[contextly_auto_sidebar] IT's not often that I pick up a book and get a new favorite writer. But that's pretty close to what happened when a story collection called Homesick For Another World, by a young author I'd not heard of, arrived in the mail one day. I read a few dark, alienated short stories, some of which were set in a dreary, bleached-out, dingbat-lined Los Angeles. I found a noirish … [Read more...]
Jeff Parker and Jazz Guitar
[contextly_auto_sidebar] FOR months now, one of the most intriguing instrumentalists in Los Angeles has been unspooling his style for the price of a drink in a small bar in Highland Park. Jeff Parker, longtime guitarist for the Chicago "post-rock" band Tortoise, has lived in Los Angeles for a few years now, and alongside playing with members of Spain and in drummer Matt Mayhall's trio, Parker … [Read more...]
A Musicologist Muses on John Adams
[contextly_auto_sidebar] One of the most insightful and eclectic thinkers on music I know is UCLA musicologist Robert Fink, who has written a book on minimalism -- Repeating Ourselves -- and both teaches music history and run the school's music-business program. On the occasion of John Adams' 70th birthday, and a series of related events in Los Angeles, I corresponded with Fink about the … [Read more...]
August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey” at the Taper
[contextly_auto_sidebar] LAST night I caught "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" -- one of the historically earliest of August Wilson's cycle of plays about black life in the 20th century -- at the Mark Taper Forum. This production, directed by Phylicia Rashad (best known for her role on "The Cosby Show"), has been justly celebrated already, so I will just introduce it and add a few details. Despite … [Read more...]
Kraftwerk at the Hollywood Bowl
[contextly_auto_sidebar] KRAUTROCK has rarely been my cup of ale; the only German rock band I've ever loved is Neu!, and it took years of listening to Stereolab to adjust my metabolism to the repetitive, minimal, technophile grooves. But I've heard so many good things about the shows Kraftwerk -- who all but invented the genre, and scored its first big U.S. hit with "Autobahn" -- performed at … [Read more...]
Guillermo Del Toro at LACMA
[contextly_auto_sidebar] I MUST admit to being the kind of museum-goer instinctively suspicious of exhibits about popular culture. I say this as someone who loves pop culture and spends most of his life there. But these exhibits can be ways of pandering in an attempt to draw new audiences. I'm all in favor of the new audiences, but turned off by the pandering. But I had high hopes for the … [Read more...]