The Bill Evans Trio, Moon Beams

By Emily Carney

By 1962, jazz pianist Bill Evans was emotionally bereft by the car crash death of his bassist, Scott LaFaro. Indeed he was so devastated, he wouldn’t perform for months. He was already in the grips of a powerful addiction to heroin, which he wouldn’t overcome until the end of the 1960s; however, this addiction would be replaced by another: cocaine. No one was shocked by Evans’s death in September 1980, characterized by one of his peers as “the longest suicide in history.”

After LaFaro’s death, Evans had reformed his trio, adding new bassist Chuck Israels. While Evans and his distinctive style of piano playing—hunched directly over the keys—may be a ghost in the machine, this reissue of 1962′s Moon Beams takes the listener back to his melancholy brilliance.
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Letters To Kurt by Eric Erlandson

By Emily Carney

Whether you liked Nirvana or not, if you grew up in the 1990s, your cultural map was dotted with the band’s landmark accomplishments. I vividly remember the debut of Nevermind in 1991, the Sassy magazine with Kurtney on the cover (Kurt Cobain had pink hair and he and Courtney Love both looked like elegant street urchins), the band’s MTV Unplugged, Kurt’s first horrifying suicide attempt in Rome (my best friend told me about it the morning it happened at the bus stop—we had just turned 16), and the world premiere of Hole’s “Miss World” video about a week later.

Then April 8, 1994 swung by. Along with it, the awful news of Kurt Cobain’s suicide by gun. My best friend again called my house after school and told me authorities thought they’d found Kurt’s body in his house. Of course, that nomenclature is never good. Even though I was not a super-fan, I was genuinely saddened by the awful manner of Kurt’s demise. The grief was only exacerbated two months later by the overdose death of Hole’s bassist, the beautiful, gifted Kristen Pfaff. It felt, genuinely, like all of my era’s talents were being plucked off, one by one.
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Carole King, Pearls: Songs of Goffin and King

By Emily Carney

Some context on Carole King: This singer songwriter, who is rather unfairly relegated to oldies radio stations in the US, had serious credibility within the world of girl-groups in the 1960s. At age 18, she co-wrote “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” with her then-husband Gerry Goffin, which was performed by the Shirelles. This song was covered beautifully in recent years by the late Amy Winehouse.
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Why Sinéad Was Right

By Emily Carney

On October 3, 1992, Sinéad O’Connor was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Her first performance of the night was the song “Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home” from her album of standards, Am I Not Your Girl? Nothing seemed remotely untoward until her second performance of the night, an a capella version of “War” by Bob Marley. Most of us know what happened at the end of that performance, but in case you missed the show or don’t know anything about Sinéad O’Connor, let me refresh you: She took a picture of then-Pope John Paul II, ripped it in half, and shouted “Fight the real enemy!” The performance was never replayed again. Sinéad was attacked mercilessly by Catholics the world over for her gesture and, to this day, this incident remains one of the most controversial things ever aired on live television in the United States.

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More Unspeakable Confessions of Zodiac Mindwarp

By Emily Carney

If you’re interested in the twee, unchallenging sounds of Arcade Fire and Belle and Sebastian, you may want to stop reading this article now.

The story of Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction really starts with Mark Manning, who was a graphic designer working for the UK music magazine Flexipop in the mid-1980s. Manning can best be described as looking like Ché Guevara if Ché decided to wear bandannas, Ray Bans, and join the Hell’s Angels. His look was all about leather, spandex, sunglasses, goatees, and long, dyed-black, heavy metal locks.
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Bringin’ the Crazy, Part II: In Which John Cale Beheaded a Chicken

By Emily Carney

It’s no secret that John Cale may have had some slight mental health issues during the mid-1970s. During this period in his esteemed career, Cale was suffering from a nasty cocaine and alcohol addiction. In 1975, he went through a particularly acrimonious divorce from his second wife, ex-GTO Cindy Wells, who infamously slept with dopey ex-Soft Machine singer Kevin Ayers during their tumultuous-at-best marriage.
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Pierre Trudeau: Do the Fuddle Duddle!

By Emily Carney

In December 2011, Canadian Liberal MP Justin Trudeau threw some cusses in the House of Commons, calling Environment Minister Peter Kent “a piece of shit.” This prompted some Conservative MPs to yell back at Trudeau in protest.

Personally, I have no idea if Mr. Kent is a piece of shit; to Trudeau’s credit, he did apologize for his gaffe and for using unparliamentary language. I also have zero perspective about the ins and outs of Canada’s House of Commons, not living in or being from Canada. I had no idea that the Canadian House of Commons was this insane, given Canada’s stateside reputation as being a nation made of kittens, poutine, and toques.
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Best Of 2011: Emily Carney

Saint Winehouse
© 2010 Vicki Berndt

1. New Albums by Robyn, The Black Keys, Amy Winehouse, and Charlotte Gainsbourg

This past year boasted many new releases by some of my favorite all-time artists. Technically, Robyn’s Body Talk trilogy came out in 2010, but her career blew up stateside this year, culminating in her appearance on Saturday Night Live in December.
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Five 1970s Ads That Make Me Facepalm

By Emily Carney

Apparently in the 1970s, taste and class were elements not yet added to advertising pitches. I have several interesting books related to 1970s ads including some truly classy ones. I actually bought these when I briefly studied ad writing in college. I am just going to provide a brief capsule summary of “the best” and I will allow you, dear reader, to write the rest of the scenarios depicted in your skull. Good luck and have fun.
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Five Ubiquitous Scents From The Seventies

By Emily Carney

I was born in 1978, at the tail-end of the 1970s. Most of my formative memories stem from the early 1980s, which were basically an extension of the 1970s well into 1984 (at least in Florida—culturally we got it together kind of late, save for the space shuttle maybe). Many of the most ubiquitous scents from the 1970s still wafted around into the 1980s and beyond. Hell, you can probably walk into any Bealls Outlet store and find these scents on sale. Without further ado, here are some smells you couldn’t escape during the heady times of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
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