Music In Review

Book by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Pocket Books. A year from now a new Star Trek movie will be hitting the big screens, featuring new young actors playing Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and the rest of the original series crew, in a prequel to the TV series. J.J. Abrams (creator of the […]

Spring dance concert April 17 at HSU’s Van Duzer Theater Thursday evening’s opening performance of HSU’s spring dance concert, Pure Abstractions, was a total blast. Being a modern dancer from New York, I could barely contain myself when I heard the opening strains of a live quartet playing John Coltrane’s Impressionsas groupings of modern dancers […]

Book by David Hajdu. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. As the medium of comics has gained mainstream respect in recent years, several books have looked back on the unruly, disreputable origins of the art form. The most recent of these is David Hajdu’s chronicle of the early days of the comic book, its rise to mass […]

CD by Pete Molinari. Damaged Goods. With the release of his second full-length album, A Virtual Landslide, singer-songwriter Pete Molinari has created a beautiful, warm and sincere record of classic heartbreak songs. A Virtual Landslide is a series of perfect marriages, artistically speaking, making it one of the finest albums to be released so far […]

By Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Anti-/Mute Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, the new release from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is Cave’s pop record. Well, it’s his version of pop. Following on the heels of the elegant, stylistic, white gospel, two-disc epic Abaittoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheusand the cathartic dirge of his Grinderman side […]

DVD, directed by Barbara Schroeder. Magnolia Home Entertainment Terror’s Advocate opens with a bucolic scene of the Cambodian countryside, followed by patient shots of a pastel-colored temple amidst the trees and carefree monks strolling barefoot down a dirt path. Cue the soft, tired voice of Pol Pot, the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge, responsible […]

By Zachary Lazar. Little, Brown. Zachary Lazar’s Sway: A Novel is a guide to self-involved characters slopping around in the sexual mud and quicksand of the ’60s. All of the characters are members of The Rolling Stones or were associated with them as the 1960s counterculture went the wrong way. Many had to scream "Gimme […]

Book by Kim Stanley Robinson. Bantam Dell. This is the third and concluding volume of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy about an alternate present or near future when the world is forced to face a catastrophic climate crisis. But this isn’t another apocalyptic dread-feast. Extraordinary events shape and bend the everyday, but they don’t break it. […]

CD by Times New Viking. Matador. The lo-fi rebellion has come and gone, but its echoes ring in underground rock to this day, liberating bands from the creativity-limiting atmosphere of studio recording and allowing them to hone their expression at home. Years of being a necessity for underground rock bands have made low fidelity a […]

DVD, Acorn Media. Slings and Arrows was an award-winning Canadian TV series that ran for three seasons there and on pay cable in the U.S., ending last year. The DVDs are showing up now in area video stores, with all 18 episodes available as a set. Set in a Stratford (or even Oregon Shakespeare Festival) […]

By Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. Matador. Stephen Malkmus, the former frontman and singer/songwriter for Pavement, revels in playing the role of the trickster. His lyrics are often puzzles, roaming the geographical (and metaphorical) map from Bristow, Calif., to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, while sprinkling in references ranging from the photographer Richard Avedon to film noir. […]