Real Journalism written by people
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 […]
Doug Brod’s They Just Seem a Little Weird examines KISS, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Starz and the making of ‘70s rock megastardom. Eric and I didn’t have much to go on, but we didn’t need much, either. We were desperate tweens ready to rock. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know the band that was playing. They had the look and […]
You have to wait until nearly the end of the scrolling credits to see who the musicians are who represent the on-screen characters in Disney’s new animated movie, Soul. The movie is about a jazz pianist, Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), who snags the gig of a lifetime, dies in an accident, and then strives to return his soul […]
Hifi Provisions, located at 237 36th Street in Industry City, Brooklyn, is now open. Upon entry, customers will notice wooden racks, hand built by owner Matthew Coluccio, with records old and new for sale. At the back is a cozy area with velvet, art-deco chairs and an impressive, vintage Bang & Olufssen music system, which he acquired from a psychologist […]
When my first sister told me that her adolescent son had discovered David Bowie, something powerful struck me. My nephew, I realized, had joined the legion of outsiders. He had recognized (on some level) that the world was a complicated place, that in the inescapable realms of majority rule, you usually don’t get to choose to be on the winning […]
As I type this shortly after Christmas, I’m already listening to 2021. And man it sounds good. I try not to be a person who depends on hope, and that negative capability is one of the things that helped keep me (mostly) rational and above water through 2020. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst? More like, expect the […]
The surprising thing about New York black metal band Liturgy in 2020 isn’t frontperson Hunter Hunt-Hendrix coming out as transgender. It might be interesting. It no doubt informs her obscure-anyway songwriting. And she’s to be commended for the forthright and thoughtful coming out video she posted to her YouTube channel in August. But it’s not the most exciting thing about […]
The Argentinian band Reynols wasn’t widely known even before they disappeared for some 17 years. They just don’t do the kind of music that gets a band known. That might change with the release of the new Gona Rubian Ranesa, arguably the most musical album they’ve put out, but really it won’t. Which is a shame, because Reynols represent everything […]
Negativland has been successfully prophesying doom for 40 years now, their secret all along being using society’s words against itself. Pioneers in sampling and culture jamming, the outfit is perhaps most notorious for a petty, prolonged and hilarious copyright battle with U2, but they’ve had a longer, more varied and for more subversive career than simply lambasting Ireland’s most famously […]
What a year. Like a lot of eras, 2020 doesn’t fit easily into pre-defined calendar definitions. Did the 19th century end in in 1900 or 1914? Did the World Wars end in 1945 or 1989? The 20th century certainly came to a close on September 11, 2001, or was that just America? And 2020 probably began with the first Democratic […]
