The next to last time I saw the man who put the strum in Strummer, it was nearing afterhours at a Lower East Side bar in New York City, somewhere around the turn of the century. Despite the approaching dawn, Joe was ready to keep on the move, full of restless energy, praising the accessibility of techno music, of all things, and talking about how the computer was putting the means of production into the… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
One of the astrological aspects that sets the punk movement apart from its musical counterparts in the 60s and early 70s is a sub-generational shift from Uranus in Cancer to Uranus in Leo. The astrological chart for the United States as a whole is heavily influenced and populated by Cancerian planets - that's what makes the nation conservative at its core. Cancer is anything but revolutionary: it's all about hearth and home, nurturing and providing… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It took the Clash just six years to go from Westway to the world, to evolve from the small-bore punk vitriol of "London's Burning" to the sophisticated Top 40 global consciousness of "Rock the Casbah." Unfettered by careerist logic and armed with passion, conviction and a flair for dramatic poses, they were the most exciting — and unpredictable — band of their era. Inscrutable, confounding and glorious in their imperfections, the Clash inscribed a cultural… more »