I finally watched The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town on HBO, and was reminded anew how much I love Bruce Springsteen’s fourth album. This is a discovery I seem to make periodically: the last time was in 2003, when I reviewed the record in Rolling Stone (as part of the […]
posted 20 October 2010 in Reviews. 8 comments
I have a new capsule review up at the Barnes and Noble Review, this time of Video Slut, Sharon Oreck’s entertaining but erratic memoir of a life spent producing music videos. By the way, Ms. Oreck: that powerful record executive’s name was Mo Ostin, not Mo Austin.
posted 24 May 2010 in Outside, Reviews. 2 comments
Prince has a new album out: another three-disc package (his fifth, by my count). My review is in the latest issue of Rolling Stone; you can also read it now on their website. A few other things Prince and Woody Allen have in common: (1) they’re short (2) they’re basketball fans (3) they were funnier […]
posted 2 April 2009 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
I actually wrote two different pieces about last month’s Van Morrison concert, which was an interesting exercise. I was trying to repeat myself as little as possible–but make sure that each dispatch made sense. (It helped that the Rolling Stone website wanted a newsier angle, while the paper magazine asked for a critical review.) I […]
posted 8 December 2008 in Reviews. no comments yet
I was lucky enough to attend Van Morrison’s show at the Hollywood Bowl Saturday night where he performed the entirety of Astral Weeks. Single-word reaction: Wow. I should have a full-length review in the next issue of Rolling Stone, but I also filed a short dispatch (with a set list, which isn’t as pointless as […]
posted 10 November 2008 in Outside, Reviews. 1 comment
I’ve got a new piece up at the the Barnes and Noble Review: this one’s a short assessment of a long graphic novel, Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button. (To read it, scroll down to the bottom of the page, past Felix Dennis and Gorgeous George.) While we’re on the subject of comics: it occurs to […]
posted 29 September 2008 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
As of last night, I’m back from the desert, and after many showers, I think I might have actually removed all the alkaline dust from my body. But I’m not counting on it. While I was gone, the Barnes and Noble Review published a brief take of mine on the soundtrack album to Passing Strange, […]
posted 3 September 2008 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
I was delighted to hear Snoop Dogg’s country-rock track “My Medicine” getting played on our local alternative-rock radio station; it was one of the oddball standouts of his latest album, Ego Trippin’–which I reviewed a few months back for Rolling Stone. I originally had cooked up a much longer version of the Sonny and Cher […]
posted 21 July 2008 in Outside, Reviews. 1 comment
I’ve got another piece up at the Barnes and Noble Review: this one‘s a short review of The Complete Peanuts: 1967 to 1968. Two additional buying recommendations in a similar vein: 1. Schulz and Peanuts, the stellar biography from last year by David Michaelis. 2. Any previous volume of The Complete Peanuts (or all of […]
posted 18 June 2008 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
Two short items by me went up in recent days on the Rolling Stone website: a review of R.E.M.’s show last week at the Hollywood Bowl and an item on Joe Perry writing the music for “Walk This Way” (part of the “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time” package). I am pleased to report […]
posted 2 June 2008 in Articles, Outside, Reviews. no comments yet