Bob Dylan’s “Wilderness Years”

By John Lane

“Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd. . . threw a silver cross on the stage. Now usually I don’t pick things up in front of the stage. Once in a while I do. Sometimes I don’t. But I looked down at that cross. I said, ‘I gotta pick that up.’ So I picked up the cross and I put it in my pocket. . . And I brought it backstage and I brought it with me to the next town, which was out in Arizona. . . I was feeling even worse than I’d felt when I was in San Diego. I said, ‘Well, I need something tonight.’ I didn’t know what it was. I was used to all kinds of things. I said, ‘I need something tonight that I didn’t have before.’ And I looked in my pocket and I had this cross.”
—1979 Bob Dylan interview, from Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited, by Clinton Heylin

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Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks

By Less Lee Moore

After all the articles I’ve written, after all the mix tapes and CDs I’ve made, after all the years of continual and ridiculous fangirling over Sparks. . . do I really need to convince you that they are one of the most wonderful bands of the last 40 years?

If only there were some sort of written chronology of their illustrious career, perhaps one that covers the band’s history, album by album, with salient or illuminating quotes from those who have known, followed, and worked with the band from its inception to the present day. . . it would just make things so much easier.

Thankfully, writer Daryl Easlea has answered my cries for help and written Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks.
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Summer Cocktails

By Jemiah Jefferson

Whaddya know—it’s summer again! And if you’re bored with drinking the usual longneck beers and dodgy box-wine sangria, give these party-worthy drink recipes a try. All of them have been extensively vetted by the author and her pals during the chillier months of spring, but a touch of hot weather should only improve the sipping experience.
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Howe Gelb, ‘Sno Angel Winging It (Live) CD + DVD

By J Howell

A few years back, I read about what at the time seemed like the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard of: a Howe Gelb record that featured the Giant Sand mainstay with a Canadian Gospel Choir.

Now, I’d been a Giant Sand fan for a while at that point. I’d seen Gelb solo live a couple of years before, opening for John Parish. During his set he improvised a song about the wobbly fan onstage; at one point he even played guitar with his hands while banging on the piano with his feet. His only instructions to the soundman that night were, and I quote, “Can you make this guitar loud as fuck?”
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It’s White Flag’s World, We Just Live In It: An Interview With Pat Fear

By Less Lee Moore

Recently we’ve been treated to new music from the venerable White Flag, an excellent EP called Keepers Of The Purple Twilight. Released on Target Earth in March of this year, all five songs are fantastic, featuring the White Flag hallmarks of clever, witty lyrics, which are often belied by hooky, but rocking tuneage.

One intriguing factor is that lyrically, the tunes are pretty introspective, perhaps pondering where a band like White Flag, who has been consistently making music but continually underrated over the years, fits into this weird world of American Idols and Justin Biebers.

If you haven’t been paying attention to White Flag, we’re here to help fill in those gaps for you. What follows is a conversation with singer, guitarist, songwriter, and main Flag-waver Pat Fear about the history of the band, including just a few of the “28 years of stories” he’s accumulated about punk rock, playing Greenland, The Shaggs, Os Mutantes, Gasatanka Records, and being the most connected band in the universe.
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Armchair Casting Director: Water For Elephants

By Lisa Anderson

Over a year ago, I saw that a friend of mine was listening to a book called Water for Elephants on audiobook. I did not know at the time that it had been a commercial and critical success, or that author Sara Gruen had orginally written it as part of National Novel Writing Month. I did, however, have a fascination with elephants at the time, so I asked her to let me borrow it.
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I Haz A Flavor: Context

By Matt Keeley

Not too long ago, I read an essay about context in journalism from Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog. It’s very much in the same vein as the Popshifter Manifesto and the Anti-Snark Manifesto that launched The Believer.

There’s something to be said for this, particularly when there seems to be so much criticism in criticism. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it often seems less like helpful guidance and more like hobby-horsing.
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Shad, TSOL

By Matt Demers

When an acclaimed artist manages to dodge the sophmore album curse, it almost becomes a race to see when he or she is going to screw up. Each successive album becomes a nail-biter, with fans and critics alike hoping that this album won’t be the CODA of the artist’s discography, condemned to ridicule and revulsion.

Listening to rapper Shad’s prior two albums, you’d think karma would be against him. 2005’s When It’s Over and 2008’s The Old Prince are cornerstones in Canadian hip-hop, and represent an intelligent artist whose sound is maturing. This year’s TSOL, released on May 25, looked to be a next step for Shad: he had perked listeners’ ears with The Old Prince‘s catchy tunes and deep message, and now had a stage to define himself. This was his chance to emerge from his London, Ontario beginnings and show people what he was made of.

And thank God he didn’t screw up.
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Law & Order: These Are Our Stories

An elderly Jewish man is trying to convince police that he helped his ailing wife commit suicide out of love, but what is the real truth? Is he a devoted husband and Holocaust survivor, or Jacob Schulman, a former Nazi death camp officer trying to cover his tracks?

Screencap by megacaps

In 1996, I turned on my TV, randomly flipped to a channel, and became instantly riveted to the screen by the story just described. Eric Bogosian, who had completely blown my mind in Talk Radio a few years earlier, was portraying an attorney defending the fictional defendant, David Steinmetz, in a New York courtroom. This is how I discovered Law & Order. The episode was called “Night and Fog.”
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John Lennon: Rare and Unseen DVD

By John Lane

The problem with the release of The Beatles’ Anthology video in the late ’90s is that it has spoiled Beatles fans the world over. Add to that the ever-flowing river that is YouTube, which has made curiosity-seekers even more complacent. Want to see a Beatles 1966 press conference? Bingo, with the click of a button you have your pick.

Perhaps it is the veritable abundance of organized material available to the average and dedicated fans that makes the DVD release of John Lennon: Rare and Unseen all the more disappointing and confusing. If I was in the eighth grade and had not yet seen the release of the Anthology or the birth of YouTube, then I might consider this DVD to be a kick. As it stands, maybe I’m just too jaded.
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