In her new album, Juliana Hatfield’s concerns are comeuppance, self-abasement, and the depravity of those who revel in the power to make decisions that can adversely affect others.
Rock
Film Review: The Ventures and The Shadows — Guitar-Driven Instrumental Bands Get the Documentary Treatment
A pair of documentaries about the most popular guitar-driven instrumental bands of all time.
Music Interview: Rickie Lee Jones on her Memoir and Living in the Present Tense
“Then, as now, my focus was on the songs. As long as you can keep your focus on the art that you’re doing, the larger thing it can serve – selling records or whatever – that’ll happen on its own.”
Rock Album Review: Van Morrison’s Latest — A Boatload of Rockers and Bellyaching
Prickly and polemical tunes are surrounded by some of the most enjoyable music Van Morrison has made in years.
Rock Album Review: Reclaimed from the Past — Mark Sandman’s Hypnosonics
Free from the stress of leading a major-label band on the road, Mark Sandman could always return home to Hypnosonics, an alternate vehicle for his elastic vision.
Book Review: “The Search for John Lennon” — Going Down the Wrong Road
In her search for John Lennon, the author follows her fancy and picks and chooses which rocks she wants to look under, all the while giving herself the space to wax poetic on whatever theme moves her. It’s an appealing approach. Too bad then that the book is a let down.
Book Review: “Last Chance Texaco” — Rickie Lee Jones Remembers
Of all the biographies of female musicians I’ve read in the past year, Last Chance Texaco is the most transparent about the vagaries of fame.
Author Interview: Kevin Mattson on a Genuine Culture War — Punks versus Reagan
The real culture war in 1980s America was waged by young people who were trying to create their own culture and jealously rejected corporate culture along the way.
Music Appreciation: Exit Daft Punk
Few bands have shown themselves to be as infectious about their art — and for so long.
Rock Album Reviews: New Musical Anarchy from Paul Leary and the Melvins
Unlike so many of the iconoclasts from the ’80s, these architects of alternative rock stay true to their school.