Tag: Vol. 35 No. 25

This Baltimore duo really has a way with bad ideas. On the new Socialize (Suicide Squeeze), Anar Badalov and Flora Wolpert-Checknoff seem to be playing a game of aesthetic chicken, daring each other to come up with the least appropriate thing to do in an intimate, downcast indie-rock tune. That would explain the coupling of […]

The consensus among fans of Steve Wynn, founder of the Dream Syndicate and a central figure in LA’s 80s paisley underground scene, is that he’s been on a serious roll for the better part of a decade. With the new . . . Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick (released on his […]

The core members of Balkan Beat Box, reedist Ori Kaplan and drummer Tamir Muskat, are regulars on the polyglot New York underground scene that’s best known for spawning Gogol Bordello. In fact Kaplan used to play sax with those self-styled Gypsy punks, and Muskat worked with lunatic Gogol front man Eugene Hutz a couple years […]

Thelonious Monk is best remembered for his classic quartet recordings, but he applied his keen ear to other formats as well. In the late 40s he wrote for multiple horns and Milt Jackson’s vibraphone; in the late 50s and early 60s he worked with composer Hall Overton to produce terrific orchestrations of his songs for […]

Jeffrey Moore’s erudite novel The Memory Artists, newly out in paperback from St. Martin’s Griffin, uses an intriguing cast of characters to examine the peculiarities of the mind. Noel Burun is a hyperintelligent but emotionally addled thirtysomething synesthete–he experiences sounds as colors. He’s also hypermnesic, blessed (or afflicted) with near perfect recall. At the other […]

Ray Price, a crucial figure in country who transformed it in the 50s and 60s with hits like “Crazy Arms,” “Heartaches by the Number,” and “City Lights,” still performs and records today, at age 80. A Texas native, he began playing out shortly after a stint as a marine during World War II, though his […]