Growing up pop, band dreams vs. critical practice, The Only Ones on record and in print, Yankee Hotel Mea Culpa, the Tallahatchie Bridge not taken, and sixteen live ones.
Rousing himself from a six-minute opener as shapeless as another nodder's stupor, the original Only One delivers a revealing collection of new songs in the adenoidal singsong he trademarked in his twenties and miraculously retains at 65. Blaming his inept life on society's cruelty to bison and laboratory rats (the lucky ones, he believes, get to starve themselves to death on crack), he swears an eternal love it's not at all clear he can follow through on. His biography, however, suggests otherwise--he's long been married to a designer as COPD-damaged as he is. Not a pretty picture. But a catchy and educational one. B+
I’ll mention, just for the fun of it, an album that should be in any conversation about the greatest live rock albums: Jerry Lee Lewis’s Live At Star Club, Hamburg.
"The-'high'-art-to-pop-art switcheroo" enabled you to write rock criticism and your rock criticism was an enabling gateway for me as a reader into the academic liberal arts. Thanks.
I like Wilco about as much as I ought to. I'd much rather listen to "A Ghost Is Born" or "Summerteeth" than "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and don't have much use for their later stuff.
I’ll suggest an addenda to anyone’s live album list: my fave, an enduring Top 5 of any stripe, Miles Davis’ Osaka opus, Agharta/Pangaea. Dark Magus, from the same period, not far behind.
Always a smile and pleasure of anticipation when email tells me the Dean has dropped off his work. Long may you, and the people dear to you, run.
How the West Was Won [Domino, 2017]
Rousing himself from a six-minute opener as shapeless as another nodder's stupor, the original Only One delivers a revealing collection of new songs in the adenoidal singsong he trademarked in his twenties and miraculously retains at 65. Blaming his inept life on society's cruelty to bison and laboratory rats (the lucky ones, he believes, get to starve themselves to death on crack), he swears an eternal love it's not at all clear he can follow through on. His biography, however, suggests otherwise--he's long been married to a designer as COPD-damaged as he is. Not a pretty picture. But a catchy and educational one. B+
Good catch and thank you — 18,000+ reviews in, I forgot about that one. Fixed above.
I’ll mention, just for the fun of it, an album that should be in any conversation about the greatest live rock albums: Jerry Lee Lewis’s Live At Star Club, Hamburg.
"The-'high'-art-to-pop-art switcheroo" enabled you to write rock criticism and your rock criticism was an enabling gateway for me as a reader into the academic liberal arts. Thanks.
So I stumble back to this post and, of course, love it.
I read the question about live records,
which leads me back to some of the RC's original reviews (links provided, of course),
one of which brings me to the "A Basic Record Library" originally found in the original '70s Record Guide,
and just how is one to NOT give that piece yet another perusal?
After all, you always find something.
And there it is: Otis Spann, Walking the Blues.
I must have seen it here a hundred times,
but it stands out now due to my utter ignorance of the man or this record to this day.
So I take a look at the review and start looking further.
So of course I got it.
I confess I ended up with the $9.99 mp3 from iTunes,
Rather than the $9.49 from Amazon,
Because, you know, fuck them.
Which is all to say it was just another one of those Christgau kind of days.
I like Wilco about as much as I ought to. I'd much rather listen to "A Ghost Is Born" or "Summerteeth" than "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and don't have much use for their later stuff.
I’ll suggest an addenda to anyone’s live album list: my fave, an enduring Top 5 of any stripe, Miles Davis’ Osaka opus, Agharta/Pangaea. Dark Magus, from the same period, not far behind.