject of a wide-ranging (well, lengthy—we don’t really shift gears all that much) zoom call between Phil, Chuck Eddy, and myself, available on the newly launched RockCritics.com YouTube channel. Phil’s book is fantastic, and available through Amazon. Steve Pick wrote a great review on his Substack newsletter. … Continue reading “American Pie” and 1972 (zoomcast)

sw00dsLeave a comment
Book (P)reviews, Lou Reed, Village Voice, YouTubes, Zappa

A Consumer Guide to the Plastic People of the Universe

In A Consumer Guide to the Plastic People of the Universe (2021), Joe Yanosik reviews and grades every known PPU record on the planet (including side projects and mutations, not to mention books and DVDs), all the while — through a series of “historical interludes” — telling the band’s remarkable story, from their post-Beatles/Velvets-obsessed roots in Prague to their critical (if somewhat unwitting) role in bringing down a repressive Soviet-backed regime. I mean, the MC5 were cool and all, but… Continue reading “A Consumer Guide to the Plastic People of the Universe”

sw00dsLeave a comment
Book (P)reviews

On “the unruly curiosity of the UK music press” (new book edited by Mark Sinker)

Recently finished reading A Hidden Landscape Once a Week: The Unruly Curiosity of the UK Music Press in the 1960s-80s, which Wire magazine has helpfully reprinted excerpts from. Carefully compiled and edited by Mark Sinker, funded through Kickstarter, this bulky compendium of essays, interviews, and panel discussions opens up the story of the British music press during its pre- and post-punk heyday, focusing primarily (though … Continue reading On “the unruly curiosity of the UK music press” (new book edited by Mark Sinker)

sw00dsLeave a comment
Book (P)reviews

Appetite for Definition

Appetite for Definition: An A-Z Guide to Rock Genres Ian King HarperCollins My eyes rolled when I saw this book come in. The proliferation of alleged microgenres, particularly when applied to music made long before the critiques were composed, has produced some of the most boring and trite rock writing (not to mention everyday talk) that has ever been, and I am no innocent in this regard … Continue reading Appetite for Definition

Vic PerryLeave a comment
Book (P)reviews

Rock Critic Laws

In his new book, Rock Critic Law: 101 Unbreakable Rules for Writing Badly About Music, Michael Azerrad takes on the clichés that pervade rock writing. His mode is tongue-in-cheek, with the book written as a sort of satirical ‘Strunk & White’ manual for album reviewers, to be followed at the writer’s peril. If you’ve written about music, you’ll find yourself nodding along in recognition at … Continue reading Rock Critic Laws

sw00ds2 Comments
Book (P)reviews

Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion

Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion Edited by Barney Hoskyns The Overlook Press, 2018. Reviewed by Vic Perry “You can always look in the Steely Dan Listener’s Companion,” says Donald Fagen, helpfully answering a question about a lyric in an expansive 1977 interview with Sylvie Simmons originally published in Sounds, a British music paper.  It was a good joke, but maybe Fagen just saw the … Continue reading Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion

Vic Perry1 Comment
Book (P)reviews

Why the Beach Boys Matter (Tom Smucker)

Release date, Oct. 2, and breathlessly awaited by some (i.e., me). Table of contents is here, and is fetching (“Harmony and Discord,” “Innocence and the Second-Best Pop Album Ever,” “Summer’s Gone, the Endless Summer”). The Beach Boys matter to me enormously–more than the Beatles, more than the Velvets, more than Prince, Chuck Berry, Elvis Costello, and many others (well, at least if “mattering” is best … Continue reading Why the Beach Boys Matter (Tom Smucker)

sw00ds21 Comments
Book (P)reviews, Rolling Stone

“Wenners and Losers”

Jessica Hopper reviews Joe Hagan’s Jann Wenner bio in Bookforum: “Sticky Fingers opens with the sort of scene that becomes its defining feature: Jann Wenner sells someone out, transacting on a relationship for whatever gain could be exacted. We meet Wenner as he is poisoning his friendship with no less than John Lennon, betraying Lennon’s trust for a $40,000 book advance. This is grimglorious rock … Continue reading “Wenners and Losers”

sw00dsLeave a comment
Book (P)reviews, Sexism

Under My Thumb

“Discussions and analyses of music—whether on TV, in books or in the music press—have always been full of the stories of men. When female fans appear in these stories it is often through the eyes and from the perspectives of men – as muses, groupies or fangirls—meaning that women’s own experiences, ideas and arguments about the music they love are marginalized or glossed over. Women … Continue reading Under My Thumb

sw00ds2 Comments
Book (P)reviews

Review: Lou Reed bio by Anthony DeCurtis

“While [DeCurtis is] skillful at assembling the biographical building blocks that reward interest at a casual level, his book isn’t just short on dirt. It’s short on resonance, advocacy, identification, deep-dive cultural spelunking, provocative arguments, nuance, fervor, and everything else that sums up the difference between perspective and an actual point of view, particularly when the subject is an artist as gnarly and passion-provoking as … Continue reading Review: Lou Reed bio by Anthony DeCurtis

sw00ds9 Comments
Book (P)reviews, Canada

This Used to Be Clint’s Playground: The Dynamic, Explosive, Super Bad World of K-Tel Records

Winnipeg businessman Philip Kives died on April 27. You may not know Kives by name, but if you (or, um, your parents) came of age as a pop fan anytime within close proximity of those loopy years between “Gimme Shelter” and “Blitzkrieg Bop,” you surely are familiar with one of Kives’s key contributions to the (then nascent) “random shuffle” aesthetic: K-Tel Records. Kives founded the … Continue reading This Used to Be Clint’s Playground: The Dynamic, Explosive, Super Bad World of K-Tel Records

sw00ds2 Comments
Book (P)reviews, Podcast

Richard Goldstein releases memoir

Richard Goldstein, one of the founders of rock criticism, has recently published his memoir, Another Little Piece of My Heart. Planning to read it soon, with followup to come on this site, but in the meantime, there’s a very entertaining live interview with Goldstein at Word magazine. (Main page of Word podcasts is here; direct Goldstein link here.) Also: If you’re in New York, Strand … Continue reading Richard Goldstein releases memoir

sw00ds1 Comment
Book (P)reviews

Phil Dellio’s ‘Interrupting My Train of Thought’

Never mind that I’m more than a little biased on the subject of a new book by Phil Dellio—said book of which I helped edit and for which I built a WordPress promotional site to boot—but it would be remiss of me not to make at least a little bit of noise about it on this site. At 400+ pages, assembled thematically (chapters on Nixon … Continue reading Phil Dellio’s ‘Interrupting My Train of Thought’

sw00dsLeave a comment
Book (P)reviews, Xgau

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 … Continue reading Summer Fun with The Dean x 3

sw00ds2 Comments