blog riley

If I weren't nursing my sick 3-year-old, I'd be all over this GREY ALBUM controversy. So let me toss up a few notes: Danger Mouse is an ingenious DJ, not quite an artist, but the record gives you a LOT to listen to, and a lot to think about. He should be celebrated, not persecuted. Because of "Grey … [Read more...]

David Denby, "Living in America," New Yorker (Jan. 12) Last fall, Denby, a film critic for the New Yorker, published "My Life As a Paulette," as in an acolyte of the late New Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael. It was his exorcism of the spell the witch cast on him even in death: an account of how … [Read more...]

From the Daily Kos. … [Read more...]

BRAHMS Four Hand Piano Music 10 (Naxos 2003), String Quartets Op. 51 Nos. 1 & 2 Silke-Thora Matthies, Christian Köhn SCHUBERT Piano Works for Four Hands 3 (Naxos 2003), Fantasie in F minor, Three Heroic Marches, Variations on an Original Theme Jenö Jandó, Zsuzsa Kollár ELGAR Symphony No. 1 in A flat … [Read more...]

Tim: Michael Wolff has written a notably fatuous piece.  To equate Martha Stewart with the victims of McCarthyism; to make the case that the celebrity rich comprise an aggrieved class; to state, in other words, that the state's jackboot is crushing her without cause--this is rubbish, pure and … [Read more...]

"It is hard, of course, to feel all that sorry for the rich (nor was it probably so intuitive to feel sorry, in another time, for the communists), particularly the rich who yell at the help (which may be all of the rich). And yet, there is a principle here. We ought not to prosecute somebody just … [Read more...]

Pioneer DV-563A Befuddled at first to find that the optical connections that work for DVD surround don't work for either DVD-A or SACD -- instead, it wants ANALOG connections between player and receiver. Once that got set up, I played both DVD-A and SACD, which were both impressive, and then set up … [Read more...]

Dick Gordon did a Connection show yesterday on personal ads in the NYRB and the LRB. Those are certainly the two publications to do: everyone is always tittilated to learn (?) that "intellectuals" have active sex lives, even consider the literate mind something of a kick. The LRB by contrast has the … [Read more...]

We're not so worried about getting swallowed up by lists as we are about blind lists in a room full of deaf musicians. Still, the Voice Pazz Jop is out, and here's a bunch that tend to overlap with mine, meaning those I'll poach for stuff to check out [alphabetical, since we're trolling for blurbs, … [Read more...]

One more gripe (What flunkie decided Dave Mathews should play ACOUSTIC guitar on "I Saw Her Standing There"??? And Vince Gill's solo got buried!) before MOVING ON to my own FANTASY GRAMMY CATEGORIES: DVDsThe latest in pushing pre-recorded CDs is to stick a limited edition performance DVD in the … [Read more...]

Elvis Costello, GET HAPPY!!!, PUNCH THE CLOCK (Rhino doubles) What to make of Elvis anymore? I picked up these last year as "advance CDRs," trading off fidelity for early, cheap access. Hoped picking up the real things would help boost his stock (can better fidelity redeem albums that have lost … [Read more...]

So many Grammy targets, so little time. On a seven-second delay to prevent any "indiscretions." … [Read more...]

When you look over the cast of characters in Angels and think about whom we're supposed to sympathize with, and who gets forgiven, you can't help noticing that the most sympathetic, the "best" characters are either ill, or women, or black, or Jewish. Looking over this rather PC list, it occurs to … [Read more...]

The hardest working man in show business still pumps up for Super Bowl OLD SCHOOL.And in a clever campaign to upstage her brother's pedophilia trial, ... … [Read more...]

A lot of the time I can take or leave the LRB, although Terry Castle's think piece on Art Pepper was really good. I almost had one of those fab musical experiences where I read the piece in the Square and went right over to Planet and found a used copy of the Pepper CD she wrote of so well, but it … [Read more...]