Swansea Sound: “Twentieth Century”
Ira Robbins podcast interviews
Walden Pink
Arthur Brown Is Back!
Colored Vinyl: A Chronological Survey
French indie rock pix
The Beatles. Really?
“The bible of alternative rock”
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After a decade in print (1974-84), Trouser Press magazine went online in 1997. In 2002, the contents of five Trouser Press Record Guides formed the basis of a new site, which relaunched in 2020 as a music portal with features, reviews, interviews, the indexed Trouser Press archive, a forum, Trouser Press Books and much more. Use the links below (and above).
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- Book Bit: Graham Parker’s Howlin’ Wind
In his new book, Graham Parker’s Howlin’ Wind, author Jay Nachman tells the story of making that acclaimed 1976 album, using interviews with Parker, Nick Lowe, all of the members of the Rumour, manager Dave Robinson and others. - Pop, Rock and the Ism Dialectic
In the current issue of The New Yorker, Kelefa Sanneh writes that music criticism has “lost its edge” – i.e., why the default appraisal of almost everything released these days is positive. But beyond observing that a lot of music criticism these days is namby-pamby twaddle (my words, not his), the essay doesn’t get very far in spelunking the question. Ironically, although he does not seem to know it, Sanneh already had one of the answers, and he wrote about it twenty-one years ago. - Book Bit: Toxic Shock Records
Bill Sassenberger is one of the great figures of American punk rock – not as a musician, but for doing just about everything else one can do to support and advance the music, the ethos, the spirit. In his Southwestern stores and his label, he has offered a lifeline to countless bands and fans. As he loved it so he has lived it — for more than 50 years. - Billy Joel, Tchotchke Man
I watched the new documentary recently and found it extremely well-made (if long ). It put me in mind of my interview with Joel, in 1993. He was married to Christie Brinkley, in court with his former brother-in-law and promoting the River of Dreams album, which I didn’t much care for. But Billy was far more charming than I expected: oddly self-deprecating, a funny mixture of pretentious and offhand, just like he comes off in the documentary. Even though hating music critics was his default stance, I didn’t feel like an enemy in his midst. - “Another Tuneless Racket” (book bit)
Another Tuneless Racket, a monumental book series of five volumes (with a sixth in progress), attempts to tell the story of the first four years of punk, with opinionated in-depth coverage not just to the well-known bands but also to the scenes and smaller bands that provided the environment in which punk could take root.