• Home
  • About
    • CultureCrash: The Blog
    • Culture Crash: The Book
    • Scott Timberg
    • Contact
  • Culture Crash: The Book
    • Culture Crash: The Book
    • Book Events
  • Other AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

CultureCrash

Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

You are here: Home / Archives for beatles

Creativity and “Powers of Two”

August 7, 2014 by Scott Timberg

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="h6kHO9RuWKQjpO1pgA06PU80n7f3lQ1n"] JOSHUA Wolf Shenk's new book, Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs, is the subject of my latest story. Shenk looks at more than 100 partnerships -- some overt, some hidden -- to try to distill the process of creation and derive patterns. He works especially with figures in literature and the arts -- … [Read more...]

Are Artists Really Eccentric?, and Forgetting the Beatles

February 21, 2014 by Scott Timberg

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="K7jgN35EvK3IGRvlOHBgaw79mmby3Zkj"] ARTISTS, writers and musicians have been considered "eccentric" for hundreds of years, at least since the Renaissance and perhaps as long ago as the prehistoric age of the shaman. What's behind it? Is it just a narrow-minded stereotype? Are crazy artists better than sane, conventional ones? Whether artists really are eccentric, … [Read more...]

Rockin in 1970

June 23, 2011 by Scott Timberg

ON Friday I have a New York Times review of an interesting if imperfect new book called Fire and Rain, which looks at the year 1970 and the making of four hugely popular records -- The Beatles' Let it Be, CSNY's Deja Vu, James Taylor's Sweet Baby James and Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water.If you love all these artists, by all means pick up David Browne's book. Otherwise -- as I get … [Read more...]

The Beatles in Hamburg — on Record

March 31, 2011 by Scott Timberg

OF the many great shows your humble blogger attended last year, one of the very finest  was a performance by Bambi Kino, a kind of indie-rock supergroup formed to pay tribute to the Beatles ragged, rockabilly-loving years in Hamburg.The show, at Echo Park's Taix, was full of so much energy and musical invention (Guided by Voices' guitarist Doug Gillard was especially inspired that night) it made … [Read more...]

A Happy, and Sad, 70th to John Lennon

December 8, 2010 by Scott Timberg

THIRTY years ago, on a cold December morning, I woke up to see my mom, a bit addled, standing in my bedroom doorway. "I've got some bad news," she said. "John Lennon was shot." "Well, is he okay?" I asked. I was in 6th grade, and I'd spent much of the previous few years sitting in the basement while my head spun along with the turntable to the Beatles music -- especially "Revolver" and an … [Read more...]

Bambi Kino at Taix

October 11, 2010 by Scott Timberg

Just a quick post to say, Saturday night I went out after my bedtime to see Bambi Kino, a newish band formed around the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in Hamburg and with the goal of recreating those raw early years. ("Slow Down" is here.)I've seen some great shows recently -- Sonic Youth, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian -- but in its very different way this was as thrilling. Even … [Read more...]

The Beatles Come to Hamburg (Again)

August 9, 2010 by Scott Timberg

Almost exactly 50 years ago, the Beatles came to Hamburg's tawdry Reeperbahn district and, dressed mostly in black leather, transformed themselves into the best rock band in the world. Later this month, a group of American indie rockers will play the band's old club, the Indra, to commemorate the raw, fast, very early Beatles.Named for an X-rated movie theater where the Liverpudlians stayed when … [Read more...]

Nada Surf at the Troubadour

May 26, 2010 by Scott Timberg

The Brooklyn band Nada Surf are one part '90s indie, one part chiming power pop, one part '60s songcraft, and last night they melded all three styles in a loud, forceful Troubadour show that left my ears ringing. The tour -- which continues tonight at the same club -- supports their new record of idiosyncratic covers, If I Had a Hi-Fi.The show, of course, wasn't perfect, with a few songs that … [Read more...]

John Lennon vs. High Culture

December 8, 2009 by Scott Timberg

Twenty nine years ago, on a cold December morning, I woke up to see my mom, a bit addled, standing in my bedroom doorway. "I've got some bad news," she said. "John Lennon was shot.""Well, is he okay?" I asked.I was in 6th grade, and I'd spent much of the previous few years sitting in the basement while my head spun along with the turntable to the Beatles music -- especially "Revolver" and an album … [Read more...]

John Lennon and "It’s Only Love"

October 9, 2009 by Scott Timberg

SIXTY-NINE years ago today, one of the greatest artists of the rock era, and my first cultural hero, was born in a hospital on liverpool's oxford street. especially with the madness over the beatles mono and stereo reissues still fresh, john lennon does not need my defense or explication here. i'll just say that i lost most of my elementary school years blasting my parents' beatles records, and … [Read more...]

Next Page »

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...]

Follow Me

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

Archives

@TheMisreadCity

Tweets by @TheMisreadCity
May 2025
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Dec    

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Scott Timberg Has Passed Away
  • Ojai Music Festival and JACK Quartet
  • What’s in a Name?
  • Time Pauses For Valentin Silvestrov
  • The Perverse Imagination of Edward Carey

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in