FOR a few thousand of us, last week marked one of the musical events of the decade. After more than 20 years of near-silence, My Bloody Valentine released a new, noisy, hazy, dreamy new album. I spent part of 1990 in England, where the shoegaze revolution was roaring full force, and passed much of the '90s sulking through record stores trying to find out of print EPs and import singles by this … [Read more...]
Benjamin Nugent’s "Good Kids"
EVERY once in a while, something – a book, a short New York Times story, an n+1 essay – appears by a mysterious character named Benjamin Nugent, and damn if every time it isn't funny, smart and insightful.Now Nugent – who I’ve interviewed over the years on Elliott Smith, songcraft, and the history of nerd-dom – has a new novel called Good Kids. All I can tell you so far is that its opening … [Read more...]
New West Coast Folk
SOMETHING about the cool weather, the melange of religious songs and the reflective tone of the end of the end of the year leads me to play a lot of acoustic folk music around the holidays. (And lest you jeer at the frigid winters we have in Southern California, I’ll tell you that it was in the 50s most of today and I could actually see my breath this morning. Okay, so we’re not in Yorkshire.)In … [Read more...]
Stevie Jackson on the West Coast
ONE of the things we have to do from time to time here is to admit that not all of the finest 21st century culture comes from the West Coast. (Okay, just most of it.) Exhibit A is the Scottish band Belle & Sebastian, who have been perhaps our favorite band since the fadeout of (West Coast band, sort of) Pavement in the late '90s.And one on the key members of that excellently melodic indie rock … [Read more...]
Indie Rockers Finding Second Wind
IT seems, sometimes, that every awful band from the past is back together again for a lame-ass shed tour. And it's also started to seem, at least since the heavenly Go-Betweens reunion of about a decade ago, that some of the groups reuniting were not only good, they were better -- or close to it -- the second time around.How can both of these things be true at the same time? It took me 2,000 words … [Read more...]
Musicians vs. the Internet
THIS week has seen an exchange between young music fan Emily White and indie rocker David Lowery about how fans consume music these days, and where that leaves the artists. So far, the argument between the two has remained civil – and Lowery refuses to condescend to White or her generational peers in his piece -- but the nasty tone of the Web all but guarantees that things will get ugly.HERE is my … [Read more...]
Brooklyn Composer Gabriel Kahane
I'VE been hearing about the rock songwriter and chamber music composer Gabriel Kahane for a few years now, and was glad to have the chance to speak to the hipster hero about his new piece, based on Hart Crane's The Bridge, which makes its West Coast debut this weekend.I also spoke to the esteemed Jeffrey Kahane and got a sense of how Gabe's eclecticism grew out of family tradition. HERE's my … [Read more...]
The Return of the Shins
WHEN I sat down with all four members of the Shins around the time their Chutes Too Narrow album came out, I was already a big fan of the band's gentle, indirect songs and slightly obscure production that made their music sound like it had been recovered from a '60s bootleg.I was also struck, that afternoon at the Authentic Cafe near Fairfax and Beverly, how strong and natural the camaraderie … [Read more...]
The Roots of Stew
Talented as he is, he's become one of Los Angeles's least likely success stories: A hipster cult figure, the toast of Silverlake and Highland Park, who moves to New York and suddenly hits, with a Broadway show and a Spike Lee film. But Stew has always been unpredictable.In today's paper, I spoke to Stew about the figures who've inspired him from outside the familiar pop and rock worlds. He came up … [Read more...]
The Producer Behind "The Artist"
CRAZY ideas come and go; most don't see the light of day. When millions of dollars are required, it's even harder for unorthodox notions to go anywhere.So when Michel Hazanavicius decided he wanted to make a black-and-white silent film, he needed a lunatic to finance the project. He found one. HERE is my Q&A with Thomas Langmann, the producer who made The Artist -- nominated for 10 Academy Awards … [Read more...]