review Archive
20 May 2011
Firesign Theatre – Box of Danger
Here’s one you might have missed. — bk The conventional wisdom about The Who back in the 1970s–and this line of thinking was explicitly reinforced by no less than Pete […]
17 May 2011
Book Review: The Resurrection of Johnny Cash
Historical revisionism is a tricky business. And it’s a daunting endeavor: the writer faces an uphill battle, attempting to convince his or her audience that what they’ve come to accept […]
16 May 2011
Album Review: Sweet – Action: The Sweet Anthology
Today Nicky Chinn turns 66. Songwriter, producer, svengali, Chinn is known for a lot of things, most notably being one of the prime movers behind The Sweet. Here’s a review […]
09 May 2011
Album Review: R&B Spotlight ‘60
Nineteen-sixty might not be the first year that comes to mind when you think of compelling music making the charts. But a new collection from the estimable folks at UK-based […]
04 May 2011
Album Review: Fairport Convention – Ebbets Field 1974
First, a few words about what this isn’t: While it’s Fairport Convention, it not the earliest lineup featuring Richard Thompson; it’s a later aggregation of the band, but most of […]
03 May 2011
Album Review: The Genuine Fakes
Will Owsley (known as just plain Owsley) was a tragically underrated powerpop musician of the highest order. As an early collaborator with Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son and later drummer for […]
02 May 2011
Album Review: The Residents – Not Available
Leave it to the folks at MVD Audio to mount a reissue of an album that (a) as legend has it wasn’t supposed to have even been released the first […]
26 Apr 2011
Album Review: Ian Moore and the Lossy Coils – El Sonido Nuevo
When a song kicks off sounding very much like Eddie Cochran’s “Somethin’ Else,” it gets my attention. And then when I discover that the song is instead an original — […]
25 Apr 2011
Album Review: The Bewitched Hands – Birds & Drums
The idea of a songwriters’ collective has always fascinated me. Band dynamics being what they are, most groups have only one songwriter; the alternative is prone to the “too many […]
22 Apr 2011
Bootleg Bin: Teenage Fanclub – Live at the 13th Note w/Alex Chilton 04-08-93
Here’s a recipe for success. Take an American 70s cult icon, one notorious for erratic performances, and add a healthy dose of one Scottish revivalist pop band that mixes equal […]