[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...]
Gillian Welch on Tragic Old Folk Songs
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="S7btWx3iYCGnlaDRbt7l737P9YgYp8Kx"] WHY do people make art, write songs, tell stories? Partly, it's to deal with pain and suffering. This week I spoke to one of my musical heroes about the lineage of dark, gloomy folk songs from the American South -- many of them originating in the British Isles, from Child Ballads and the like. Here is what Welch had to say about … [Read more...]
The Glories of Van Dyke Parks
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ct3qiObIO1GjbjGS8WTsakgdEZd3a77u"] ONE of the great characters -- and great talents -- of Southern California, Van Dyke Parks, has experienced a renaissance lately. First known for his work with the Beach Boys and for his pop-baroque Song Cycle, Parks is an ornery Southerner with a big heart, an abiding love for music, and some serious frustrations with recent … [Read more...]
Futurebirds Take Flight
ONE of our favorite newish bands, here at The Misread City's sleekly refurbed listening room, is Futurebirds, from Athens, Ga. Some listeners compare them to My Morning Jacket and Crazy Horse -- I certainly here that, too. But to me they're a mix between the two great chapters of Athens music -- the southern shamble of early R.E.M. (especially the echoey Fables-era band) and the neo-psych Elephant … [Read more...]
The Glory of Big Star
THEY were nearly invisible -- barely even a memory -- during most of my formative years, and you'd never hear 'em on the "classic rock" stations that dominated radio programming in most of America. But when various indie rockers started to sing this band's praises, they became a legend, at least among a passionate few.And that mix of injustice, lost opportunity, creative isolation, cult passion … [Read more...]
Ric Burns and the Civil War
IT'S not a pretty picture: The Civil War saw as many people killed as all American wars put together. In some places, the proportion of young men killed was quite high: Parts of the South essentially lost a generation. But the huge number of deaths, and the need to count the fallen, bury them, contact loved ones -- and to make moral/ spiritual sense of it all -- remade this country, says Ric … [Read more...]
William Faulkner Headed to HBO
THE holidays have slowed me down -- happy new year, by the way -- so I'm a bit late on getting this up. Recently I had a story in the LA Times on David "Deadwood" Milch and his new deal to oversee adaptations of Faulkner's novels and stories to HBO.When I began this piece, I thought the idea preposterous: I remember struggling with The Sound and the Fury as a high school student. But as I spoke to … [Read more...]
Making "Winter’s Bone" a Reality
ONE of the best films of 2010 was Winter's Bone, a kind of little movie that could which ended up with an Oscar nomination for star Jennifer Lawrence and her very tough performance as a determined Ozarks girl. (The actress just showed up in various states of undress in the latest GQ.)Tonight the wonderful country-folk band that plays throughout the film performs at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery … [Read more...]