Robert O’Connor enters the madcap publishing empire of Wilford Hamilton Fawcett, home of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang and Captain Marvel during a golden age of comics Captain Billy’s Wild Creation The musical The Music Man is chock-full of references to the American Midwest and the America of 1912, especially in the song ‘Trouble’, sung by […]
Christopher Hitchens: Arguably (Atlantic Books)
Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith The critic, wrote H.L. Mencken in his Prejudices, “makes the work of art live for the spectator; he makes the spectator live for the work of art”. If we take this as a fair and desirable definition of a critic; which, Mencken continues, results in “understanding, appreciation, [and] intelligent enjoyment”; then […]
Ladytron: Gravity the Seducer (Nettwerk)
Reviewed by Amanda Simms Ladytron return with their trademark, ethereal electronica on Gravity the Seducer, showcasing the dichotomy of what they do best: flittering from catchy sharp electro to layered and dreamy. Simple and chilled, ‘White Elephant’ is a strange choice for an opener that would perhaps put non-Ladyton listeners off as it doesn’t signify […]
Jenn Mierau: Hush (Galactique Recordings)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Montreal-based Mierau has her google-eyed-chick moves down, but with so many google-eyed chicks around there’s little to do to set oneself apart from the pack but slow it down a little more and get more spacey, which she accomplishes in ‘Hushabye’, a series of half-whispered loops over backward-mask loops and all […]
Mambo Legends Orchestra: Ten Cuidao! Watch Out! (Zoho Music)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Being the remaining contingent of Tito Puente’s band, Mambo Legends Orchestra is essentially the Latin reply to today’s Count Basie Orchestra, aiming to preserve the vibrancy of 40s/50s core mambo and salsa – there’s no better band to do the job, obviously, than the one on this two-disker. Frankie Vazquez’ heavy/slithery […]
TV Eye: Boardwalk Empire
This week, Jacob Knowles-Smith ponders whether its us or them to blame for the muted response to HBO’s lavish series Wikipedia is a killer. A plot killer, that is. Before its advent, the history of a period drama like HBO’s Boardwalk Empire would be known only by those with an interest in prohibition-era American history. […]
Infinite Jest: An Interview with Richard Herring
For comedy aficionados, Richard Herring needs no introduction. So we’re not going to give him one. Declan Tan asks the questions What is it you strive for in your shows? Mainly to make people laugh, but along with that I suppose my main goal is doing so in an original way and hopefully also producing […]
Funny Peculiar: An Interview with Dave Stordy
In the first of a double bill, Declan Tan interviews struggling comic Dave Stordy about Bobby Davro, Sedgways and the bleaker side of stand-up Dave Stordy is a comedian. So is Richard Herring, but we’ll get to him in a bit. Right now, Stordy is writing a bit revolving around our quite casual and uneventful […]
Hit By The Eidôlon: Abstraction as Phenomenal Experience
MANIAC (Multi-media Artist Network Idea Exchange and Collaboration) is a loose collective of twenty-three international artists connected principally through social media. Thyrza Nichols Goodeve introduces MANIAC’s second exhibition, first shown at Sacramento’s Brickhouse Art Gallery in June 2011. Manic Episode 2 explores the relationship between image, material and space in media such as site-specific sculpture, […]
Wyld Olde Souls: Ensoulment (My Generation Productions)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger With Florence and the Machine making Grace Slick cool again, it’s important to pay attention to every bunch of second-hand hippy fashion plates that barge in. Album opener ‘Ferris Wheel’ dredges up every 60s acid-pop trick in the book, including an irresistible Spanky And Our Gang vocal round and phase-shifting the […]
Dida Pelled: Plays and Sings (Indie Europe Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger My great hopes for this jazz-guitar record were negated, but that’s a preference thing, so don’t let that stop you if you’re into standards as examined by subdued, dreamy, barely-plugged guitar. Dida Pelled studied at Thelma Yellin High School Of The Arts in Tel Aviv, the go-to school for jazz talent […]
Dream Team: The Brothers Quay
In 1995, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve interviewed twin brothers Timothy and Stephen Quay about their beautiful full-length debut Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life. Many thanks to the author for permission to reprint in full. The animated-puppet worlds of the Brothers Quay have entranced art cinephiles since 1979. Seemingly made by miniature shadow-fairies […]
Heidegger: Hederated or With Hakenkreuz?
Martin Heidegger: Routledge Critical Thinkers (2nd ed.), Timothy Clark. 197 pages. Routledge, London and New York. Reviewed by Jonathan Reynolds As postmodernism has faded for professional intellectuals in the West and also, still, because of his engagement with Nazism (unsettled whether flirtation or serious or profound), Heidegger is the one major modern philosopher who remains […]
Hear No Evil: Continuum 33 1/3 Music Series
33 1/3 has been publishing some of the smartest and sparkiest music books for just shy of a decade. These slim volumes can be devoured in a single hit but the best of them roll around your mind for days. David Barker is series editor. We asked him to colour in the background behind the […]
Steve Lipman: There’s A Song In My Heart (Locomotion Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger What rapturous justice that this Sinatra-loving dentist (from Connecticut!) has released a terrible vanity album that I can torture with impunity! Just like all of you people, I’m staring down the barrel of tens of thousands of dollars of dental work – do all those guys honestly think people have brand […]
Mike Bloom: King of Circles (Little Record Company)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Though mostly a one-man operation run by a Julian Casablancas solo band associate, this project has a money trail leading to actor Tobey Maguire, who funded it up to the time it was picked up by a new record label from Pierre de Reeder, itself bankrolled in turn by de Reeder’s […]
TV Eye: Downton Abbey and The Story of Film: An Odyssey
This week, Jacob Knowles-Smith takes on the 20th century as seen through the cinema lens and the eyes of Julian Fellowes It is curious that since the first series of Downton Abbey (ITV 1) the BBC has also made an effort to create period dramas set in the 20th, rather than 18th or 19th, century. […]
Naima Mora: Galaxy of Tar
Best known as the mohawk-sporting outsider who won America’s Next Top Model, Naima Mora prefers being the vocalist for the prog-inclined Galaxy of Tar. Jeanette Hewitt tracked her down First brought to my attention as the softly spoken and serene multi-cultural young lady whose silky smooth voice contrasted deeply with her punk-rock exterior, Naima Mora, […]
Dog Man’s A Star: Howard Hardiman’s The Lengths
A comic book that tells the story of dog-headed gay male escorts living in a London world of sex, drug dealers and porn stars isn’t going to be the easiest sell to a casual reader. Certainly The Lengths won’t be for everyone, but Hardiman has taken this dark and potentially bleak backdrop and created a […]
Performance and the Art of Lesley Dill
Lesley Dill’s work begins with language and extends, through many shapes and forms, to the body and the community. Thyrza Nichols Goodeve’s essay ‘Words have Wings that Fly from the Mouths of Others’ (1, see footnotes below) first appeared in the catalogue for Dill’s 2009/2010 retrospective I Heard a Voice. Many thanks to the author […]
Last Winter: The Heart and the Broken Compass (Six Degrees Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Last Winter have a lot of things not-going for them. One, they’re from Florida. Worse, they’re from Orlando. And last, they’re trying to find safe haven for their unadventurous rawk in the plain-vanilla waters of the emo-rock Bermuda Triangle, hoping to survive the soulless vortex that’s swallowed so many Vans Tour […]
Karmacoda: Eternal (Sola Musa Music)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger This column offers safe haven for all trip-hop comers, even this debatable effort from the stubbornly DIY San Fran threesome. Obviously the fetish is there, being that they kinda-sorta named the band after a Massive Attack tune, so points for fanboyism get chalked up from the get-go. But the electronics are […]
Ipswich Zero 6: A Meeting with Ray Hollingsworth
There’s nothing new about writers using real crimes for research, but Ray Hollingsworth’s involvement in the high-profile murders of Ipswich working girls became a lot more personal. Jeanette Hewitt met the author to find out more In 2006, my hometown of Ipswich was catapulted into the global media by a serial killer preying on the […]
Female Stockholm Syndrome: Beauty CULTure
Vanessa Libertad Garcia drops into Los Angeles’ stunning Annenberg Space for Photography for an exhibition exploring how processed imagery influences our notions of beauty In Los Angeles, we drive a lot. It can take anywhere between half an hour to two and a half hours depending on traffic to make it from one part of […]
Jill McGivering: Far from my Father’s House
Jill McGivering is a BBC foreign correspondent and has reported from all over the world, including some of its poorest and most conflict scarred countries. In Far from my Father’s House, her second novel, she employs her wealth of experience in the field to tell tale of Layla, a young Muslim woman, and the destruction […]
