Over the years I’ve come to a realization – some of my favorite songs have really stupid lyrics, and some of my favorite lyrics are in songs I’m not a big fan of or, in at least one case, I can’t stand. As a result, I put the following question to my fellow Scrogues: what […]
Tag Archives: Music & Popular Culture
Jim Booth guest commentary over at Southern Creatives
If you’ve been paying attention you know that our boy Jim Booth recently published a novel. And that it’s really good. And that it presents us with the opportunity to consider fame and substance at war over the soul of an artist. He has now authored a guest essay on “Southern Rock Stardom, Postmodernism, and […]
The incompleteness of the soul: an insider's non-review of Completeness of the Soul: The Life and Opinions of Jay Breeze, Rock Star
I’ve been thinking about Completeness of the Soul: The Life and Opinions of Jay Breeze, Rock Star, the third novel from my friend and fellow scrogue Jim Booth. I finished reading it a few days ago, but for me it’s been a slightly disjointed experience because I’ve seen most of it in its pieces before: chapters like […]
Norwegian Wood: peace and love and senseless murder
By Patrick Vecchio I have a jukebox in my brain that starts playing as soon as I get out of bed. It plays all day long unless my mind is occupied. Music at the start of the day is not necessarily a good thing, because sometimes I hate the song. This morning, for example, it […]
TunesDay: Ryan Shaw is in the house
The new Ryan Shaw CD dropped today and I’m giddy as a schoolgirl at her first sock hop. Shaw has one of the absolute best pure voices in the entire neo-Soul genre – maybe the best. It’s like listening to Otis or Marvin or Wilson Pickett or, in more recent days, the criminally underappreciated Malford Milligan. […]
This just in: the surviving members of Aerosmith sell out (BIG TIME), and can somebody get Mr. Perry a tissue?
It has been observed, here and elsewhere, what a fucking embarrassment Steven Tyler has become. Once Aerosmith was among America’s greatest bands, and today they occupy the #5 spot (with a bullet) on my Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen list. It was refreshing, then, when Joe Perry brought the hammer down on his silly-ass […]
TunesDay Special: a fond goodbye to Earl Scruggs
Earl Scruggs, the legendary master of the bluegrass banjo, is dead at 88. It was just a few days ago that I was writing about the music that I grew up with, and rest assured, Flatt & Scruggs were welcome in the Smith household. There’s honestly not a lot I can say that I feel is […]
What the hell happened to country music?
Friend: Hey, Yogi, I think we’re lost. Yogi Berra: Yeah, but we’re making great time! It’s probably clear to anybody who pays attention that I’m a rock & roll guy. But I was raised by my grandparents, two country folks who were born in 1913 and 1914 respectively and grew up through the Great Depression. […]
If only there were an American Idol for grown-ups: how to market new, indie music to an adult audience?
Once upon a time, marketing music must have been so simple: in the ’50s you just bribed a local DJ and off you went. By the ’80s it was a little more complicated – in addition to cash you needed to bring coke and hookers, but still, it was a straightforward process and everybody understood […]
Saturday Video Roundup: it was 20 years ago today…
On September 24, 1991, a little-known band from Seattle released a CD called Nevermind. Nothing was ever the same again.
Former REM producer comments on the band's break-up
Don Dixon and Mitch Easter co-produced REM’s first two (and arguably best) albums, Murmur and Reckoning. S&R contacted Dixon earlier today to ask if he had any thoughts on the band’s break-up. Here’s what he had to say. I’ll miss R.E.M. but I completely understand why they’re calling it quits. I haven’t spoken with anyone in […]
Sunday Video Roundup: a 9/11 special
Today, if we choose to listen, we’ll hear a great deal about America, about the last decade, about the lessons we’ve learned. Football will be played. Flags will be waved. Tears will be shed. And tomorrow we’ll be exactly what we were yesterday, only moreso. Maybe today is a bad time for critiques. Or maybe […]
Alphabet City
Life on the road with punk funk trio Doco as told by bassist Josh Booth New York is being overrun by time travelers. I’m pretty sure the band that played after us was an actual New Wave band on tour from the 1980s. There is a ban on smoking in public parks, but the time […]
What CD have you listened to more than any other?
We all have our favorite artists and songs and albums. Even those of us who listen to a lot of different styles and have thousands of CDs in our collections undoubtedly have a few we keep coming back to more than others. While I have never really had this discussion with anyone, I imagine that […]
S&R Honors
Click here to learn more about past honorees...- Profiling the Tea Party: In defense of the IRS. Sorta. Or not.
- Saturday Video Roundup: “Imagine the Band,” by John Lennon and Wings
- The Rest is Noise (6)—Descent into the Maelstrom
- I hate handguns, but I have still considered owning one
- Redneck jokes are racist
- Mystery Unraveled: How a white, moderate, married, churchgoing, middle-class, middle-aged woman could vote for Obama
- An open letter to Burt Rutan, regarding his WSJ commentary on human-caused climate disruption
- Meet the men of Match.com: Really, guys, are you serious?
- Climate scientists still besieged
- Pelosi on Bush: “He’s not worth impeaching”
-
wufnik: Thanks Jim. I haven't read the Danto book, but I s…
-
Lex: I'm glad i'm not a Progressive, because not being …
-
Jim Booth: Wonderful piece, Wufnik. I'm currently reading Art…
-
Fnay: Having recently put three kids through college (tw…
-
satanicpanic: I've thought about this myself. Other than needin…
