The Rockist

We All Know the Way to Sesame Street

[20.Nov.09] :. In the 2008 presidential election, America crossed the Henson Point -- the point where we are a post-Baby Boomer society. The Rockist calls for a champagne toast.
 

Does Late Night TV Still Matter? Part 3

[13.Nov.09] :. In the third part of his never-ending odyssey of late-night talkers, the Rockist endures Kimmel and bits.
 

Metal, Back from Purgatory

[6.Nov.09] :. The Rockist attends his most eagerly anticipated metal show in over a decade only to find... the Banana Splits?
 

Crime, Delirium, and Paris

[29.Oct.09] :. In the second installment of his overseas correspondence, the Rockist gets robbed. And this time, not by an American corporation.
 

The ‘Ol Crotchety One Kicks It Transatlantic Style

[22.Oct.09] :. PopMatters sends its weekly culture columnist abroad, with hopefully a one-way ticket.
 

Does Late Night TV Still Matter? Part 2

[9.Oct.09] :. Jimmy Fallon's Late Night will be a much more goofy, pop-culture centric, spontaneous affair than either his predecessors.
 

They Came From Detroit

[1.Oct.09] :. From Marshall Crenshaw looking spiffy in a powder gray suit with matching fedora to ... Carnival Cruise ship reggae?
 

If You’re Going to San Francisco…

[24.Sep.09] :. The Complete Monterey Pop Festival perfectly captures the dangerously unstable compound called rock music right before it exploded and permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
 

Football v. Football: the NFL v. the Premiership

[17.Sep.09] :. Like US football, English soccer fans observe their own ritual every weekend. I spent a weekend with fans of both sports to get a taste of exactly what drives and defines these most profitable of cultural endeavors.
 

Does Late Night TV Still Matter? Part 1

[10.Sep.09] :. With the greatest shake-up in network late-night television since King Carson left his throne, now is a perfect time to ponder where late-night television is today.
 

Drunk and Driven

[3.Sep.09] :. Delilah's on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago is everything The Rockist wants in a bar. Loud. Comfortable. Cheap.
 

Dear Mr. Denby: In Defense of Inglourious Basterds

[27.Aug.09] :. Quentin Tarantino drives critics nuts because he loves movies. 'New Yorker' critic David Denby drives The Rockist nuts because he hates movies.
 

Vinyl Dependent: The Needle and the Damage Done

[20.Aug.09] :. The independent record store lives another day. But how long can the vinyl lifeline continue to keep them afloat?
 

“No Dad, What About You?!”: The John Hughes Generation Conflict

[14.Aug.09] :. John Hughes went to bat for us teenagers against the evil Baby Boomer adults and the damage their material expectations inflicted on the classic American nuclear family.
 

‘Green Onions’—The Greatest Single of All Time

[6.Aug.09] :. Booker T. & the MGs found themselves together, in a city of segregation, in a time of severe racial tension, and recorded a progressive, utopian party song.
 

Patrick Swayze and the Tao of Dalton

[30.Jul.09] :. Road House takes us back to a much simpler world, a world where you can measure a man's virility by how well-groomed a mullet he sports and how much glistening man-oil he secretes while practicing tai-chi.
 

Hipster Hatred Knows No Bounds

[23.Jul.09] :. Our new columnist and satirist Michael Brett, an 'old', curmudgeonly rock guy, recalls when he first noticed the proto-hipster. It was the Weezer show at the Aragon in 1994