Visions of Joanna

Material originally published in vastly different contexts in Time Out Chicago and Stomp & Stammer. I don’t know freak-folk from Continue reading →

99 Albums Reviewed!

Bradford Cox channels Young Thurston Moore? Eventually. Otherwise known as: The Ego Roll.  More or less everything I have reviewed Continue reading →

Bending Ears With Mary Halvorson

Originally published in the New York Sun in 2006. Though she’s only half-way into her first beer of the night, Continue reading →

Winter of Discontent, ‘Summer of the Whore’

Some artists hide behind the scrim of creative license, contending that even the bloodiest confessions are the mere fabric of Continue reading →

Jonathan Lethem Amps It Up

Inside every celebrated Brooklyn novelist is a songwriter struggling to break free. At least, it seems that way. Paul Auster Continue reading →

Jon Langford Saves the Wales

Onstage recently in the back room of Schuba’s Tavern in his adoptive hometown of Chicago, the singer Jon Langford introduced Continue reading →

Berne, Baby, Berne

New York jazz in the 1990s spawned some monstrously good working bands, outfits so keenly focused that they could trigger Continue reading →

R.E.M.: Semi-Automatic for the People

Every year, striving rock acts and feisty independent record labels, indefatigable fans and drink-cadging critics, converge on this Texas college Continue reading →

The NY Sun Files: Plastic People of the Universe

Regimes and revolutions come and go, but the Plastic People of the Universe are forever. Nearly 40 years after its Continue reading →