Widow Basquiat

With works of fiction like ‘City on Fire’ and non-fiction like ‘Love Goes to Buildings on Fire’ being set in a ‘golden’ era of American alternative music the late seventies and early eighties, it makes sense that this a good time to re-release Jennifer Clement’s ‘Widow Basquiat’ I’d previously known Clement only through her novel …

Journals

Keith Haring left behind him an impressive body of work that reflects his era perhaps better than any New York artist of the early eighties. His understanding of modern music and street art gave him a leg up on contemporaries still beholden to galleries and collectors to make their names. Ironically even without the backing …

Strangers

The latest release from Marissa Nadler is a more expansive accessible album than her previous release ‘July’. There’s still the same distinctive Julee Cruise-ish vocal but now we hear a little more country twang and rock-ish overtone in the arrangements. A sort of ghostly gothic Americana, that at points kind of reminds me of a …

Lyon at the Whitney

  Danny Lyon is Magnum photojournalist mainly known for his images of Chicago bike gang ‘The Outlaws’, whom he rode with and befriended. Yet as the current retrospective of his work at the Whitney proves, there is much, much more to him than that. I’d been aware of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement …

Modern Country

It’s always exciting to discover a new artist who up to this point has been utterly unknown to you. I know now that William Tyler is not exactly new and has released several albums before this but this is the first one that’s come to my attention and it’s beauty. Spare instrumental country that is …

The Nice Guys

Once there used to be blockbusters that didn’t feature superheroes. They had, you know, real characters in the real world. The Nice Guys is a sort of throwback to that area. Written and directed by Shane black the guy responsible for Lethal Weapon, it’s a buddy comedy with a light touch that sort of reminds …

The Day the Other Music Died

  Time and tide waits for no one apparently. And this week it will wash away a small part of my New York experience. Other Music is closing. This small music store off-Broadway, used to be a place to get both the latest hip indie band album and that oddity that you couldn’t quite believe …

I am Woman. Hear me Roar

This season of ‘Game of Thrones’ has been labelled the ‘Season of the Queens’ by its creators. But it also might be labelled ‘A Continuation in the War against Handsome Men’. Unless you’re a little person (apparently the politically correct term) or a eunuch or possibly a boy you’re chances of survival on GOT are …

Burn the Witch

  When i was a nipper I used to watch Trumpton, a children’s animated short that showed the workings of a fictional English village. How lovely and twee it all was. Until Radiohead got a hold of it. They’ve merged it with the ‘The Wicker Man’ to come up with this vaguely disturbing music video …