The Divine Miss King
The vinyl reissue wave gets smarter by the day...
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Robert Baird
I Love The Dead
It’s a very scary and weird commentary on the state of the music business, that posthumous albums have now become a booming category.
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The Women of Warpaint
In the tornado of music and gear better known as, let’s say, audiophilisma, there are a lot of guilty pleasures.
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Kiko and that Lavender Moon
Once there was a band of brothers from East Los Angeles...
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Neil Young's PonoMusic Launches at SXSW 2014
"I’m not an audiophile but I’m very geeky about other things."
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Vince And His Covers
I know this will come as a huge shock to music fans the world over
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Guy Clark: For the Sake of the Song
As songwriters go, Guy Clark has been touched by the muse more than most. Unfortunately, in recent years he's also been visited by illness and heartache. In June 2012, his wife of 40 years, Susanna Clark, who was both a songwriter ("Easy from Now On") and an artist (the cover of Willie Nelson's Stardust), died in Nashville. In the past several years Clark, 72, has battled lymphoma, had his knees replaced, and undergone an arterial replacement in one leg. He was being treated for skin cancer when I visited his home, south of Nashville, in October 2013.
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Recording of February 2014: Classified: Remixed and Expanded
James Booker: Classified: Remixed and Expanded
Rounder 11661-9175-1 (2 LPs). 1983/2013. Scott Billington, John Parsons, prods.; Jay Gallagher, eng.; Jonathan Wyner, transfer eng.; David Farrell, remix. ADA. TT: 68:12
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
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Before anything else, there's his musicality. No one has ever played the piano like James Carroll Booker III. If the piano is New Orleans' preeminent musical instrument, then Booker is its most talented virtuoso. A child prodigy who went on the road as part of Little Richard's band when he was 14, the Ivory Emperor, the Bronze Liberace, Li'l Booker, Little Chopin in Living Color (as he was variously known throughout his life) was breathtakingly gifted.
Inside Llewyn Davis
While this may be stating the obvious, being inarticulate about how a film moves you is sometimes actually the point.
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The Paramount Records Cabinet of Wonders
Party like a rock star!
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Or not.
Damned rock stars! Those useless black voids of overweening ego who spend their days wallowing in unfulfilling, sybaritic cycles of mass adoration, endless wealth, and meaningless sex with hard bodieswhat do they add to the greater good, to the advancement of human understanding, to the furtherance of art? In most cases, the answer is: Nothing. Zip, zilch, zot.