Month: February 2002

For a certain type of person, Stephen King has lived the ultimate American dream. He’s been a wildly successful novelist for more than 25 years, publishing some 60 books, and countless articles, comic books, and even poems. That’s not all—in this televisual age, you can’t be a true creative superstar until you make the leap…

It’s no longer surprising to see rock’s most strident singer-songwriters seduced by the siren ProTools. Nor is it anything new to hear erstwhile guitar gods discovering the joys of the synthesizer (even Eddie Van Halen had a soft spot for that Vangelis flavor) or diving headlong into largely electronic sonic experiments. Still, there’s something unnerving…

There’s a theory that good economic times breed conservative bubblegum pop and bad times generate the other kind of music, a theory with legs, when you consider the Long Boom’s saccharine soundtrack starring Britney Spears, ’N Sync, the Backstreets, and countless others we begrudge for taking up a whole sentence in the mentioning. Where was…

Now it can be told: When a federal judge ordered the break-up of Wu-Tang Clan Corporation back in 1993, he was acting in the interest of fair competition. The Clan had established a formidable market monopoly with its gritty, esoteric alternative to Cali gangsta funk, bundling cinematic kung fu lore together with its jagged, rubbernecking…

More than a decade ago, Thompson released an extraordinary album called Small Town Romance which featured the man and his acoustic guitar unaccompanied, recorded live at the Bottom Line in New York City. It was one of those records that became a soundtrack for unspeakable personal heartbreak. Thompson later asked to have the record delisted—he…

In the late 1950’s, when comics like Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Nichols & May were storming club stages across the country, turning stand-up on its head, a mumbling, unassuming accountant from Chicago was supplementing his income by writing and performing comedy bits for local radio. His tapes made their way to Warner Brothers, who…