review

Murray McLauchlan Love Can’t Tell Time (True North Records) When your body of work spans nineteen albums released over a 46-year period, it’s obvious that your love affair with music is a lifelong one. Such is really the only way it could be possible to take Love Can’t Tell Time, Murray McLauchlan’s newest release – by the singer’s own admission, the album is, “A great collection of songs I love to play when I have no other agenda than just...

Moonglow by Michael Chabon I know we run a column here on Ground Control called I Wanna Be Literated but the fact is we’re not literary guys here on the site. We know what we like, but we’re not going to argue for or against an Oxford comma, for example. One thing is clear, though: this reviewer definitely has a soft spot for Michael Chabon. I first heard about Chabon on the Simpsons (again, we are NOT literary guys) and...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP reissue of Surrender by The Chemical Brothers. Then as now, the conventional wisdom is that Dig Your Own Hole has the biggest of The Chemical Brothers’ entries into the mainstream but, for this critic’s money, the greatest creative triumph of the group’s storied career is their third full-length, Surrender. With Surrender, the group had the mainstream’s attention and knew it, but rather than shying away or being evasive of their...

Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong No matter how much you think you know about Seinfeld, there’s always more to uncover. I considered myself a fan of the show ever since I would watch the live broadcast back in high school. But it’s only several years later when the show was being released on DVD in these nifty box sets that I decided to actually commit and rewatch the entire series. By then Seinfeld...

I knew when I first saw Hampton Yount on Conan that he was someone to watch out for. What made it difficult was that he was called Hampton Yount, so I wasn’t going to remember his name. But his bit about the risks of online dating of men vs women was so clever and witty that it always stuck with me. Hell, I even discussed the idea with friends over drinks. So when I got his full length album Bearable,...

Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay by Ben Katchor This book is nice and simple, and maybe our review of it should be the same. Comics get a bad rap for being only about superheroes so their potential for telling common everyday stories is often ignored or overlooked. As a medium they can tell stories as subtle and personal as any other art form, and Cheap Novelties is as good of an example as any. Knowing nothing about Ben...

Prison School: The Complete Series Prison School should be ashamed of itself, because honestly, I don’t know how anyone can take it seriously looking the way it does. I’m not trying to slut-shame anybody here, but a simple Google image search makes it clear who this show is targeting. Prison School is so overtly objectifying to women and geared towards horny males that it should be embarrassed. The female characters are cartoonishly sexual and the camera shots are clearly...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of Clumsy by Our Lady Peace. With the knowledge of what Clumsy would ultimately become in the context of Our Lady Peace’s catalogue already a matter of public record (it was a runaway success, being certified Diamond in Canada and Platinum in the US – each denoting at least 1 million records sold), the possibility that the making of the album was laborious may come as a surprise. Not...

Hallucinations Oliver Sacks The great thing about Oliver Sacks’ books is that one always comes away feeling enlightened after reading them. Hallucinations is no different. While Sacks is known mostly for his books covering a variety of neurological illnesses, painting a vivid picture of what life must be like for these patients, Hallucinations focuses on only the one condition. And therein lies the problem with this book: maybe it’s just too narrow of a scope. While Sacks must be commended...

How to Write About Music: Excerpts from the 33 1/3 Series, Magazines, Books and Blogs with Advice from Industry-leading Writers by Marc Woodworth (Editor), Ally Jane Grossan (Editor) Now let me stop you before you way anything. I know what you’re thinking: a music website reviewing a book about how to write about music? Preposterous, right? What are you as the reader supposed to take from a book like this? Well, just listen for a second… As someone who spends...