[contextly_auto_sidebar id="nc1kP0QNXqToOtKKMBYEWF1PA492NXRw"] WELL, the Bowl's 2014 season ends with a show a lot of us had looked forward to for a long time. The Pixies are a band from the George H.W. Bush administration -- from before the indie-rock boom inaugurated by Nirvana's Nevermind -- and they've been tighter and more taught since their reunion. Their Bowl debut, then, did not take … [Read more...]
“American Top 40,” Poptimism and Winner-Take-All
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="plD2J41Igr64VnQSKm3MiH74DQcHRIgZ"] IS it possible to hate Casey Kasem? Probably not. His show was a lot of fun, and he was the voice of Shaggy. But his death is being received in an odd way that's unfair to him and wrong about the way culture, popularity and economics work. In short, he's being drafted into a war in which he never fought. My new story in Salon … [Read more...]
Simon Reynolds Goes Retro
HAS the end of cultural history ever been so much fun? Your humble scribe has been reading Simon Reynolds since his work was a well-kept secret of the British music press. (He was also, during the ‘90s, one of two rock-crit Simons in the Village Voice, the other being the code-cracking rock sociologist Simon Frith.)He’s written with insight and intelligence about rock n roll, subculture, shoegaze, … [Read more...]
Is Gen X an Afterthought?
THE new issue of MOJO magazine has a cover story on the 25th anniversary of the Smiths' The Queen is Dead LP, an article on the 20th of Primal Scream's influential Screamadelica record, and another on a reunion tour by Mick Jones' Big Audio Dynamite.It's a great issue, of course, of our favorite music magazine. But it also feels like the Gen X teenage years have now been fully commodified and sold … [Read more...]
Cool New California Novel
A fine new book with a perfect-pitch Southern California setting, has just dropped: Model Home, which starts out in an '80s gated community, is the first novel by Eric Puchner, whose Music Through the Floor provoked Charles Baxter to call it "the most auspicious debut of a short story collection that I have encountered in years." Model Home looks at a family that's driven by golden dreams, but … [Read more...]
"Repo Man" and Punk LA
NOT long ago the LA Times put together a Sunday package on the best films about Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to draw "Repo Man," a movie I watched so many times, with two different posses of high school friends, that the film's dialogue became a kind of subcultural code.The film is being screened tonight at New York's Lincoln Center, in an honor we would not have expected as we shouted lines … [Read more...]
The Twilight of the ’80s with Richard Rushfield
FOR years before I met him, I knew of Richard Rushfield as this dark legend -- a nihilist wit who ran an underground humor magazine, an online savant with a Nixonian five-o' clock-shadow who had come into the LA Times to destroy the print world from within. When I finally met Rushfield, at an art opening a few months back, I found him oddly innocent and charmingly bewildered, and I'm pleased to … [Read more...]
Joe Pernice, Songwriter vs. Novelist
ANYONE who follows indie rock closely knows that songwriter joe pernice isnt kidding when he says, "coming up with melodies is a pretty easy thing for me to do. it doesnt take a lot to get me to do it." songs like "penthouse in the woods," from '90s alt-country band the scud mountain boys, and "crestfallen," by chamber pop band the pernice brothers, have a melodic perfection that sounds … [Read more...]
The Return of Bret Easton Ellis
NEW yorker scribe dana goodyear turned out an engaging "talk of the town" piece on brat pack novelist bret easton ellis and the new film made of his story collection "the informers."i've had several encounters with the "less than zero" author over the years, and HERE is one of the latimes pieces i'm proudest of. the piece looks at his early breakout, the backlash against "american psycho," the … [Read more...]
The Legacy of Morrissey
THIS year's coachella festival is filled with all kinds of major historical figures -- not just paul mccartney but leonard cohen, the jam's paul weller and shoegaze pioneers my bloody valentine (who i had the ear-blasting pleasure to see play last fall in santa monica). one of the most influential is morrissey, the former smiths leader whose solo career finally started getting interesting a few … [Read more...]