Obviously, there is only one Lou Reed. But then again, perhaps this is not so obvious, so I’ll take it back. There are–or have been–many Lou Reeds. First there was the underground Lou, then the decadent glitter Lou, followed by the burnout Lou, the mellow Lou, the punk Lou, the jazzy Lou, and so on. […]
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Meat Puppets–Mirage
MIRAGE Meat Puppets SST Records SST 100 “The best rock ‘n’ roll,” Curt Kirkwood told Spin magazine, “reminds me of teenagers on angel dust fucking.” While Kirkwood’s vision is hardly straight out of hippie canon, it does represent an authentically 80s version of the counterculture’s dream of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll as […]
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Prince–Sign ‘o’ the Times
SIGN ‘O’ THE TIMES Prince Paisley Park/Warner Brothers 925577-1 The Prince perplex can be easily stated: how can someone who’s so in control be so out of control? How can the auteur of an entire scene and sound — he’s not merely made stars of his high school pals and sent most of the women […]
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Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band; Duke Ellington Orchestra/Count Basie Orchestra–First Time! The Count Meets the Duke; Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach–Money Jungle
DUKE ELLINGTON: THE BLANTON-WEBSTER BAND RCA Bluebird 5659-1-RB FIRST TIME! THE COUNT MEETS THE DUKE Duke Ellington Orchestra/Count Basie Orchestra Columbia Jazz Masterpieces CJ 40586 MONEY JUNGLE Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach Blue Note BT 85129 Few American popular musicians were quite as honored and lionized in their lifetime as Duke Ellington. The great […]
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Ted Hawkins–Happy Hour
HAPPY HOUR Ted Hawkins Rounder Records 2033 I can still remember feeling shocked during my first play of Ted Hawkins’s debut album, Watch Your Step, in 1982. It was the dawning of the electro-pop era, and Hawkins stood out like some hairy, primordial beast stranded at noon in midtown Manhattan. I don’t mean that Hawkins […]
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Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials–Roughhousin’; Johnny B. More–Hard Times
ROUGHHOUSIN’ Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperial Alligator Records ALC 4749 HARD TIMES Johnny B. Moore B.L.U.E.S. R&B BRB 3604 Some of the most seminal events in blues history have been the result of blind luck. Muddy Waters’s beginnings at Aristocrat Records were typical: a chance appearance at a local union hall where an Aristocrat […]
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Los Lobos–By the Light of the Moon
BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON Los Lobos Slash/Warner Bros. 25523-1 It is late at night, let’s say. The house is as quiet as a moonlit field, but the mind is full of commotion; it’s an ornery, unsatisfied old cuss, and it’s used to its freedom, including the freedom to move about, which has nothing […]
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Say no to pop: Five arguments for the existence of rock ‘n’ roll
I don’t think there is any such thing as pure pop. What matters is what feeds you. Like the way listening to Meet the Beatles thrills a spiritual/physical nerve ending, like breathing pure oxygen. “Pop” is a self-preservative ploy of London music scene partisans—a tasteless, odorless little nothing of a word used to obscure the […]
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Group Growth
MUSIC OF THE BAROQUE at United Church of Hyde Park March 8, 1987 CHICAGO ENSEMBLE at Mandel Hall March 17, 1987 Any music organization that survives its first ten years deserves commendation. This season, at least three of the better-known groups in town are marking that milestone. The Chicago Ensemble, the Chicago String Ensemble, and […]
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Eleventh Dream Day
Over the past couple of years Eleventh Dream Day has gradually built up a raging head of steam, a blistering one-two guitar attack that sounds like somebody throttling down an empty highway at 3 AM. Frontman/songwriter Rick Rizzo likes to write about people driven over the edge by their irrational urges, but he also constructs […]
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Frank Sinatra–The Voice: The Columbia Years 1943-1952; Jerry Lee Lewis–The Killer 1963-1968; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band–Live/1975-85
THE VOICE: THE COLUMBIA YEARS 1943-1952 Frank Sinatra Columbia CXT 40343 JERRY LEE LEWIS: THE KILLER 1963-1968 Jerry Lee Lewis Bear Family Records BFX 15210 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND: LIVE/1975-85 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Columbia C5X 40558 Boxed sets–those unwieldy but rewarding multivolume compendiums– probably represent the best way […]
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Bach to Bach
BACH’S MASS IN B MINOR Basically Bach at First United Church of Oak Park September 7, 1986 BACH’S MASS IN B MINOR Music of the Baroque at Saint Paul’s United Church of Christ November 4, 1986 Much attention has been given over in recent years to the “authenticity” movement in serious music circles, to the […]