[contextly_auto_sidebar] LAST night's show by the young Santa Rosa native was one of the greatest jazz gigs your humber blogger has ever seen. Even knowing a few of his records and having seen him play a delicate, restrained, kind of perfect show with pianist Fred Hersch a few years back, I was knocked out by how fleet his playing was, and how well-matched to a more assertive style. Lage, a … [Read more...]
Archives for 2018
Southern Literature and the Drive-By Truckers
[contextly_auto_sidebar] CELEBRATED Yale historian C. Vann Woodward used to talk about the irony of Southern history, and the burden of Southern history, both phrases drawn in part from the novels of Faulkner. Patterson Hood, a son of Alabama who spent several decades in Athens, GA, before leaving the South like many a literary character before him, has made a fascinating songwriting career … [Read more...]
Artist Dora De Larios, RIP
[contextly_auto_sidebar] UNDERSUNG but widely respected, the sculptor Dora De Larios has been working in around Los Angeles for six decades now. I was pleased to be asked to write about her for Los Angeles magazine, and was able to tour her daughter's house, where a wide range of her sculptures and ceramic work sits. What interested me about De Larios' work right away was how firmly it sat … [Read more...]
Joe Henry, Poetry, and The Blues
[contextly_auto_sidebar] LIKE a lot of listeners, I've long considered Joe Henry to be a smart and vaguely literary songwriter -- smart, more-or-less sensitive, good with words. But I was pleasantly surprised when Joe came out of the closet about his love of poetry, and since it coincided with the release of the powerful, understated record Thrum, I made sure to corner him for an interview in … [Read more...]
Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin
[contextly_auto_sidebar] THERE may be no contemporary writer who's shaped me, and many of the authors of my generation, more than Ursula Le Guin, who died Monday. Even though she was nearing 90, Le Guin is the kind of person who seemed like she would live forever: When I flew up to meet her in Portland a decade ago, she seemed so physically solid and intellectually sharp, she came across like … [Read more...]
Spotify, David Lowery, and the Future of Artists’ Rights
[contextly_auto_sidebar] THE conquest of the music industry by a small number of technology companies has continued on schedule, but there has been some resistance by musicians and their advocates. One of the most stalwart has been Camper van Beethoven leader David Lowery, who led a lawsuit against Spotify for royalties. Much of the push-back from Lowery and fellow travelers like Blake … [Read more...]
Oprah, Trump, and The Man Who Saw Them Coming
[contextly_auto_sidebar] THERE has been, of course, an enormous amount of talk about Oprah Winfrey since her truly impressive speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night, and some have proposed her as the ideal candidate for the Democrats to pit against President Trump in 2020. Even with her candidacy far from declared, there has been a substantial reaction against this notion, with many … [Read more...]
Britain, Rock n Roll, and 1966
[contextly_auto_sidebar] WHAT was the real heart of the '60s? That depends, of course, on what we really mean when we talk about that much-mythologized and contested decade. The British rock critic and social historian Jon Savage, best known in the States for his chronicle of punk and the Sex Pistols, England's Dreaming, sees 1966 as the era's key year, and his book, 1966: The Year the Decade … [Read more...]