Josh Indar is a recovering journalist who currently writes novels and short stories. He lives in a little college town in Northern California, where he tutors homeless & foster youth and plays in a band called Severance Package. He holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Antioch University, Los Angeles. email: jvindar@yahoo.com
Features
Monday, October 22 2012
Jamming the Pistols
While the Sex Pistols were specifically designed to cause havoc, the Jam started as a community hall dance band, doing watered-down Beatles covers and Motown standards for disinterested pub-goers and overboozed wedding guests.
Tuesday, May 29 2012
A Case of Nerves: An Interview with Peter Case
A founding member of the Nerves, the Plimsouls and the Breakaways talks about the timelessness of good rock and roll, and how looking back and going back are not the same thing.
Tuesday, October 25 2011
Now Hear This!: The Street Eaters
"I've only sliced my hands and scalp open 10 or 20 times!" This, as well as musings about whether cockroaches are more evolutionarily intelligent than humans, dominate the discussion with this fierce Berkeley twosome ...
Tuesday, August 30 2011
Run Red Run: Funny Song, Serious Message
The Coasters aren't thought of as particularly revolutionary, yet a single they released in 1959 was the first pop record to challenge the racism of post-World War II America.
Tuesday, May 10 2011
Hyphenated Bosch: A Mike Watt Interview
“I know it’s weird. All these little creatures… It’s almost like a mirror in my head broke into 30 pieces." Minutemen and Stooges bassist Mike Watt talks with PopMatters about life as a middle aged punker and his new rock opera, Hyphenated Man
Columns
Thursday, May 16 2013
We Aren't the Mods and Other Sorry Tales of a Fashion Slave
I half-believed that if I went mod with enough gusto, a Lambretta would one day parachute itself onto my driveway. That was in 6th grade. I tried it again, as an adult, still hoping for that Lambretta.
Thursday, March 14 2013
Austerity and the Arts -- and George W. Bush
I never would have thought it possible, but George W. Bush’s recently revealed attempts at creating art have had the incredible effect of forcing me to see him as a human being.
Tuesday, January 29 2013
What Is the Stereotypical 'Real American?'
Picture such a creature in your mind and see how it compares to the one in mine: White. Well-fed. Armed. Christian. I’m seeing Boss Hogg in Bermuda shorts, Foghorn Leghorn in a business suit, Britney Spears in a monster truck.
Monday, January 7 2013
Wishing for the End
Our culture is on a deathtrip. Do we secretly wish for the end of the world?
Tuesday, November 6 2012
Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children Macnuggits Are Serious About Their Silliness
If your band already has the most ridiculous name in rock, you might as well have an absurdly oversized sense of ambition to go along with it, and Bobby Joe Ebola definitely has ambition.
Reviews
Tuesday, January 22 2013
Powers Gets the Save: 'Eastbound & Down: Season 3'
Incapable of self-reflection, Kenny Powers relies on unholy ambition and a truck full of redneck ‘tude to cheat his way back to stardom, before he inevitably falls on his face and has to climb his way back up the ladder again.
Friday, September 7 2012
Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Recordings
If you haven’t heard a lot of Roxy Music but you love glam, prog or new wave, this collection is a great introduction to a band that took on all those genres simultaneously and influenced an entire generation of musicians.
Wednesday, November 17 2010
'Virtual Words': Strange Things Happen When Words Collide -- Online and In My Mind
The barrage of new words spawned by the Internet can make anyone feel like a grumpy old man, ineffectively ranting at these young steampunks to get off our damn cyberlawn. That’s where Virtual Words by Wired magazine columnist Jonathon Keats comes in.
Wednesday, September 15 2010
To Kill a King 'Assassination: A History of Political Murder'
The logic of the act seems simple: kill the head and the body will die. Yet whether perpetrated by lone kooks, G-men or secret cabals, the blowback caused by a successful assassination can be intense and uncontainable.
Tuesday, July 6 2010
Unlikely Allies: How Not to Run a Revolution
A wily, cross-dressing Dragoon captain, a spiteful American land speculator, a few dozen British spies, a crazy Scottish arsonist and the absurdities of French aristocracy -- this makes for a great historical tale.
Blogs
Tuesday, January 8 2013
Use Your Allusion
The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion is a welcome addition to a dwindling reference book collection.
Tuesday, October 9 2012
"I'm Just Ashamed to Sing About Love": An Interview with Shonen Knife
Shonen Knife's Naoko Yamano dishes the goods on J-rock, the Ramones, and candy.
