Friday, May 14 2010
Happy Mondays, the Court Jesters of Madchester
The Happy Mondays were the court jesters of Madchester, infusing the unfettered carnival spirit of rave culture into their own craftily disheveled music, lyrics, and sleeve designs, while simultaneously leading the sweating masses into a new and vibrant artistic renaissance.
Friday, March 26 2010
He Took It All Too Far: David Bowie’s “Ziggy” Years, 1971-1973
At a time when the rock heroes of the era embodied macho appeal and dressed down in jeans and T-shirts, Bowie’s Ziggy struck an incongruous chord while challenging gender identifications.
Friday, January 29 2010
Chameleon Comedian: David Bowie 1967-1970
As innovative and eclectic as his music has been, Bowie’s means and methods of articulation also reveal an artist finely attuned to the subversive potential of humor.
Friday, April 3 2009
Art Brut(ally) Funny
Holden Caulfield -- with his sexual insecurities and confused immaturity -- provides the raw meat that Art Brut’s Eddie Argos cooks with.
Thursday, February 12 2009
Laughing Through the Tears: The Enduring Journey of Etta James
As much as Etta James used her songwriting and vocal skills as primary sources for empowerment and critique, her performances and image were equally significant in reflecting a public persona bursting with wit, wildness, and sassy radicalism.
Friday, December 5 2008
Life After ABBA: Post-Ironic Swedish Rock
Welcome to the age of post-irony, where guilty pains and pleasures are played out as collective nostalgia through the warped blur of rose-tinted glasses.
Monday, October 6 2008
Answers and Answers: The Roxanne and Annie Sagas
Hank Ballard and the Midnighters' saucy provocations of the 1950s caused a stir that would resonate with responses throughout the formative years of rock 'n' roll.
Friday, August 1 2008
Esquerita: The Other Originator of Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp
This ultimate "odd man out" -- homosexual, black, bizarre-looking, crazy-behaving, and even crazier-playing rocker -- was pushed into the shadows beyond the bright lights of Little Richard.
Friday, May 23 2008
Dead But Not Buried or, When the ‘90s Took a ‘60s Turn
The post-Dead and post-Zappa bands of the '90s sought to subvert the prevailing trends towards crass commercialism, individual greed, and phony superficiality.
Friday, March 28 2008
Gene Vincent: A Caricature Portrait of the Artist as Rebel Rocker
Nostalgic craving for the iconic Gene gene still burns bright, as look-alikes (young and old) exaggeratedly hiccup their way through “Be-Bop-a-Lula”.
Friday, January 25 2008
The ‘Dewussification’ of Texas
The Texas Jewboys' fan base mutated into a hodge-podge collection of unconventional mavericks, spanning Hells Angels bikers, hardened hippies, and down-to-earth country folk.
Friday, November 30 2007
George Formby: Tangled in the Roots of British Rock Humor
Full of cheeky wordplay and double entendres, Formby continually tweaked the sensibilities of the staunchly conservative British establishment with saucy narratives that left little to the imagination.
Monday, October 1 2007
The Affectionate Parodies and Ironic Diss-Positions of Ween
Shock-humor abounds across Ween’s work, and dumb infantilism is worn as a badge of honor.
Friday, May 11 2007
Rap’s Righteous Rhyme-Fighter
If Raymond 'Boots' Riley -- frontman for Oakland, California's the Coup -- is rap's most political practitioner, he may well also be one of its most expressive humorists.
Thursday, March 15 2007
The Rudest, Crudest, Lewdest, Drunkest Band in Christendom
Extreme was the nature of the Macc Lads' music, as was the nature of reactions to it. Within their deftly created insular world, traits of civility, sensitivity, and compromise were anathemas. Therein lay the foundation of their punk-inspired wit.
Thursday, January 11 2007
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Shtick: The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury
Ian Dury's subversive humor gently ribbed the eccentrics within his own class-culture. His caricatures were vicarious self-parodies, pre-emptive strikes fending off a dominant middle-class inclined to more demeaning and patronizing portraits of its "inferiors".
Friday, November 3 2006
From the Mop-Top to the Walrus: Some Funny Sides of the Beatles
Manifested in child-centered humor, the Beatles offered candy for the kids, tapped into the regressive escapist instincts of the arrested adolescents of the hippy subculture, and offered "seemingly" unthreatening fare for adults.
Friday, August 25 2006
Bubblegum Pops the (Counter-)Culture
Fake and faceless, bubblegum pop in the late '60s and early '70s offended the prevailing rock myths of artistic creativity and rugged opposition to the powers-that-be.
Thursday, May 11 2006
Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock
As skiffle's working-class trailblazer, Lonnie Donegan infused '50s British rock 'n' roll with a regional accent and music-hall comedy style missing from the popular American exports.
Monday, March 27 2006
The Redcoats Are Coming! The British Invasion of SXSW ‘06
Ellis spends four days in Austin looking for the finest exports from Tony Blair's Cool Britannia. In lieu of monkeys, magic numbers, and Moz, his search yields Casio-pop, California harmonies, and communal sing-along epics.
Friday, February 17 2006
Wild Wanda Jackson
The self-described 'Fujiyama Mama' of '50s rockabilly was a hard-headed, bare-knuckled antithesis to the era's prevailing gender expectations.
Friday, January 13 2006
Chuck Berry: A-Merry-Can Rebel
Hail! Hail! One of rock 'n' roll's most innovative mavericks whose dissenting rebellion was fueled by subversive humor.
Friday, November 18 2005
Cab Calloway: Original Rapper
Rhythmic emphases, rhyme infatuations, celebrations of decadence, slang, bling, and an overall manifestation of cool: Cab Calloway was hip-hop's preeminent godfather.
Thursday, October 13 2005
Laughin’ Louis Armstrong: The Trickster
Satchmo's subversive humor struck multiple targets simultaneously: it commented on the very music he was transforming; and, as a survival tool, it presented a league of oppressors with unexpected resistance.
Wednesday, March 30 2005
Messin’ With Texas: Some Sights and Sounds from SXSW
As the final day unfolded, things grew more hazy as the rush to consume all one could in the final hours was not limited to the music.
Wednesday, March 9 2005
Mike Skinner’s Blues: Traversing The Streets of Anglo-America
Noticeably absent from Streets stories are the guns, bling, fast cars and ho's that so many American rappers invoke to establish their credentials. Where U.S. rappers emulate the fast-paced content of American action films, The Streets is more in tune with the Mike Leigh sensibility in his scenes of working class desperation and blank nothingness.
Wednesday, December 29 2004
Growing Up With John Peel: A Memoir
In John Peel I know that I (and many others) found a voice that championed the cultural margins and artistic mavericks; this voice, in turn, fostered a receptive sensibility with which to open-mindedly and open-heartedly appreciate marginal artists.
Wednesday, November 10 2004
Send in the Clowns: Subversive Rock Humorists
From Chuck Berry to Eminem, I hope these 10 disparate acts suggest that the need for subversive humor has never been greater, and that rock needs to react with its own insurgence: re-arming, re-loading, and then sending in the clowns.
Wednesday, October 13 2004
Influential Alternative Record Labels: Bloodshot Records and the New Traditionalism
Like a latter-day Alan Ladd as Shane, Chicago-based independent label, Bloodshot Records, has taken upon itself the role of savior of the sagebrush, mixing it up in the robber-baron world of corporate Country.
Wednesday, September 15 2004
G.B.V—R.I.P: For the Love of Rock
Our newest music columnist pays tribute to dearly departed Guided By Voices and remembers their 20-year career as indie legends.
