A month after we bought a house from Pete Hautman in South Minneapolis, he slyly asked “Have you found the secret door yet?” and we’ve been looking ever since. This town’s most deserving and least celebrated mystery novelist recently published his eighth novel (three of them are “young adult titles”), a terrific little number called … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Cynics say he’s “pulled a Santana” by collaborating with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas and a host of other greenhorn superstars—Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, and Lee Ann Womack among them—on his latest album, The Great Divide. But you can’t accuse Willie Nelson of selling out, because his plainspoken country-folk has lost none of its substance in … Read more
An anonymous friend recently referred to Alison Krauss as the “prom queen of bluegrass,” and as snarky as that sounds, she oughta take it as a compliment. Already a favorite among fans of credible new-country and sprightly contemporary folk, her profile was raised a few extra notches last year by the unexpected success of the … Read more
What ever happend to alt-rock? By now you’d think lanky white twenty-somethings armed with cheap guitars, drum kits, lightweight keyboards, and the odd sampler would’ve more or less exhausted the possibilities. Think again. In different ways, both Washington state’s Death Cab for Cutie and Washington, DC’s Dismemberment Plan prove there’s still room for growth in … Read more