When bad songs happen to good people. The Scottish-born singer/songwriter Donovan has a slew of remarkable songs, inspired everyone from Jeff Beck to World Party (he even taught John Lennon how to finger pick on the guitar), and easily moved from folk, to pop, to jazz to psychedelic. But to many people, he is simply that guy who sang “Mello Yellow,” that acid-drenched, tie dyed novelty song that sounds exactly…
Thanks to the new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie, the late 60’s/early 70’s vampire soap Dark Shadows is finally getting some much needed mainstream pop culture love. Granted there have been some diehard fans over the past few decades, but the proto-goth TV series has never had the opportunity to reach such a wide audience before now (despite some unfortunate reboots of the series). So it makes perfect sense that the…
David Simon and Eric Overmyer – best known for HBO’s The Wire – were under tremendous pressure to follow up that critical darling with their second HBO outing: Treme. Despite the obvious moans about it being too different from The Wire, the Post-Katrina take on the locals trying to go about life in New Orleans was one of the best things on TV when it debuted two years ago. Proving…
With Tough Sh*t, his latest self-confessional memoir, director Kevin Smith proves that absolutely nothing is off limits when it comes to opening up about his personal life and experiences in Hollywood. From sex with his wife (including a hilariously uncomfortable essay about her backside) to working with Bruce Willis on Cop Out (another essay about an ass), Smith is refreshingly honest and quite possibly the author of the funniest memoir…
There is something satisfyingly appropriate about a bio that focuses on Pulitzer Prize winning novelist John Kennedy Toole that is actually unable to answer many of the questions about the mysteries in his life. That’s not to say Cory MacLauchlin’s take on the author’s life is not well-researched; it is and as a result is a compelling read. It’s just that Toole wasn’t successful until years after his suicide and…
Born out of friendship between Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s Kevn Kinney and The Golden Palomino’s drummer Anton Fier (also with the Feelies, Bob Mould Band, etc.), A Good Country Mile takes the best influences from both and a slew of 60’s and 70’s rockers resulting in an unforgettable slab of Blues-soaked Americana, punctuated beautifully with plenty of harmonica and Hammond organ. The record includes some new material, some inspired covers…
Tired of screaming your kid’s name at the playground and realizing that every other parent in the neighborhood also had the brilliant idea to name their offspring “Connor” or “Emma”? Then have I got the book for you. Rock and Roll Baby Names by freelance writer, former DJ and music obsessive Margaret Eby is the must-have for that expectant couple with just a slightly better taste in music than your…
For a whole legion of new fans, Johnny Cash is the bad ass guy in black who covered Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode; is on a poster in dorm room walls across the country giving a defiant middle finger to the camera; stood in front of prisoners in Folsom and San Quentin, doped out of his mind, and openly mocked the prison guards during live concerts. And yes,…
If there were ever a college course designed around the study of Grunge (and you know there likely is) Mark Yarm’s exhaustive study of the Seattle music scene Everybody Loves Our Town is the only text book you will ever need to buy. Just released in paperback, the book is the alpha and omega on the genre that killed hair metal. Told entirely in direct quotes, oral history style, the…
We’ve come to expect that books, even memoirs, by comedians will be… well, funny. That’s not the case with up-and-coming stand up Moshe Kasher’s autobiography of his childhood. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are some funny asides and anecdotes, but that’s a result of the author just being naturally humorous and self-deprecating. But on the whole, Kasher in the Rye is a dark look at a tragic childhood a…
You’d be forgiven for assuming Morgan Christopher Geer (aka Drunken Prayer) called Austin, hell even Nashville, home. But he’s actually from Portland, home to so many sound alike hipster bands. That alone should bring some added attention to his latest, Into the Missionfield, a nice blend of folk and alt country. With some dark themes, but surprisingly sweet melodies, he can sing about the devil taking your soul (“Always So…
It’s easy to compare Myth of the American Sleep Over, the debut film by David Robert Mitchell, to Rickard Linklater’s classic take on high school Dazed and Confused. It’s easy, yes, but also pretty damn accurate. Myth of the American Sleep Over focuses on a group of teens in the Detroit suburbs clinging to the last few days of summer, searching for romance. Comprised of unknown actors, and set in…
Meet contemporary fiction’s latest anti-hero, an out of shape 20-something suburban druggie, mooching off his divorced parents who has never worked a day in his life and really has no plans to as long as he can live in his mom’s basement and count on dad’s money to buy more pot. Flatscreen’s Eli Schwartz is the a latest character to take that well-trodden path in coming-of-age fiction, but thanks to…
There is something hilarious about a guy who gets paid to take the stage in front of hundreds night after night and sing “Fuck Authority” at the top of his lungs, reprimand his pre-teen daughter for using a naughty word at home. The Other F Word is the brilliant documentary by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins based partly on ex-Pennywise front man Jim Lindberg’s 2008 memoir Punk Rock Dad. The film features…
Who would have imagined that a drama set in a medieval fantasy world would have any appeal beyond the Lord of the Rings obsessive’s and those guys playing Magic in the back of the comic book store. Based on a series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, the series, quite possible the best thing to come out of HBO in over a decade (and yes, I know about The…
Weeds – the Showtime comic/drama about a widowed suburban mom who turns to drug dealing to make money – has always been a victim of its own success. The first couple of seasons were remarkably fresh, with quirky supporting characters and even quirkier plot points then it ran into a wall trying to one-up the original premise. Drug dealing led to smuggling and then marrying a corrupt Mexican mayor/cartel leader,…
Considering all of the music bio pics that have been made over the past few years there has surprisingly never been one based (yet) on Queen, one of the most outrageous stadium-filling rock bands of the 70’s and 80’s (and that’s saying a lot when you consider how outrageous those decades were for rock bands). Until that inevitable film is made, this music documentary on the British band serves as…
Austin’s Cotton Mather reside in that category of extremely talented/highly underrated bands, a slot that has included groups like Jellyfish, Big Star and Teenage Fanclub to name just a very few. That has, thankfully not stopped The Star Apple Kingdom label for re-releasing Kontiki, their best album, in an impressive two disc set. Originally put out in 1997, when the general public was inexplicable shelling out cash for The Spice…
Lyle Lovett has finally hit that point in his career where he can turn in a covers album and not be accused of simply fulfilling a contract agreement or tossing out a record as a desperate last grab for relevancy or to make the next mortgage payment (I’m looking at you Rod Stewart). Ok, so the fact that this is his last record for longtime label Curb may have just…
U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens has been pretty busy lately. After showing up in two books by Elmore Leonard, the character was given his own TV show on FX, the critical darling Justified. So what better time than to trot him back out onto the printed page. In Raylan, Leonard’s 200th or so book (I’m guessing here), the ex-Kentucky coal miner/current marshal is back in another of the author’s finest. Like…