Music: Serengeti
Ben Bush07.19.09
Novelty rap song or brilliant character portrait? "Dennehy" is the single from Chicago rapper Serengeti’s album of the same name. The…
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
Mark Gluth07.19.09
Quebecois maestro Spencer Krug of the indie avatars Wolf Parade and Frog Eyes also heads up the narrative minded (and now pretty much band-like) unit Sunset Rubdown, which has just released its fourth album, Dragonslayer. Mark Gluth, keeper of the blog Joyful Thing and author of the upcoming book The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis from Akashic Books’ Little House on The Bowery series, reviews.
Book: LIFE AS WE SHOW IT: edited by Brian Pera and Masha Tupitsyn
Michael Louie07.09.09
Lots of people write about film. In fact, one of the easiest things to do might be to write about some movie you just watched, your critique, your…
The Beaches of Agnes (2008): a documentary by/of Agnes Varda
Nancy Keefe Rhodes07.08.09
Agnes Varda has been making films since the inception of the French New Wave, a movement that ushered in the varied likes of Jean Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and the hard boiled cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville. In Les Plages d’Agnès (or The Beaches of Agnès) (2008), Varda makes protean shifts with ease, from philosophical reverie to revealing insights into her relationships both to film and her main squeeze, Jacques Demy, a longtime lover and muse. Nancy Keefe Rhodes reviews.
Book: Infinite Summer
Ben Bush07.06.09
Before leaving for a year abroad in South Korea, I used a razor blade to cut my copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest into four sections:…
Music: XBXRX: Un Usurper
Casey McKinney07.06.09
Like all non-idiots (and please hold the personal heckling till the end here), I love free albums, and like those lucky enough to have experienced…
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
Grant Weber06.27.09
While Beyond may have thrown everyone for a loop that one of the nastiest divorces in rock history was suddenly caput (it was like Burton had returned to Taylor again, and the chemistry was off the charts) – Farm, Dinosaur Jr.’s latest shows maybe there’s no surprises anymore, except that Mascis and crew keep proving louder, stronger and lovelier that they are one of rock’s greatest bands…ever. Take out them earplugs son, let the damage wash beautifully over you. Grant Weber reviews.
Music: Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Casey McKinney06.14.09
You know when you get 5 choices in those little Facebook best of quizzes (well maybe you don’t, maybe you are too busy listening to music, or…
Book: Dennis Cooper: Ugly Man
Casey McKinney06.10.09
Author Dennis Cooper was in the states briefly from Paris, reading from his first book with Harper Perennial, a collection of short fiction called…
James Blackshaw’s New Classic
Brian Howe05.19.09
James Blackshaw is one of Michael Gira’s (of Swans and Angels of Light fame) dashing young gods. That is to say – well at the least – he’s on Gira’s Young God Records label. And as Brian Howe serendipitously concurs, for such a relatively young man, Blackshaw’s music is mythical in its reach, with an uncanny ethereal timelessness to it. Here Howe reviews the new record Glass Bead Game, which is out officially next week, along with a Blackshaw collaboration from 2008, Brethren of the Free Spirit’s The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb.
