newcritics

Newcritics is a year old this week and Tom asked us all to do an anniversary post about the one media moment that moved us the most. When I think back over the past twelve months, the first year of newcritics, I can think of many photographs, paintings, books, movies, songs, albums, and TV shows [...]

I suppose that Ben Lee’s bubblegum pop is something that I should leave for my teenage girls, but honestly I love him as much as they do. We’ve been digging his records in our home since his 1995 record, Grandpaw Would. That record has one of the great odes to making music on it, the [...]

I had a dream last night that The Gotham Gal and Josh and I were at a Neil Young show, right up front, and during an acoustic version of Powderfinger, Neil invited The Gotham Gal to join him on acoustic guitar. She was great by the way.
That dream ended in the Boston Garden in 1979 [...]

Don’t worry darling, we’re living in the future and none of this has happened yet - Bruce Springsteen, Livin’ In The Future, Magic
Click to listen to Livin’ In The Future

Bruce Springsteen has been relevant as a musician and cultural icon since he hit the scene with Greetings From Asbury Park thirty-five years ago. That’s an [...]

When the Rolling Stones lost Mick Taylor, they lost that special sauce that made the recipe just perfect. Ron Woods is ok. Brian Jones was better. But Mick Taylor was something entirely different. When Mick Taylor was in the band, The Rolling Stones were the greatest rock band ever. Period.
Mick Taylor was a force in [...]

Two years ago, Jason Chervokas posted this July 4th podcast.
I’ve listened every July 4th for the past three years and I hope to do it every July 4th from now on.
Let’s see, you get Curtis Mayfield, Walt Whitman (the man himself), Marvin Gaye, and John Kennedy. And a bunch more.
There’s really not much more to [...]

Tony Alva has this picture prominently displayed on the front page of his blog.
I’ve been thinking of The Glimmer Twins and their whiskey rock period which in my mind spans three records; Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile On Main Street. Whiskey Rock is based in the roots music of the southern US and [...]

Any movie with that name is going to get my attention. Then I saw that the leading roles are played by Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle and that’s all it took to get onto my “must see” list. Fortunately it was on the “must see” list for the Gotham Gal and my kids too. So [...]

I was going through my email yesterday morning in the kitchen listening to WEHM over the Internet (via our Sonos system) and came across an email from Tony Alva with a link to Bob Lefsetz’ Radio Last post.
Sanyo Transistor Clock Radio, 1960’s - Originally uploaded by Roadsidepictures
The Lefsetz post really isn’t about radio, it’s [...]

Josh, our 11-year-old son, came home from school the other day singing the classic Who song, My Generation. He turned to me and shouted:

Why Don’t You All FFFFade Away
And Don’t Try To Dig What We All SSSay
I laughed. That song wasn’t even the rallying cry of my generation. But I sang it that way [...]