If I'm not updating the website, it means I'm busy, which is good, right?Continuing developments goin' on in the background, but here in the foreground, my PopMatters column from last month about Donald Trump and propaganda music. May have some announcements coming up. Blind Engineer continues its work on the EP; we're getting close to… Continue reading Day Late, Dollar Short
Category: Music Criticism
Catching Up: Ties That Bind and More
My latest column at PopMatters is up: "Bruce Springsteen, 'The Ties That Bind,' the Working Class and Authenticity." Which pretty much explains what the column is about.Also, I didn't post my previous column here. That one was part 2 of this series on working class music and focused on John Lennon's "Working Class Hero." Read… Continue reading Catching Up: Ties That Bind and More
Blind Engineer Shows and a Springsteen Review
The Blind Engineer has two shows coming up. I'm playing Friday Dec. 11 at the Mingo Town Music Acoustic Holiday Party, a five-hour extravaganza featuring pretty much all the artists on MTM: Harvest Kings, Heartbreak Orchestra, Devil Doves, Al Smyth's FBnCC, Apple Bottom Gang, Jake Follrod, and Jon Schaer. Eric and Jesse will join me,… Continue reading Blind Engineer Shows and a Springsteen Review
Ordinary Life: Greil Marcus’ New Books and Extended Thoughts
I was fortunate enough to review Greil Marcus' two new books, Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations and Real Life Rock, for the Los Angeles Review of Books. The review is now up. Please consider checking out the many fantastic writers and thinkers at LARB, which has quickly become one of my favorite sites.
I don't have much in the way of extended thoughts, but here's a bit more....
Updates: Ties That Bind, Blind Engineer and More
My new column is up at PopMatters here. "A Town Called Malice" takes a look at the state of working-class music from the US to the UK. As you might guess, it grew out of thinking about The Jam, one of my favs, after watching the recent documentary About the Young Idea. I hope this… Continue reading Updates: Ties That Bind, Blind Engineer and More
Ties That Bind: Sound Is Our Weapon
My new column is up at PopMatters this morning. Titled "Sound Is Our Weapon: Protest Music and Black Lives Matter," it started out as me simply listening to Janelle Monae and Wondaland's "Hell You Talmbout" and Rhiannon Giddens' "Cry No More" and, as you can read, it became something more than that.
Ties That Bind: Rockists v. Poptimists
My new "Ties That Bind" column is up at PopMatters today, so as the Tom Tom Club said, check it out y'all. The subject this month is the fabled "rockist v. poptimist" debate, which I generally think impoverishes the way we talk about music despite the major benefit of more inclusivity brought about by the… Continue reading Ties That Bind: Rockists v. Poptimists
Extended Thoughts on Scenes of Love and Theft
I said I'd post some extended thoughts on Elijah Wald's Dylan Goes Electric! and Stephen Witt's How Music Got Free and by God I'm going to do it. But, if you haven't read my review of those books in the Los Angeles Review of Books, do that first, otherwise none of what follows will be in context. And hey, show LARB some love. I enjoyed working with my editor Michael Goetzman on what became a long review essay of something like 3700 words. Usually, as I work, I keep a "notes and outtakes" document running; that document for this essay was nearly 12000 words. There's a lot to discuss, but some of it I'll hold off on because it may show up in the chapter on Dylan I'm writing for Nothing Has Been Done Before.
When I decided to review the two books together using the theme of transgression with Great White Wonder as the link between them, I underestimated just how much I was tackling. So I had to make some hard decisions about what made the cut and what didn't. With both books, some of the more typical "book review" elements got cut. That's not uncommon with review essays, which function in a different way, but I've included a lot of those below.
Scenes of Love and Theft and the Midwestern Work Ethic or Something
Scattered updates must mean I'm busy, which is a good thing. My article "Scenes of Love and Theft: Bob Dylan, Piracy, and Cultures of Transgression" for the Los Angeles Review of Books should be up today. It reviews two new books: Elijah Wald's Dylan Goes Electric! and Stephen Witt's How Music Got Free. (Edit: Here's… Continue reading Scenes of Love and Theft and the Midwestern Work Ethic or Something
Ties That Bind, Dylan, More Dylan
My new column for PopMatters went up today. Titled "A Nightly Ritual: Bob Dylan's Never-Changing Set Lists," it reviews his May 16, 2015 show here in Columbus and examines the mini-controversy over his set list, which is very heavy on recent songs. I didn't end up cutting much unless you count everything I left out of the review--which, as LeBron James has been saying lately, is "everything." The challenge of writing about Dylan isn't just saying something new, it's choosing how to narrow down your focus when there's so much his music touches.
Robert Loss 