review Archive
05 Aug 2009
Album Review: Dennis Diken with Bell Sound – Late Music
Good music is always more than the sum of its parts. Let’s say you’re interested in making a pop record. And by pop, here I mean pop in its classic […]
02 Aug 2009
Seven New Album Reviews
Doing my level best to erase the backlog of albums slated for review, I’m pleased to offer up some thoughts on no less than seven recent releases. They include: Phil […]
31 Jul 2009
Progressive Nation Act III: Zappa Plays Zappa
As mentioned previously, I’m something of a Zappa fanatic. I was lucky enough to see the man onstage twice in the 80s; his peculiar hybrid of obscenely-complicated art/jazz/rock/whatever crossed with […]
30 Jul 2009
Progressive Nation Act II: Bigelf
Second to take the stage was Bigelf. Like Scale the Summit, these guys were unknown to me. I was totally unfamiliar with their music, so I did a quick bit […]
30 Jul 2009
Progressive Nation Act I: Scale the Summit
First up was Scale the Summit. This four-piece (two guitars trading leads, plus bass and drums) trades in the modern instro-metal-prog genre. A really young lot (not Hanson “Mm-bop” young, […]
30 Jul 2009
Progressive Nation 2009
So awhile back I bought a ticket to the local date of the Progressive Nation tour. My buddy and band mate Jeff talked me into it. On one level, I […]
03 Jul 2009
Preview Review: Moby Grape – The Place and The Time
I’ve written extensively about the travails of Moby Grape, the best 60s group most people have never heard. Some of my words on the subject are yet to be published, […]
01 Jul 2009
Review: V/A – 2131 S. Michigan Avenue
The whole Nuggets thing has finally become something of a cottage industry. The Lenny Kaye-curated 2LP Nuggets set was unleashed on an unsuspecting (and largely disinterested) world in 1972. I […]
30 Jun 2009
Album Review: Ray Charles — Genius: The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection
The word Genius is thrown around far too cavalierly. At this writing, Michael Jackson (the self-proclaimed King of Pop) has been dead only a few days, and tributes everywhere call […]
31 May 2009
DVD Review: Johnny Winter — Live Through the 70s
The DVD kicks off with a true oddity, a performance that is bizarre in any number of ways. This excellent-quality Danish TV clip from 1970 finds Winter playing with his […]