blog riley

Cover of Richard MeltzerScribes We Turn To: Richard Meltzer, the Beefheart of rock critics: Graham JohnsonGary LucasTen Random Discs (Beat Patrol)Drummer John French's memoirsbeta blog(I interviewed Meltzer a couple years ago for my Lennon bio, he remembered seeing both Shea Stadium shows, 1965 … [Read more...]

Image via WikipediaMUSIC MONDAY from Muckrack daily: Don Van Vliet, or Captain Beefheart, died at the weekend aged 69. Tim Riley of NPR retweets Billy Bragg's link to Beefheart's "10 Commandments of Guitar Playing: Your guitar is a divining rod". Rolling … [Read more...]

COHEN, SANCTIMONIOUS: Next thing you know, Red Sox fans will be swaying to this song in the stands.Another year over: Fimoculous continues its list aggregating, send yours to Rex.see also: Huffposts's List of Best Book ListsBillboard Year-End ListsHip-Hop Dominates iTunesPublisher's Weekly Best … [Read more...]

QUOTES OF THE WEEK: "Oh How I Love Jesus" (Disc 30, Track 16): "...a tremendous amount, as it happens," Jon Caramanica, reviewing Presley's THE COMPLETE ELVIS PRESLEY MASTERS (30 CDs, RCA) (see completeelvis.com)Related articlesHoliday Gift Guide: Music Boxed Sets (nytimes.com)Beethoven: Late … [Read more...]

DRUNK, STONED, BRILLIANT, DEAD: The Writers and Artists Who Made the national Lampoon Insanely Great, by Rick Meyerowitz "Well, this is a book done by an artist. I waited 35 years for some writer to tell the story. And they didn't do it. When I decided to do this book, my thought was, … [Read more...]

Cover of Booker T. & The MG'sDigitally enhanced combovers for aesthetically thirsty underdawgs...More Keef Ink: The redoubtable Bill Wyman (yes, that Bill Wyman) prints a scathingly ravaged letter from brother Jagger about Life with a capital L. One of the better band briefs yet … [Read more...]

Image by Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis via FlickrMaybe flavor of the month, but @Discographies has its moments: Big Star/Nick Drake: 1 Immortal songs about hope; 2 and girls; 3 and loss, time-traveling forward to a future that would someday hear them.And it's NOT Xgau. Oh, can we make requests? … [Read more...]

Image by triley60 via Flickr...But Tim Riley, who just finished his big bio John Ono Lennon, hails Nowhere Boy's musical authenticity and "weird mother/son/aunt love triangle, one of the most screwed-up relationships ever." Riley screened it for his Emerson College students, … [Read more...]

Ephemera for Complicated Souls... Quote of the Week: Of all the preposterous things Keith Richards said on Fresh Air last week, his Altamont quote has to be the most offensive (cue: 27:40): "Meredith [Hunter], who went down in this scene... he was asking for trouble... " Right, that's what we've … [Read more...]

Visual Storytelling … [Read more...]

A New Weekly List of Ephemera Quote of the Week: "The renegade spawn of more than one bastion of privilege, [Oliver] Stone has tried over and over to make a movie this perceptive and knowledgeable about contemporary society. Now he's been left looking like a chump by a dude who not only never went … [Read more...]

Image via Wikipedia"People had become so identified with Bob Dylan, a certain Bob Dylan, that his move away from that image they had of him forced them to do the one thing that they didn't want to do, which is to question themselves. And when they questioned themselves, they went crazy. They went … [Read more...]