blog riley

SENTENCE OF THE MONTH from Peter Carlin's Catch A Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson (Rodale) p. 110: "It was just like the old days with his Wollensak recorder, except much, much weirder..." … [Read more...]

Geoff Dyer, author of THE ONGOING MOMENT, in the current Threepenny Review on the ECM label: ...Recent ECM releases are of a very high standard, but in many ways Khmer (the follow-up, Solid Ether, kept dissolving into a clatter of drum'n'bass) is a high point in the ECM project precisely because it … [Read more...]

Watch for the Leon Fleisher documentary, TWO HANDS, on Cinemax this Thursday evening, August 2 at 7pm. Here and Now story with interview airs Wednesday, 8/1, around 12:45 EDT on WBUR-FM, Boston, 90.9. Check this page for audio after 2pm that afternoon. … [Read more...]

from David Runciman in the London Review of Books: What has gone is the traditional magic of pop radio that came, as Dylan describes it in his memoirs, from the experience of tuning the dial and having to settle for the best you could find. There are no more dials to tune. Instead, on digital radio, … [Read more...]

TO THE EDITOR: As a longtime admirer of Linda Greenhouse, I nevertheless object to the widespread yet editorially biased term "centrist" when referring to retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ("In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court Moved Right," July 1, 2007). Just look at the two most important … [Read more...]

Ron Rosenbaum on Tom Junod in Slate: ...And here it is--he begins with the question: "Does 9/11 still have meaning for most Americans? Does it have more meaning than celebrity? Does it have more meaning than the very specific message of meaninglessness contained in the weekly parable of Angelina … [Read more...]

East India Trading Company ShrubTwo recent movies are blatantly allegorical, but most reviewers blinked. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN opens by hanging a ten-year-old boy in a cruel Gitmo scenario that poses a radical question: with brutes like Cheney in charge, wouldn't you want to sing the other guy's … [Read more...]

The Best of the Bad Cops Keeps Walking a Hard Line (NYTimes) By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN Published: June 6, 2007 [In lieu of writing my own big essay on the Shield's finale, I'm going at it through Heffernan's uneven piece...] ...In its six seasons, "The Shield" has won Emmys and Golden Globes but never … [Read more...]

"It was forty years ago today: the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "It's certainly a thrill," the Beatles sang; but listening today, much of the thrill is gone--except for one song. Still, it's easy to remember that day--June 1, 1967--when the first thing we saw was the cover: a … [Read more...]

(from Tony Eastley's show, May 28): MICHAEL ROWLAND: Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles as their fans had never seen or heard them before. They'd ditched their grey suits and ties in favour of technicolour military style uniforms, and the catchy two minute pop tunes had given way to musical experimentation … [Read more...]

...Still, the Spider-Man film franchise is so strange that it's not unpleasant to watch it earn money even while idling. Like the new movie itself, we have our memories, and Tobey Maguire is still with us as Peter Parker, the goofiness wearing a little thin, but the earnestness holding up (in … [Read more...]

A Sgt Pepper chat with Tim Page and Anthony DeCurtis from today's On Point, repeats tonight. (iTunes) BOUNCEBACK Drew got part of the point of my Monday post... let's see who can take the baton from him. … [Read more...]

Finally, a blues guitarist with the soul of a trombonist. Putting a junkheap like "Peculiar Hop" as the lead track takes a seriously loose screw, covering Dylan without the lyrics ups the ante ("Rainy Day #12 & 35"), but it's the rare guitar hero who literalizes the mood of the country ("Dig Myself … [Read more...]