Last week’s reading:
My first Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs, is a refreshing revelation. Moore’s highly individualistic writing style, all quirky similes and metaphors, laced with lyricism, is nothing like what I tend to read. As with other stylistic writers like Cormac McCarthy, I found the going slow because I needed to roll the [...]
Last week’s reading:
Parrot and Olivier in America is Peter Carey at his most exuberant, wild almost. Recounting the fictional tale of the trip to the new, troubling democratic nation of the United States of America by French nobleman Olivier-Jean-Baptist de Clarel de Barfleur and an artistic servant thrust upon him, John ‘Parrot’ Larrit. Carey succeeds marvellously in retelling [...]
Last week’s reading:
‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?’: Jimmy Carter, America’s ‘Malaise,’ and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country is an intriguing single-topic book by Kevin Mattson, an Ohio historian. He tells the story of the critical speech given by Carter on July 15, 1979, covering the energy crisis causing [...]
Three films over the last year captured my heart because, I belatedly recognized, they’re set in the 1960s music scene. Make no mistake, The Boat that Rocked, Taking Woodstock, and Nowhere Boy are all superbly crafted movies, but what tugged at my emotions was their overt affection for the period. Nostalgia had struck me!
Nostalgia is [...]
Last week’s reading:
Robert Harris’s Lustrum is the second of two novels recounting the life of Roman philosopher/orator/lawyer/politician Cicero. Harris can write smoothly and entertainingly about any subject, modern or ancient, Lustrum being a good example. It’s an enjoyable and intriguing read, although the five-year period covered by this book is telescoped at the end, at [...]
It hadn’t struck me until I posted on my Best rock albums of 2009 – I’m losing touch with new music! I did my best but consider the artists I enjoyed:
Idlewild, Jason Lytle, John Wesley Harding, Paul Dempsey, Grant-Lee Phillips, Conor Oberst and M. Ward have been around for yonks
Others – Peter Hammill and Mark Olson [...]
How easy to get swamped by the visual, especially in the age of online plenty! I’ve listened to less than I am comfortable with, but here are the highlights:
Jason Lytle’s Yours Truly, the Commuter – the return of Grandaddy in more pensive form, chockers with sweeping melody, wonderful keyboards and bass, and societal commentary
Who Was [...]
He died aged only 45 (see this Salon post re the news). Described as a folk-rocker, his music was oblique, atmospheric, sometimes almost savage in its bittersweet darkness. But he had a wonderful sense of melody, so his songs often grabbed and attached. I followed him for most of his career but, sadly, neglected his [...]
On paper, Monsters of Folk should not amount to much more than one of those touted supergroups that mostly disappoint. After all, the three main band members (the fourth, Mike Mogine, is a talented multi-instrumentalist in Bright Eyes) are so dissimilar. Jim James, who calls himself Yim Yames on this CD, is mainstream rock in the [...]
Old and new, catchy or obscure, light and heavy, here’s the rotation list:
At last something new by Idlewild, Post Electric Blues
Communion, a double CD from The Soundtrack Of Our Lives
Former frontman of Something For Kate, Paul Dempsey’s solo debut Everything Is True
The self-titled debut by Monsters of Folk, featuring two of my faves, M. Ward [...]