review

People Funny BoyThe Genius of Lee “Scratch” Perryby David Katz I love the Clash, and if your love of the Clash is true, you love reggae as well. And if you love both, you know who Lee “Scratch Perry is. And, if you know who Lee “Scratch” Perry is, you also know his reputation. Super Ape, along with King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, changed my life and opened a whole new world to me. I just can’t get enough of...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Ponderosa Bunchgrass and the Golden Rule LP by The Oot n’ Oots. I confess that I have sat on this review (or rather, have dragged my feet on writing this review) for an unreasonably long time. A lot of that had to do with the fact that I honestly had no idea how to approach it; The Oot N’ Oots (the band itself) and Ponderosa Bunchgrass and the Golden Rule (the...

The Dark Knight Strikes Againby Frank Miller Isn’t this what everyone wanted? We all loved The Dark Knight Returns. I think at the time we saw it as an edgy dark take on a beloved superhero. A recent reread kind of puts the story, and Frank Miller, more in perspective. It’s super simplistically libertarian, man. Just, WOW. I don’t know if Miller is capable of being self-aware. One thing for sure is, he definitely doesn’t think it’s fascism if the...

A Nightmare on Elm Street 7-Film Collection Horror movies are tricky, aren’t they? I mean, they shouldn’t be. Why would a genre be tricky? I’ll tell you why. Because most horror movies aren’t scary. They’re either dumb or dependent on jump cuts. At least lately they are. Don’t believe me? Just look at Midsommar (dumb), Sinners (dumb), or Malevolent (jump cuts but also really dumb). What’s really scary is a smart script. Ironically, it’s what horror movies nowadays are also...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Bambara’s Birthmarks LP. Frances Bacon may have famously claimed that, “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present,” but he couldn’t possibly have accounted for the darkness sounding as fine as it does on Birthmarks, Bambara’s fifth studio album. Bands like The Dirty Three might ring bells in comparable quality, but they are all similar only in perfectly abstract terms and prove it as, for the...

Bloodshot Bill So Fed Up (Goner Records) The moment I first saw Bloodshot Bill will forever be burned into both my eyeballs and my memory. It was at the Middle East in Cambridge while waiting for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion to go on. And here comes this guy, wearing a robe, hair slicked back, armed with nothing but a guitar, bass drum and hi hat. What followed was thirty minutes of raging thunder honky tonk country music powered by...

Jurassic World: Rebirth Life is full of surprises, and you gotta be open to letting them happen. That breakfast sandwich you never cared for can somehow suddenly hit the spot. That album you never understood can suddenly resonate. My Hollywood surprise of the year is Jurassic World: Rebirth. The Jurassic Park IP has been squalid for decades. The best it could do was that Chris Pratt meme where he holds his hands open towards the raptors. What was he...

“SOLE! SOLE! SOLE!” “HAT! HAT! HAT!” “PUP! PUP! PUP!” I can’t believe I get to go to the punk guitarist who went on the Doughboys Podcast’s band’s show! Just kidding. I’ve been listening to PUP for years now, and have been finding that, as I age, I appreciate their music more. Their new album Who Will Look After the Dogs will probably break our Top 10 of the year. Jeff Rosenstock is a no brainer. He was once the best...

Pearl Jam Dark Matter Whoa! Did we miss this one? I can’t imagine! I saw this record on my shelf and was sure we had reviewed it, but I can’t find it in the archives! Is it there and I missed it? Did we never review it? Does this mean I might re-review it? Possibly! Much to your enjoyment and my enjoyment (because I enjoy reviewing good records). Yeah, it’s a shame because this is a damn fine record. Pearl...

Sinners I can’t help but blame myself for watching these kinds of movies. And by “these movies” I mean movies that are highly acclaimed, and I don’t do my homework to figure out where my expectations should be. I’m so disappointed in this movie, but who I really should be disappointed in is myself. Do I even have the energy for a “long” review about Sinners? Let me start rambling and see where it takes me. Sinners was the...