Record Reviews

  • Reckoning with early REM

    Recently I’ve been working on two projects at the same time, Gnawing on the Bone and Soy Aqui.  I usually don’t do this but have found that there is an upside to it that reminds me of the story behind the REM song Life and How to Live It.  The song is about a resident…

  • Top 40 Over 40.15: Bill Callahan – Made For the Stage?

    One of the cliches about aging performers is that they usually have to navigate the decline of their sex appeal by finding other ways to make something happen onstage.  There are some who escape this fate.  Kris Kistofferson was called a sex symbol during an interview with CBS’s Sunday Morning news program well into in…

  • The Core is Getting Soft.8: Couture on the Cheap

    When you have friends with similar interests and desires as you, sometimes you have to be willing to experience the pangs of jealousy.  I’m not just talking about romantic jealousy – for us musicians, it can be about the gear.  When I was in grade school, there was a bright and talented kid a year…

  • Top 40 Over 40.12: Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet

          I’ve listened to lots of records I’ve liked over the last 10 years, but the recording the Kronos Quartet made of this piece is probably my favorite.  It seems remarkable that such a strange thing of beauty could be recorded at Skywalker Sound, George Lucas’s compound in Northern California.  Morton Feldman spent the…

  • Top 40 Over 40.11: Wurst is also Best!

    I cannot pretend to write an objective review of today’s entry into my Top 40 Over 40 countdown, Transcendental Youth by the Mountain Goats.  You see, I compete in an annual NFL pool with John Darnielle and Peter Hughes.  I’m indebted to Peter for running this pool and to John for keeping me out of…

  • Top 40 Over 40.10: Bill Dixon

    In this series of posts on artists who inspired me to start recording again by doing first-rate work on or after their 4oth birthday, Bill Dixon is an anomaly.  Most of the folks I’ve written about were known for an early body of work done in their 20’s, and managed a “return to form” after…

  • Top 40 Over 40.9: Jandek….live?!?!

    I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in the undie music scene during the aughts.  I listened to some things that were current, but mostly I was just writing lyrics on my own and listening to a lot of modern classical music.  When I started lending an ear indie-ward over the last…

  • R.I.P., MCA.1

    I’d like to express my respect for the late MCA’s work by sharing some thoughts his passing brought to mind about an aspect of his life that many of referred to but few focus on at length, which is his interest in and practice of Buddhist teachings.  I didn’t learn about Buddhism from MCA, and…

  • Top 40 Over 40.8: Scott Walker’s hat trick

    Sometimes pop artists you associate with youth surprise you with a new vocal persona that suits them as they get older.  (Think Robert Plant on Raising Sand.) But in the case of Scott Walker, he never really sounded like a young man to begin with.  Sure, he was a teen idol back in the late…

  • Top 40 Over 40.7: Egypt by Youssou N’Dour

    This album was one of a few that made me want to try putting strings on my next record.  I don’t like how strings are often used in western pop as a soft bed of sound in the background.  I do like how they carry the lead parts on much of this album.  The Egyptian…