Celebrating Community
Résistance and futility. Ultravox! is remembered, and rightly so, as a progenitor of synthpop, but what gets missed out in that compact musicological truism is their remarkable 1977 debut. The band’s early incarnation—with singer and principal songwriter John Foxx and with the exclamation point in the name—was a remarkable amalgam of glam and bits of Brit blues revivalism with punk […]
It’s surprising that Sonic Youth, gone now for more than a decade, have yet to go the deluxe/unreleased route. Their Bandcamp page is replete with live sets and rarities, but In/Out/In (out March 18 on vinyl, CD, cassette and download from Three Lobed Recordings) may mark a change in that missing tide. The album collects five tracks recorded between 2000 […]
Here’s a motto to listen by: it’s harder to write a song than a sonata. There’s a general perception both among outside listeners and musicians inside institutional structures that the sonata is one of the supreme formal achievements of classical music. And this is true, proven by how vital and enduring the form has been since composers like Haydn were […]
The idea of the “star,” a celebrated and famous performer, isn’t new in and of itself. It goes back at least to the career of pianist Franz Liszt, who in the mid-19th century caused such public sensations during his European tours that he begat a new word, “Lisztomania.” And before Lady Gaga and even Barbra Streisand, there was the first, […]
Rock and Roll Priestess Patti Smith Returns to SummerStage (photo by Marissa Blitz) I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Patti Smith. On the street in the West Village one momentarily thrilling winter afternoon, but besides that, in concert, more than a half dozen times, and most of them outdoors. She gives to New York. The first was at […]
It’ll be four days into the fall, but the Last Taste of Summer Festival is set to squeeze the last drops out of the season while raising money for food relief. The evening, presented by Humbler.co, Chelsea Records NY & Sustainable United Neighborhoods (S.U.N.) will start at 7:00 pm at The Bushwick Generator and run until the last of the […]
Pretty much since the start, there’s been a debate over just what jazz is. The etymology of the term is itself unclear. Jazz was first called “jas” and “jass,” and those look to be connected to the mid-19th century slang “jasm,” (yes, you know what that is) transmuted in a 1916 article in the Daily Californian to “jaz-m.” Close by […]
Next month will mark the 40th anniversary of the Exploited’s first record, on which they declared (in title and opening track) that “punk’s not dead.” Even at the time it felt a bit defensive but the song coined a slogan that has continually been graffiti’d ever since. Forty years is almost as long as the lives of Darby Crash and […]
On January 10, I stayed home and near the stereo to catch as much of WKCR’s annual Max Roach birthday broadcast as seemed reasonable. After so many fantastic records from the Charlie Parker Quintet and the Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quintet, the DJ started spinning Max Roach Plus Four, pretty much the Roach/Brown Quintet but with Kenny Dorham replacing the at […]
I don’t know what you were doing in 1983 but I know what the Melvins weren’t doing is making this record. “Melvins 1983” is whispered like it’s some kind of incantation, like it’s the name of a beast with no name, like it’s something you’d better be careful not to wish for, like it’s a monkey’s paw keychain. Or at […]