[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Qwm7a4AXHZhLoHI5Q02SruYLg3cIgNWX"] ONE of the most pressing issues for culture-makers (and fellow travelers, like your humble blogger) is rapid gentrification. Often driven by the arrival or artists and musicians to a neighborhood or city, winner-take-all capitalism often means that investors and Trump-like developers arrive soon after and squeeze out the creative … [Read more...]
When Music Sounds Like a Cash Register: Taylor Swift
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="z9vqtTIKWYYE4qjmn9I73sMygRd2LrTi"] WHAT happens when a society gets obsessed with those who win at the capitalist game, when marketing becomes the new religion, and the gatekeepers of art and music stop caring ab0ut the fields in which they labor but get hypnotized by the machinery of star-making? We get "artists" like Jeff Koons or Taylor Swift. The onetime … [Read more...]
Rosanne Cash on Our Culture’s Big Lie
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="sMcHj6Lojb9dMZsYLz0bq8L0kVkN6RaH"] LATELY the country-steeped singer-songwriter has become vocal and eloquent on issues of artists's rights, including an appearance before lawmakers in Washington, DC; she's also on the executive board of the Content Creators Coalition. The freshest thing about the arguments made by this daughter of St. Johnny is that she looks not … [Read more...]
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hHJ8eiJnuFjsqO6u5KIkazfFviuefQB1"] BY now it's pretty well know that the comedian best know for "King Tut" and the arrow through the head is not just another show-business dilettante: This dude is a real and committed musician. But even with high expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by the strength and seriousness of Martin's banjo playing and the bluegrass group … [Read more...]
Celebrating Charlie Haden
TUESDAY night in Los Angeles will see both a celebratory and a sad occasion: The jazz titan Charlie Haden – the lyrical bass player, free-jazz pioneer, crucial collaborator to Ornette Coleman and others, father to a four Los Angeles indie rockers, founder of CalArts jazz program – will lead his Liberation Music Orchestra at REDCAT. It has special music since this group – which Haden began in 1969 … [Read more...]
Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl
SOME years, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl become the highlight of the summer. I know I'll miss a lot of things about Los Angeles whenever we end up departing, but these night with the sun setting and the scent of eucalyptus from the canyon will be very near the top of the list. This year, we've only been twice so far. We saw the fireworks on the 4th of July, a show at which I learned that Josh … [Read more...]
Glen Campbell’s Farewell
LAST night, several thousand of us said so long to Glen Campbell. His Hollywood Bowl concert was a kind of cross between a straightforward farewell concert and a posthumous tribute, since the entire first program was made up of other musicians paying homage to various aspects of his work. And the farewell part is not entirely conventional: Campbell is saying goodbye because of an Alzheimer's … [Read more...]
The Avett Brothers’ Country Roots
SCOTT Avett plays his banjo like Will Sergeant from Echo and the Bunnymen played guitar. That's what the Avett Bros. manager thought the first time he saw this North Carolina band, which is both deeply rooted in Americana and on its own trip.ALT-COUNTRY heroes The Avett Bros. are in town tonight, Oct. 1, at the Nokia Theater. I spoke to Scott and manager Rolph Ramseur for this story in today's … [Read more...]
Johnny Cash It Is
GIVEN the people who seem to follow my blog, I expected Gram Parsons or Townes Van Zandt -- both key figures in that transition from country to alt-country -- to run away with this poll.But Johnny Cash, whose career was both driven and nearly undermined by his struggles with alcohol, drugs, politics and Christianity, comes out on top. He is, to my ear, the most complicated of his generation of … [Read more...]
The Return of The Blue Moods of Spain
How often you arrive at a club and kick yourself for having missed the opening band? Not bloody often I'll bet. But when I got to Spaceland on Saturday to find I'd arrived too late to see a rare (and barely announced) show by LA indie kings Spain, my heart sunk into the kind of melancholy the group conjures so well in song.Spain, which is led by Josh Haden (son of legendary jazz bassist Charlie … [Read more...]