A quick email exchange with world-renown Bono haircut expert C. from the always-delightful Scatter o' Light resulted in this post.
I am very flattered. Muchas gracias, baby.
This would be a lot cooler if it JUST said "Championship Vinyl" but it is a fund-raiser for a good cause (click the link
to find out more).
(Yes, I'm getting one, make the big "L" sign now, thankyouverymuch.)
The Observer UK: as you might expect, an interview that is thoughtful and asks a lot of the questions you would if you had the chance. I also like it because there is this undercurrent of "ohmigod I am talking to BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" even though it's Nick fucking Hornby doing the talking. It's humble and sincere and imho makes for great reading. But, then again, I dig Hornby.
Which reminds me, of course, that an article about his shows last month with Marah is long overdue. Moving, and the pesky work thing have been getting in the way of the words lately. Anon.
When people say "Seattle sound," usually they're talking about Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains or Soundgarden or Mudhoney or any of the many fabulous bands that got lumped together under the media hype-line "grunge".
For me, though, the Seattle sound will indelibly mean bands like The Long Winters. My great and talented friend Litsa Dremousis interviewed John Roderick for the next issue of the Believer, and you should all go buy it now, so you can read writing like this:
Henri Langlois once declared of Louise Brooks, "There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Brooks!" Since forming the Long Winters in 2001, singer/songwriter John Roderick has inspired similar hyperbole from music critics and indie-rock fans alike. With a smoked-wood voice, candied-cherry hooks, and lyrics such as "I'm leaving you all of my car parts / I didn't have the money / or I would have gotten roses," Roderick's songs don't get under a listener's skin so much as puncture it and remain in the bloodstream.
Good music is about reporting from the streets, the towns, the country and the city, inside houses, inside minds. It tells you what's goin' on. Whether it's Gershwin, Husker Du, or Andre 3000.
--Greg Dulli
Taken from a great UK fanzine called Blank Stares and Cricket Claps, that you can download in PDF format. Kind of the best of both print and net worlds.
Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | 'I'm the old git with the chick, the Roller and the rock band'
Great article, although I'm still not buying the idea that Iggy living in Florida is logical. Plus, I miss being able to see him around the East Village on a daily basis... just seems wrong.
Tonight was the release party for legendary Seattle photographer Charles Peterson's third book, Touch Me I'm Sick. I was going to say, "If you don't know Charles' work..." but it's hard for me to imagine anyone who cares about and listens to music who isn't familiar with it. He photographed everyone who was anyone in the halcyon days of the Seattle music scene - Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden - as well as countless others, from Sonic Youth to Sleater-Kinney, and probably hundreds of other lesser known bands. He was practically the house photographer for Sub Pop Records, back in the day.
This book was a sight unseen purchase for me. I've followed his work forever and have been a fan since the first time I saw his photos. He captures the movement and energy of what it's like to BE THERE; he loves the music and that love informs his work. He doesn't photograph as an outsider; his pictures take you into his head as well as into the scene, no matter what or where it is.
So buy the damn thing.
Now, onto the party. We showed up early, because they were selling the book, and Charles was signing them, and also because this was a party an awful lot of people were going to want to get into. We bought our books, took them to the car, went out for dinner. By the time we came back, an hour later, Girl Trouble was on the stage and the party was in full swing.
Walking into the Croc at that moment was like walking into a time warp, taking you back to 1992. Girl Trouble is blasting, the scenesters were out in force, and one of the first people we saw was Kim Thayil, formerly of the mighty (and much beloved in this house) Soundgarden. We bump into Mark Arm at the back bar, and find ourselves standing behind Steve Turner in the show room. It felt like a rock and roll high school reunion, except I was the transfer student who didn't arrive until the last year, and my companion was there representing her older sister who couldn't make it.
Girl Trouble were predictable, but fun. They're in the book, they are truly old school. They've always reminded me of a hardcore punk version of a frat house's toga party band. Plus, we'd all drunk enough by then that it sounded just fine to us.
The Briefs, however, were another story. I saw them a few times at the beginning of their career, and while I really wanted to like them, I just wasn't all that impressed. Tonight, three years later, holy shit! Oh, my god! They were loud and brash and bold and exciting and full of boundless energy. It was like a cross between the Buzzcocks and Devo - yeah, they were derivative as fuck, but unlike another band we both thought of immediately (*cough* Strokes *cough*), they absolutely reveled in it. They swam in it, rolled around in it, spit great mouthfuls of their influences into the air and laughed when it landed on their heads. I have not had so much fun at a Seattle show by a local band in a really long time. And of course I would be remiss if I didn't note that their bass player is another Seattle photography legend, Mr. Lance Mercer, who tonight was wearing a red jumpsuit that for all the world reminded me of what Mick Jones wore when the Clash opened for the Who at Shea Stadium (clearly, Mick was thinking "visibility" that night). Fashionwise, the other guys were mixing new wave (both coasts) with punk rock (more of a British flavor). And the sunglasses looked like they came straight off the rack at Poseur (which was the ultimate punk/new wave clothing store in LA, a very long time ago...)
It was a silly, fun, relaxed, slightly crazy evening. Not bad for a Thursday night.
The Right To Be Wrong, by Richard Hell
Out of seemingly nowhere comes this insightful, thoughtful, gentle (but not apologetic) review of the latest Lester Bangs anthology, in last week's Village Voice, written by none other than Richard Hell. It's ostensibly a review of the book, but it ends up being more of a tribute, and an affirmation of Lester's place in the world of rock journalism.
It's probably no secret to anyone who's read my writing over the years that I idolized Lester Bangs. More than anything, I wanted to be like him, but I knew I never could. For one, I didn't like, or want, drugs. And I wasn't quite brave enough to walk that tightrope that Lester did with alarming regularity and brutal honesty - "The right to be wrong," Hell comments, and it's no accident that this is the title of the article (even though I'm not quite sure how much it has to do with this anthology, which others have commented seems thin and lightweight).
The one quality of Lester's that captured me the most, then as now, is what Hell describes as the "drive to describe and be true to what matters in life." The drive to describe is what keeps me going, keeps me writing, makes me sit in front of the computer even when I'm dumb enough to not save something before previewing it, and even though I lose it, to sit down and write it again. The drive to get it *exactly* right, so that when someone reads it who can relate to it, they feel it again, and when someone reads it who has never experienced it, they feel it just a little.
I wanted to talk some more about "the right to be wrong," but I'm not sure how much this ties into the book (saving it, since I'm working my way through the new Chuck Klosterman now). It's an interesting concept, because I'm not sure there are any spaces left for music writing where a writer is allowed to be wrong, to correct themselves, to revisit something. You're certainly not going to find it on, say, Pitchfork (note how I don't hyperlink that); the only space I can think of right now that would tolerate it is ex-ATN/SonicNet Editor Michael Goldberg's neumu.net. And even if a publication or web site did allow for that kind of thoughtful commentary, would anyone really care any more? What's the shelf life of a record these days?
Anyway - read the Hell (I'm not going to go all New York Times and start calling him "Mr. Hell," eesh) piece in the Voice (linked at the top); it's the most inciseful, least apologetic, most sincere piece of writing I've read about Lester in years.
You'll want to read the Chicago Sun-Times review of last week's Springsteen show. (And no, this is not an opening for a DeRogatis bitching session, since he didn't write it.)
It's an example of an exceptionally great review of a rock show in a daily paper, by someone who's not a columnist (see above). It's clear that the writer is most likely a fan, or maybe was a fan; he "gets" Bruce, but also has the critical distance necessary for a general audience piece.
The writer frankly addresses - several times, in fact - why people don't like Springsteen, and frankly, I think he nails it. He admits what we've all known for years: Bruce is an idiot - but he's our idiot. The secret is whether or not you want to let yourself go and throw yourself into the moment that he creates that night.
But the best has to be the ending, and I can't believe he got away with it in this context:
"If a man delivers a message of hope in an industry that increasingly sells hopelessness and despair by the bucketful, is that a bad thing? In a world of Marilyn Mansons, what's wrong with someone who declares defiantly that 'I believe in the love that you gave me/I believe in the faith that could save me/I believe in the hope and I pray that someday it may raise me above these badlands'?
And, finally, this: Is it just posturing and contrivance if the singer and the band actually believe in what they're saying and doing?
You tell me.
Is a dream a lie if it does come true? Or is it something better?"
For what it's worth, in my review of the Montreal Springsteen show, I wondered much of the same thing about that very lyric. Hooey or not, it's one of the things that's kept me going - and surprisingly, still keeps me going - since I was 14 years old.