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Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

The Roots of Christopher O’Riley

January 12, 2012 by Scott Timberg

THE eclectic pianist O’Riley came to my attention a few years ago for his interpretations of music by Radiohead, Elliott Smith and Nick Drake. He’s recently teamed up with Matt Haimovitz, the wild-man cellist who cam render Bach and Hendrix with equal skill. (In ’05 or so, Haimovitz put on a radical and memorable show at a restaurant in LA in which a fight nearly broke out.)

O’Riley, who comes to town with the cellist next Wednesday, is the latest subject of my Influences column. He had a lot to say, so here’s a bit I did not have room for:

If I’m not playing the piano, I’m likely reading or seeing a film. I read widely and voraciously. I find the world of the imagination to be enriching, inspiring and a great influence on how deeply I invest myself in creating my own pieces. I am more in awe of writers than I am of most musicians/composers. Some of my faves: David Foster Wallace, Mark Z. Danielewski, James Joyce, Roberto Bolano, Charles Dickens, Thomas Ligotti, Stephen Graham Jones, Chuck Palahniuk, Kris Saknussemm, Ken Bruen, Megan Abbott, Salman Rushdie, Stona Fitch, Donald E. Westlake, Christopher Hitchens, Philip K. Dick, Cormac McCarthy.

Filed Under: classical music, elliott smith, indie, rock music

Scott Timberg

I'm a longtime culture writer and editor based in Los Angeles; my book "CULTURE CRASH: The Killing of the Creative Class" came out in 2015. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles magazine, and I was an LA Times staff writer for six years. I'm also an enthusiastic if middling jazz and indie-rock guitarist. (Photo by Sara Scribner) Read More…

Culture Crash, the Book

My book came out in 2015, and won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. The New Yorker called it "a quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life"

I urge you to buy it at your favorite independent bookstore or order it from Portland's Powell's.

Culture Crash

Here is some information on my book, which Yale University Press published in 2015. (Buy it from Powell's, here.) Some advance praise: With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have known … [Read More...]

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