I feel like at every point in my life I’ve had some arbitrary musical exclusion only to have it whittled down over time. It’s true: There’s always been some section of music I refuse to associate with. At first it was classical music, mainly since that was
Music genres come and go by the dozen, from emocore and screamo to nemocore, but what new genres lurk on the horizon? Will there be more amalgamations of current styles and trends (emoscreamonemocore?) or something so completely original and mysterious that it belongs in a class all by itself? Swedish
The history of rock may be written by the losers, but this week the losers will have some attention in their hands to point out the decline of Western civilization that’ll ensue when CBGBs closes this weekend. Some may be wistful, some will have moved on, and some might
Having just seen the K Records Documentary, I can now say with authority that music critics do have a place in this world outside of keeping Yo La Tengo in clean spats. They can translate the rambling theoretical diatribes of musicians into actual comprehensible statements. For example, in the movie,
Steroid Maximus’s Ectopia is classical-industrial music that uses John Cage’s flaming-piano-out-the-window experiment as a starting point and turns it into the score for a movie yet to be made. Babies crying, jangling pianos, jungle chases, wailing violins, and boats creaking all mixed together
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we offer ways to avoid being kissless on New Year’s Eve.
Podcast, schmodcast. I’m not sure what the hubbub is about—it’s just a bunch of audio files. While you’re waiting for the next installment of Johnny Dollar, Insurance Investigator, I’m already listening to all of Steve Martin’s Pure Drivel. I can dork out with tales
Just like Ethiopian soul in the ’70s, Cambodian psychedelic garage rock from the ’60s, called “circle dance music,” was eventually crushed by the incoming political regime. The Khmer Rouge imprisoned and killed off most of the artists, but these compilations are put together from the few tapes that happened to
The amount of epic symbolism and ironic tragedy overflowing Grizzly Man, a documentary about a man who wants to live amongst grizzlies, makes it almost too perfect to be believed. Herzog made a similarly themed man-vs.nature mocumentary last year, the protagonist looks like Klaus Kinski’s lost brother,
The New Yorker‘s caption contest is challenging, but The Perry Bible Fellowship proves that some of the finer cartoons need no captions. Right here is where I’d say something about how “comics, they’re no longer for ingrown man-children!” And I’d be right. These are more
