Music In Review

The music community from the Midwest have a deep affection for classic pop: a combination of influences that range from the initial British Invasion of the ’60s, to bubblegum pop (like Edison Lighthouse and 1910 Fruitgum Company), to Memphis’ Big Star. The Midwest cultivated a wide community of pop bands, including The Raspberries, Dwight Twilley, […]

Seattle-based singer/songwriter Jesy Fortino, under the apt nom de guerre of Tiny Vipers, writes and performs music from a place of isolation — like, say, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland — a place, an environment set apart from a larger body. Tiny Vipers’ sophomore release, Life On Earth, evokes an atmosphere both foreign and familiar. Even […]

Rewriting the Bible is a pretty audacious undertaking. Jonathan Goldstein doesn’t seem like the most likely candidate for the challenge, either. He’s best known for the cringingly funny and self-deprecating stories he tells on radio programs like This American Life and Wiretap (the latter of which he hosts on CBC radio in Canada), stories about […]

The SF-based band, Cryptacize, a branch from the Deerhoof family tree, has definitely grown and solidified with its sophomore release, Mythomania. It’s an angular, oddly melodic and engaging piece of work, expanding upon its preceding 2007 release, Dig That Treasure, the band’s spare, more minimal debut. Founded by former Deerhoof guitarist Chris Cohen, Cryptacize bears […]

Orick. The settlement past the elk and the schoolhouse. Land of tall trees and unrivaled ocean shores. Blink your eyes and you’re past it. Most of the year Orick is an insulated community, a hardscrabble town dealt a raw deal in terms of economic opportunity. Orick. The rodeo. This town’s premiere weekend put on by […]

Dark fantasist Harlan Ellison is an anomaly: a writer working in the most collaborative of mediums (television and film) who sees his words as sacrosanct, an award-winning short story writer who demystified his art by practicing it publicly in bookstore windows, and a controversial social critic who came to prominence in the revolutionary ’60s, yet […]

The commitment to people’s music was evident in the layout and performers of the 2009 Humboldt Folklife Festival. The week-long series of folk concerts and dances culminated in a free Saturday festival in Blue Lake. Wandering musicians, vendors, workshops on musical techniques, dancing and singing fostered both appreciation and skill. Add in a staggering amount […]

In the mid-1980s I witnessed avant-garde saxophonist, instrumentalist and composer John Zorn literally clear a room at St. Mark’s Church in NY’s East Village during an annual New Year’s Day poetry/performance marathon. At the time, it was not surprising to be assaulted by Zorn’s confrontational, post-No Wave style: loads of honks and screeches produced from […]

The pop music machine thrives on timeliness, which is a shame. With the glut of new records that comes out every week, by the time the wheat has been separated from the chaff it’s far too late in blog-years to start a conversation. Still, some older albums demand ink, and the series of albums released […]

Jeff Tweedy, bandleader and voice of Wilco, is a man for all seasons. Literally. After the split with Uncle Tupelo — in which the other songwriter, Jay Farrar, formed Son Volt — Tweedy has amassed an interesting catalog that spans from 1995, with the Wilco debut, AM. Wilco’s seventh studio release, Wilco (The Album), falls […]

Brooklyn singer/songwriter David Longstreth is a deconstructionist. He gained a divisive reputation with his project/band Dirty Projectors and its 2007 release, Rise Above, a dismembering of songs from Black Flag’s Damaged. The rearranging of the originals was so extreme that it bordered on kitsch. But, from a laptop art school perspective, it was also very […]