“…BibliOdyssey started its journey as a cabinet of curiosities of visual Materia Obscura, collected and curated from the depths of public internet archives…”
Charles Bukowski: More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Dr David Stephen Calonne has written and edited a number of books around Beat-era American literature with a particular focus on Charles Bukowski. The recent collection More Notes of a Dirty Old Man will soon be followed by an appraisal for Reaktion’s Critical Lives series. With a James Franco adaptation of Ham on Rye in […]
Keb Mo: The Reflection (Yolabelle International Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Very few people have the right musical DNA to pull off bedroom-soul the way this guy does. Most attempts fall a little short, either too sexed-up, or not chill enough, though mostly it’s a problem with cartoonish vocals, not at issue here. ‘Unadorned’ is the most common adjective used to describe […]
Boba Flex: Hell in My Heart (Megaforce Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger In some-things-never-change news, Megaforce continues its domination over all uber-tight speed-metal bands with this one, which fits in perfectly with what Al Jourgensen and Ministry have been doing within the confines of the label. Like Ministry, the deal here is a southern-fried Texas Chainsaw death-punk approach, although these West Virginian guys […]
Judy Collins: Sweet Judy Blue Eyes
“…Judy Collins has had an extraordinary life, with many tragic turns…And she’s detailed them, along with many of the better times, in her new memoir…”
James Sallis: Drive
“…this is genre-fiction elevated somewhat by a writer who is clearly familiar with the genre that he is subverting…”
The Devil Wears Prada: Dead Throne (Ferret Music)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger This Dayton-based six-some never sounded much like the Christian band they are, and now that they’ve decided they hate screamo (save for ‘My Questions’ here) they sound even more… what am I supposed to say, ferocious. They readily admit that their earlier stuff was kind of stupid, and they’re right; nothing […]
Evidence: Cats and Dogs (Rhymesayer Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger I can definitely sort-of recommend this with a hearty “Eh, this is, you know, OK.” A real-life graffiti artist who’s been around the block enough to be convincing, Evidence is pure LA hiphop, boasting whatever level of cred comes with being part of the Dilated Peoples collective. I’d hate to be […]
Jmaxx: Born To Be Famous (Jmaxx Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger It’s not just the self-release aspect of this annoying little bling-house record that screams vanity from the mountaintop. Judging by the lyrics, this Situation-lookalike is all about boning one Kardashian or the other, and matter of fact, if Kim put out something this disposable she might never live it down. It’s […]
Uh Huh Her: Nocturnes (Plaid Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger I can’t imagine why anyone would have actually disliked this LA chick-electropop band’s first album Common Reaction. But by the same token, it almost seemed a second-thought vanity vehicle for Leisha Hailey, who’s been a little too flighty flipping between music and acting – the latter career’s most notable bullet her […]
Polar Bear Club: Clash Battle Guilt Pride (Bridge Nine Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Lots of start-stop goes on here, nullifying the adrenaline effect an all-out barnburner song might have accomplished, but that’s really the only negative, if you want to call it that. This Rochester punk-pop crew flirts with ’70s-arena ideas, their emo angst given a steroid boost from the vocals of Jimmy Stadt, […]
TV Eye: BBC Fours’s All American season
Jacob Knowles-Smith sits down for a TV dinner with Tom Wolfe Thankfully BBC Four hasn’t been demolished just yet. If it had been, we wouldn’t have had chance to enjoy its recent ‘All American’ season. They say that BBC 2 would absorb the channel’s role, but doubtless this would come with – if not dumbing-down […]
Roger Ebert: Life Itself: A Memoir
“…what makes the memoir so much fun is that it seems like Ebert is just as astounded by it as any chronicler of it would be…”
Neil Leonard: Marcel’s Window (self-released)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Leonard is a jazz sax player out of Philly, bragging a list of associated acts and commissions that numbers in the many dozens, including Boston Ballet and the BBC. He can afford to be generous to a fault with his quintet: after some dinner-patter formalities are out of the way (‘Uritorco’), […]
Ponykiller: The Wilderness (Housecore Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger A for-dummies compaction of King Crimson, Doors and Amboy Dukes, oddly enough from New Orleans. What I mean by “for-dummies” is that the meandering experimentation has been largely removed from the prog aspects, a point that won’t set the world on fire. King Crimson was enough of a drag to listen […]
Patrizio Buanne: Patrizio (Concord Jazz)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger With millions of units sold, this Naples, Italy-born baritone is at a crossroads, crooning in English on his fifth album after relocating to LA in what would appear to be a logical career move. This release has been widely flogged, mostly for a perceived lack of passion that was inherent when […]
Future Media: edited by Rick Wilber
Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith Norman Mailer hated television. He distrusted email. He even hated plastic. Marshall McLuhan was probably right, to some extent, to suggest that Mailer had a Victorian attitude towards technology. Other critics, past and present, will probably find sympathy with Mailer’s assertion that man’s relationship with technology is some kind of Faustian […]
Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett: Five Wounds: An Illuminated Novel
Reviewed by Declan Tan Not every book looks and feels like an artefact when you pick it up. Oftentimes it is just words printed across cheap paper, the literal form of it separated from its content, cased in a merely functional cover with some gluey binding. But with Five Wounds, an “illuminated novel”, the very […]
The Veda Rays: Gamma Rays Galaxy Rays Veda Rays (Alleged Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger It’s nice when your average everyday rock band doesn’t just patch together some influences but actually demonstrates shared ground between sounds. These Brooklynites, when not time-sharing between Hives and Kaiser Chiefs, are shoegazers with purpose and obvious deep reserves of listening experience – perhaps the proudest achievement here is when they […]
Pallers: The Sea of Memories (Labrador Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Johan Angergård may run Labrador Records, but this project, comprised of him as half of an electronica duo, isn’t a sloppy vanity release. I don’t know if I agree with other critics that this is all that “blissed out”, since after some shoegazey rinsing-down in opener ‘Another Heaven’, the pair settles […]
Kevin Avery: Everything Is An Afterthought: The Life And Writings Of Paul Nelson
Reviewed by Robert O’Connor Frank Zappa once said “most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.” However true that might be, Paul Nelson was one who most definitely could write. And he interviewed people who could talk, and plenty of people read what he wrote. […]
Greenland is Melting: Where Were We (Paper + Plastick Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger This Gainsville-based unplugged-punk unit would be a perfect warm-up for Mumford & Sons, from their banjo-banging hillbilly depravity to their raspy, drunken vocals, which reveal these fellers as heavy users of Kings of Leon (there are dead-on imitations of Caleb Followill, most prominently on ‘Always’, which will undoubtedly pose problems in […]
Yellow Dubmarine: Abbey Dub (Goldlion Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Honky-reggae-ized Beatles tribute band from Maryland set up like a NOLA jazz octet. Beatles fans are universally despised creatures, still gobbling up anything to do with a band that broke up forty years ago; so this is for them, as only they could find a cute one-drop family-barbecue version of ‘Octopus’s […]
TV Eye: Bored to Death and Desperate Housewives
Gender agenda: Jacob Knowles-Smith on men without women, dysfunctional families, and killer whales After many years of not watching Friends on any of the Channel 4 family of stations, since they flogged it to Comedy Central, I’ve suddenly been spending entire Saturday afternoons watching episode after episode. Now that the show is no longer the […]
Candice Millard: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Reviewed by Greg Houle Long relegated to history’s vast nether regions of obscurity, the twentieth president of the United States, James A. Garfield is best known for two things: he was the last of the American presidents to be born in a log cabin (in Ohio in 1831), and he was the second American president […]