[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6L1vQwHGvhhhWxyn2fDj3qlLYwI011YD"] ATYPICALLY, I'll start the week by recapping the weekend a bit. First, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is partway through its second Minimalist Jukebox. The Phil is doing its best to take an expansive view of this oft-caricatured movement. On Saturday I caught a John Adams-conducted concert that included a world premiere, U.S. … [Read more...]
Political and Public Art, Billboards, New York and Los Angeles
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gUbWKQMto2pd9SNDW9DKGH0zVVcyuOMo"] WHAT happened to political art? Has it seen a revival during a period in which inequality and related subjects are flaring? Does tackling a topical theme doom a work of art to becoming ephemeral? Will activist art ever again be as visible as it was during height of the AIDS crisis in the '80s? We probably can’t answer all of that … [Read more...]
Remembering Mike Kelley, and an Inscrutable Indie Rocker
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="uhn6cUcVr5hepNR0gearR5lZEvN3qK1j"] MONDAY sees the opening of the Mike Kelley retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The museum is only a few miles from where Kelley lives and worked. His work remains stirring and bitterly funny, and there was much good cheer from old friends and admirers excited to finally see so much work in the same place. … [Read more...]
The Irreverent Genius of Jeremy Denk
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="W81pySFXa3drR3WTlrmSjqp0w13uJQpJ"] The classical pianist Jeremy Denk has just won the Avery Fisher Prize, which caps what's been a very good year or so for him. (He's working on a memoir for Random House, among other things.) I met Denk in 2010 and was immediately impressed with playing and thinking. (His commitment to Ives was palpable.) My story looks at his … [Read more...]
Making it as a Writer: MFA vs NYC
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6RDST6owlrC0x8P60LIwnB5J7Z8Ftt9Q"] HOW does an aspiring novelist, poet, or essayist break into the business? What kind of ecosystem does he or she inhabit after getting established? Does grad school help? Among the best answers to those questions came from novelist Chad Harbach in his essay "MFA vs NYC," and he's expanded it into a provocative anthology that … [Read more...]
The Glories of Van Dyke Parks
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ct3qiObIO1GjbjGS8WTsakgdEZd3a77u"] ONE of the great characters -- and great talents -- of Southern California, Van Dyke Parks, has experienced a renaissance lately. First known for his work with the Beach Boys and for his pop-baroque Song Cycle, Parks is an ornery Southerner with a big heart, an abiding love for music, and some serious frustrations with recent … [Read more...]
The Life and Death of the Alternative Press
IF it weren't for the '80s Village Voice, I probably would not be a journalist. (The world, I expect, would be a better place.) This weekend I have a story in Al Jazeera America about good times and bad for alternative weeklies. I talk about the crystalline sense of mission these publications had during conservative times, and the troubles they've had more recently. And I try to shine a light … [Read more...]
Returning to Charlie Haden, Jazz and Transcendence
TODAY I have been trying to move on to other things, but can’t get the memory of last night’s Charlie Haden/ Liberation Music Orchestra concert out of my mind. There are too many things to contemplate here, but let me offer a few stray thoughts. Overall: While this night was by no means perfect – there were minor technical problems early on, the musician most of us had come to see was in such … [Read more...]
Celebrating Charlie Haden
TUESDAY night in Los Angeles will see both a celebratory and a sad occasion: The jazz titan Charlie Haden – the lyrical bass player, free-jazz pioneer, crucial collaborator to Ornette Coleman and others, father to a four Los Angeles indie rockers, founder of CalArts jazz program – will lead his Liberation Music Orchestra at REDCAT. It has special music since this group – which Haden began in 1969 … [Read more...]
Digging the New Dean Wareham
DESPITE our well-documented bias for things West Coast, the Misread City gang has a deep and abiding love for the work of Dean Wareham going back to the Galaxie 500 and Luna eras. The day after seeing Luna on its first US tour (opening for the Sundays, if memory serves, and before the first LP), we walked to the local record store in Chapel Hill to pick up the band's Slide EP. (It was what we … [Read more...]