[contextly_auto_sidebar id="pHxetFmD8PAhck5zTGruKBeGPrlL5XUG"] IT was 1966 again on Friday night, as two of today's best retro-rock bands, the folky Woods and the garage-psych Allah-Las played at the free Echo Park Rising Festival. Ideally I would have taken in more of the festival, but these were two really strong sets. I was there to see LA's Allah-Las, whose reverb-heavy take on folk rock … [Read more...]
The Return of the the Clientele
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="GvXKWajzd59XJt2Gt7TaopxjoaWObQiN"] IT'S something I never expected: Another tour by the spooky, chiming English folk-rock band The Clientele, who sort of broke up a few years ago. For a handful of reasons -- the 25th anniversary of the band's label (Merge), the reissue of their first LP, some new songs -- the Clientele made a small U.S. tour, which on Saturday … [Read more...]
Music in the Age of Streaming
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Fa2HMMUonP7cJZz5wWMQHx91Wm261nWI"] THE battle between artists and indie labels on one side and gigantic tech corporations on the other has taken on a sharp pitch. A New York Times story serves as a good summation of the terms of the fight, and gets at how it hits indie record labels in particular. Executives and advocates for the indies say they are vulnerable to … [Read more...]
Memories of the Sasquatch! Music Festival
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="e8nNtZOoMQ1FttKvUUS4FJDZ3Ver3Pl8"] TODAY I am going to take a break from spreading bad news about the world of culture to offer some photographs of rock and hip-hop musicians. These shots are by Steven Dewall, an old colleague and friend, and former resident of Seattle, who travels back every year for the Sasquatch! festival and photographs a huge range of … [Read more...]
The Withering of College Radio
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="seaquox9ilXMg837yigc8XqAWK7RXXeJ"] COLLEGE radio did an enormous amount to power the indie- and alt-rock movements, as well as to create havens on campuses. But is it now being crushed? That's the argument behind a Salon story timed to the loss of music programming at Georgia State's WRAS in Atlanta, as "GSU announced an agreement to hand over WRAS’s 100,000 watt … [Read more...]
Roots of a Great English Band: The Clientele
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="dzt0X2rINHchc2UlFWD4AkubWFuBi9up"] TODAY sees the reissue of the debut LP by one of Britain’s best rock bands: The Clientele’s Suburban Light. Fans of the Clientele know that this group took bits of ‘60s British folk, the Byrds, and Velvet Underground, jacked up the tremolo, and produced succinct and chiming pop songs that become hard to forget. (Here is the album's … [Read more...]
Power and Culture on the Internet, and Saving College Radio
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="u4Dlzk0r3mKVO47xkZOYDpbn6EaCJhpT"] HOW has the Internet changed our culture, politics, and economic structures? One of the smartest answers to this complicated question comes from lefty filmmaker Astra Taylor. I spoke to Taylor, who also has a foot in the indie-rock world, about her new book The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital … [Read more...]
All Rock-Music Edition: Dean Wareham, and the Poptimists
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="dTd8KUgvezSMCnL3vPx3MNcoWYDv5jqq"] OVER the last few years I’ve been corresponding with a number of rock musicians about how their world has changed in the post-label, post-recordings world we seem to be moving into. One of the most observant of them is Dean Wareham, former leader of indie-rock bands Galaxie 500 and Luna. Dean has a new solo album – his first – and … [Read more...]
The Inventiveness of Brad Mehldau, and Another Bookstore Down
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="XtxFdbJyLsCS5dQHdicsk1xjrReqe1hk"] LAST night, pianist Brad Mehldau and tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman played separate sets at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. These are perhaps the two leading jazz musicians of my generation, so there was no way I was going to miss it. While I would have loved to see these two, who've worked together in the past, play a … [Read more...]
Where Are Steinbeck’s Heirs? Literature and the Recession
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="7Ob2euleB2pS7V1InChacTlQDk4kH4s8"] ONE of the things that's most baffled and frustrated me over the last few years has been our collective inability or unwillingness to grapple with the recession and the growing crisis on inequality in a meaningful, imaginative way. Journalism has not done a great job, on the whole, and the movies have almost completely whiffed on … [Read more...]