[contextly_auto_sidebar id="x7fHoswu5DffP7bQJStvjipFAfVMBxGb"] I HAD the pleasure recently to speak to one of my longtime heroes, the British-born, Massachusetts-dwelling singer-songwriter Lloyd Cole, about Dylan, Why he loves country music, aging as a rock musician, and other topics. The conversation is here. Here's my first question for Lloyd: Let’s start with the new record and then … [Read more...]
Greil Marcus and the History of Rock N Roll
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="1o2sCoXE2Fn6bznjQ3wr9tT1LIaHHcnX"] MANY of us interested in music, American history and culture in general discovered this scholar and scribe with one of his great early books like Mystery Train or Lipstick Traces. Marcus popularized the idea of using music as a "secret history" for other cultural forms, his book connecting Dylan's Basement Tapes to Harry Smith's … [Read more...]
Pete Seeger, Llewyn Davis, and Sisyphus
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="o511ReiogmTCk65Pr1jtarJdMtJ8q5at"] IN the weeks since I’ve seen it, I’ve gone back and forth on the movie Inside Llewyn Davis. The film was beautifully shot and well acted, I love the way some of the scenes of Greenwich Village make it look like the characters are inside the cover of Dylan’s Freewheelin’ , and so on. But I also couldn’t help thinking that for all … [Read more...]
Jonathan Lethem to the Southland
Novelist Jonathan Lethem, though firmly associated with New York bohemia and a kind of Brooklyn renaissance, will be coming to Pomona College to take over David Foster Wallace's old job.The author of the Brooklyn-childhood novel The Fortress of Solitude and, more recently, the Upper East Side-set Chronic City is well known to readers of The Misread City: He's among the site's core writers, along … [Read more...]
The 88 and "Highway 61 Revisited"
FOR a week or two now i've been hearing whispers about the LA band the 88 -- that their fan base was dwindling, that their latest show would be empty, that they were gonna have to put out their next record by themselves, etc.so i was pleased to walk into their gig at the key club on sunset last night and find the place quite well attended and the energy level high. is the band in trouble? maybe. … [Read more...]