Camper Van Beethoven Cigarettes & Carrot Juice: The Santa Cruz Years (Spinart) It takes a lot to laugh when you’ve been trained to cry. Like a bunch of bands in the 80s, California dystopians Camper Van Beethoven tried to find a way out of Reagan-era alienation that went beyond the antiauthoritarian knee-jerking of hardcore’s demagogues. […]
Author Archives: Jon Dolan
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Bred in Isolation
Go-Betweens 78 ’til 79: The Lost Album (Jetset) By Jon Dolan Punk’s democratization of rock ‘n’ roll in the late 70s is perhaps the single most romantic moment in the history of the music–at least to those of us who weren’t there to step in the vomit. With the birth of DIY came a support […]
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Hip-Hopping All Over the Map
Various Artists Return of the DJ Volume II (Bomb Hip-hop Records) By Jon Dolan In the 70s rap pioneer Afrika Bambaataa used to ask Bronx party people, “Would you ever dance to the Beatles?” When they shook their sweaty heads smugly he’d smile back, just as smug: “Well,” he’d say, “you did tonight.” He’d go […]
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Where is the Love?
Papas Fritas Helioself (Minty Fresh) By Jon Dolan Throughout the history of pop music, youth (or a reasonable simulacrum thereof) has been one of the few constants: it never seems to get old. Even in the 90s, decades after the death of innocence, the idea of youth can be played with and pulled apart or, […]