review

Title: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader Author: Errico Malatesta AK Press has been doing scholars a service these past few years by putting out some pretty stellar anthologies of some of anarchism’s greatest writers. First it was Proudhon and the Property is Theft! anthology. Then, there was Kropotkin’s Direct Struggle Against Capital. Both edited by Iain McKaye and both informative and thorough. But this anthology on Errico Malatesta takes the cake.  I don’t...

101 Artists To Listen To Before You Die Author: Ricardo Cavolo I have to tell you, there’s nothing that irks me more than false advertisement. Even if Cavolo tells the the reader right at the beginning that this is just a collection of his 101 favorite (or essential to him, at least) artists. Whatever the case may be, 101 Artists to Listen to Before You Die is not what it claims it is, and Cavolo himself admits it. What this...

Slash Raised On The Subset Strip Blu-Ray (Shout Factory) Historians and critics may curse Raised on the Sunset Strip for presenting a documentary which features some pretty plainly revisionist history of the 1980s L.A. rock scene in general and Guns N’ Roses in specific, but there’s no way to deny that the film tells a really interesting story – at least at first. It is, of course, the story of Saul “Slash” Hudson and the series of events which made...

Lou Barlow Brace The Wave (Joyful Noise) I can’t deny it (nor would I want to): I am a Lou Barlow fan. To date, there hasn’t been a musical project of which he was a part that I haven’t loved; Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Dinosaur Jr., Folk Implosion and the stuff he’s just recorded under his own name have all found a home in my record collection. Granted, there was that one EP that Folk Implosion did with Deluxx which I found...

Neil Young and Bluenote Cafe Bluenote Cafe 2CD (Reprise/Warner) Many things could be said for and about Neil Young but, without a doubt, that he was never brash enough to follow a questionable artistic lede through to its conclusion is not one of them. One of the best examples of that can be found in the guitarist’s straight-up blues/R&B period; in the late Eighties (read: long after The Blues Brothers might have made the sound popular enough to turn Bluenote...

The Flaming Lips Heady Nuggs 1994-1997 – 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic (Warner Brothers Records) As most fans know, The Flaming Lips had already gone through a few semi-seamless transitions by the time they were ready to begin making Clouds Taste Metallic. By then, they’d already been DIY Okie punks and goth-y pseudo rockers, and had even managed to sort of put together an arresting estimation of their first genuinely golden sound (see Transmissions From The Satellite Heart, released...

A critical evaluation of Feminist Theory from Margin to Center by Bell Hooks. Without knowing the context in which Feminist Theory was written, it’s hard to distinguish whether it was written as a response to feminism today or thirty years ago – but that doesn’t matter, really. What does matter is that there are many things we (feminists or not) can learn today from this book. Now I’m going to avoid writing Bell Hooks’ name after this sentence because I...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into a vinyl copy of Sore by Dilly Dally. As music in general, Dilly Dally’s debut album, Sore, is incredible (not for nothing did it end up appearing on this writer’s Top Ten of 2015 list) – but the vinyl presentation of the album transcends such praise and offers listeners an experience several steps beyond that of the compact disc. It’s unbelievable. It’s a game-changer. Such claims may read as unlikely, but it’s...

Release date: November 13, 2015 Artist: Swallow the Sun Label: Century Records Hi, My name is Suvi and this is my first music review for Ground Control Magazine. I chose Songs from the North I, II and III by Swallow the Sun to talk about. They come from Finland, as I do myself, and they´re practically the only doom metal band I listen to at the moment. For ten years (already!?) I have been enjoying their music and many times when...

It has been said so often now that most fans (even the newest, least tested ones) can take this as a fact: David Bowie always rocks hardest and best when he’s making a grand artistic statement. The years have proven that as factual but, as Station To Station, Tin Machine, Earthling and, now, Blackstar illustrate, the singer goes that ever-so-important extra step and ascends to a whole other creative echelon when even his biggest supporters are left pretty sure that...