Well, it’s that time of year, when I must once again appeal to the reason of my fellow Americans and suggest we not only can but must do better regarding which holiday we choose to celebrate this week. Things change and historical reassessments have produced a staggering amount of evidence that Thanksgiving is built on […]
The Setlist
Our picks for the week’s best live music plus interviews and music news.
Posted inMusic
Beasts of Burden
Much ink has been spilled on the colonial mythology of the upcoming holiday and the horrors in Palestine. When confronted with the unrolling and competing narratives of a real-time conflict, I turn to relevant historians and critics of the past, and I can think of no one more qualified to speak on colonial narrative than […]
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Armistice
Last Sunday we had Fall Back, when we retreated to an extra hour of darkness — and for many, sleep — on the clock to adjust to the changing season. Fall back, retreat, ceasefire, armistice … these words flow together in a certain thematic harmony as we reach the last one. Until 1954, we used […]
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Old Songs, Young Blood
The other day I was thinking about the Pied Piper of Hamelin, that odd musical character from fairy tales who agreed to remove all the rats from a besieged village for a fee. Upon completion of his task, the village leaders decided to renege on payment, so the piper returned and merrily led their children […]
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Dressing Up
Time for a costume suggestion. We all know about David Bowie’s various personas, the most famous of which was Ziggy Stardust. There was also Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke and Jared the Goblin King. But for a brief moment during his fascist Orwellian masterpiece from 1974, Diamond Dogs, the world got a taste of […]
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All The Old Familiar Places
I’d like to share with you, dear reader, an experience I had recently. For the purposes of this story, I’m going to say that it’s true but you can treat it like the dreamy introduction to Dante’s Inferno or the beginning of a Twilight Zone episode, if that works better for you. I found myself, […]
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Horrorville
There are so many shows this week that I had to be a lot more discerning than usual and carve my list down to a manageable size. An embarrassment of riches I’ll gladly take. My social battery isn’t where it used to be but it’s slowly recharging, and beyond everything else, I’m sure we could […]
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Midnight Music
Years ago, I used to listen to more esoteric, dark music. This was probably something to do with age, as one of the ironies of youth is that it often allows for a grim fascination with death and decay because the observer is still cloaked in the bloom of vitality. Or maybe I’m wrong and […]
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Because It’s There
I’m packing up and heading out of town this week with the promise that I’ll return with tales of adventure and conquest. For me, that boils down to the possibility of going far enough north up the Pacific Coast to see a puffin in its native home. While I concede a floating puffin is a […]
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Another Vintage
Things sound scarier, sadder or sexier in French. Take, for example, the mid-century jazz standard “Autumn Leaves.” Every pianist in America from that era had a crack at that tune, from the block-chord, frenetic mania of Bill Evans’ version to the over-sweetened hit by Roger Williams. The original French composition was called “Les Feuilles Mortes,” […]
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Something for Everyone
For reasons of space, as well as a general exhaustion from my personal life that has set in with the coming seasonal shift, I am going to keep this intro brief. Sometimes it’s good for a writer to shut up and let the facts speak for themselves. This a busy week full of exciting happenings, […]
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Warm Shadows
Well, I made it through the long weekend without calamity, as I hope many, if not all, of you did as well. I took some of the time to throw a surprise birthday party for my youngest brother, whose birthday in August was overshadowed by a death in the family. I had never thrown a […]