Lawrence of Arabia expanded my young awareness not only of what a movie could be, but of what life could be.
Author Archives: Christopher Hill
Posted inArts & Culture
Cowboy Junkies
The name is dumb, the heavy major-label promo for so recondite a band a little suspect; just the same, on their Trinity Sessions LP the Cowboy Junkies have discovered or invented (the unity of their groove is so seamless it doesn’t really make any difference which) a cold quiet place where the old mountain fatalism […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Year in Beer
1988 was the year when beer followed every other conceivable product in the long march “upscale.” Beer tastings. Boutique breweries. Brew pubs. And “hip” beer ads. Hard hats were out. The marketing wizards decided that if you made beer a hip drink you could grow beer bellies on the yuppies as fast as you could […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Game Theory
The marketing people at Game Theory’s label, Enigma, will need their entire families to pray them out of Purgatory for failing to make Game Theory huge by now. Blathering on about “left-of-center pop” when they’ve got the freshest, most inventive, affecting high-energy rock-and-roll band in the nation to promote–well, that’s why the Meat Puppets get […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Steve Forbert
Steve Forbert’s first album presented a persona that was a mix of both calculated innocence and the real article. But Forbert’s genuine innocence was interesting and different, giving his best music an air of something wild and fresh and lost, like a band of young brigands living a life of moonstruck freedom in the Mississippi […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Blue August
“I am a spirit of no common rate, the summer still doth tend upon my state –A Midsummer Night’s Dream In the summer there were ghosts in the deep shaded lanes between the trees, that swam in the swimming air, in the delectable grace and case of the land. The ghost of Elvis came in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Game Theory
You might say that Game Theory is the fruition of the whole “quirky pop” school, except that they’ve traded that format’s dinky-toy irresolution for surging emotionality, rigorous and radical musicianship, and “I Can See for Miles” dynamics. And, by the way, don’t insult them by calling it pop. Game Theory plays breathless, eccentric, hysterical music–just […]
Posted inMusic
A new way to be
Where were you when I laid The foundations of the earth? . . . Who laid its cornerstone in place, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted aloud?–Job 38 : 4-7 The music was new black polished chrome, and it came across the summer like liquid night.–Jim Morrison I […]
Posted inMusic
Great noises of rock ‘n’ roll
I knew that the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me was a great record when I heard Paul Westerberg go “Ooooo!” It happens in the song “Alex Chilton.” It’s a very good ooooo!–classically placed, coming right after a short vocal bridge that comes after a spectacular chorus that comes after the verse, each of which has […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Steve Earle
The money men are nervous ’cause they sense big bucks in this guy, but aren’t sure who to market him to. The critics are nervous because he frustrates their categorical imperative. So–unforgivably–both factions are suggesting he’s Springsteen with a twang, Mellencamp with a beer belly (while Nashville wonders if maybe he’s the next Judds). Screw […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dwight Tilley
The important thing about Dwight Twilley isn’t that he was “ahead of his time,” or even the sad likelihood that he would be rich today if he had released his first album in 1985. It’s that he’s a great rocker–makes great records, does great shows–and has to his credit at least three bona fide, slinky, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dolly Parton
It’s the early 60s. Imagine a Dylan-type who isn’t a product of the New York coffeehouse circuit but instead grew up in the east Tennessee mountains, where children are sung to sleep with ancient Scottish border ballads, songs that folkies like Dylan could only find in songbooks. Imagine that this person goes straight into a […]
Posted inMusic
Say no to pop: Five arguments for the existence of rock ‘n’ roll
I don’t think there is any such thing as pure pop. What matters is what feeds you. Like the way listening to Meet the Beatles thrills a spiritual/physical nerve ending, like breathing pure oxygen. “Pop” is a self-preservative ploy of London music scene partisans—a tasteless, odorless little nothing of a word used to obscure the […]