John Davidson

Features

Visual Arts

The Lost Generation and the Art of Living

[12.Oct.07] :. Sara and Gerald Murphy inspired an astonishing array of the century’s greatest writers and artists; they helped float, inspire, and otherwise sustain the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, Ferdinand Leger, Man Ray, Cole Porter, John Dos Passos and Dorothy Parker, to name but a few.

Recent features

 

Music

Factory Bloke: Tony Wilson 1950-2007

[15.Aug.07] :. He was a (expletive) who incited invective, but he stuck to principle and remained true to his Factory ideal: "The artists own everything, we own nothing."

Recent features

 

Sports

Becks Chooses Life

[17.Jan.07] :. As a football fan, you can’t help feel that, somewhere along the line, it didn’t happen on the field in quite the way that it should have.

Recent features

 

Books

Louise Brooks at 100: Interview with Peter Cowie

[16.Nov.06] :. "One learned to take with a pinch of salt some of her assertions about people from the silent period. Sometimes it wasn't just her memory failing, it was a liberal attempt to build history in her own image." PopMatters talks to Peter Cowie, author of Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever.

Recent features

 

Reviews

Books

Legends of the Chelsea Hotel by Ed Hamilton

[21.Nov.07] :. So there you have it. Ryan Adams at the Chelsea -- maybe.

Recent Book reviews

 

Events

Underworld

[28.Sep.07] :. Karl Hyde is not intent on slipping into the comfy chair just yet. Instead, he's donning a sparkly, silver-sequined jacket that begs the question: is all that glimmers really gold?

Recent Event reviews

 

Music

Underworld: The Riverrun Project

[17.Aug.06] :. Whether they've truly subverted the label dynamic by going online-only, or simply succumbed to the long fade of dance music, this three-piece-suite offers both the best and most dreary of Underworld's once-vital work.

Recent Music reviews

 

Books

This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes

[30.May.06] :. In any city except Los Angeles such characters grouped together might seem ridiculous, yet one of the ways in which this city undermines fiction is that it defies all attempts to invent the improbable.

Recent Book reviews

 

Books

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

[2.Dec.05] :. Sex may be a physical act, but it's a psychological response. In this respect then, Gaitskill is an author of interiors.

Recent Book reviews

 

Music    Benzos: Morning Stanzas

Music    David Bowie: David Live / Stage

Music    Mark Farina: Mushroom Jazz 5

Music    Kasabian: Kasabian

Music    Tim Booth: Bone

Music    Brian Eno: Ambient 1: Music for Airports [reissue]

Music    UNKLE: Never, Never, Land

Music    The Music: Welcome to the North

Music    Gilles Peterson: Gilles Peterson in Brazil

Music    Various Artists: Acid Classics

Music    Damien Rice: B-Sides

Music    Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets [reissue]

Music    Martina Topley-Bird: Anything

Music    Morrissey: You Are the Quarry

Music    Wax Poetic: Nublu Sessions

Music    Ethan Lipton: A New Low

Music    Ambulance LTD: self-titled

DVDs    Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley: The Frank Sinatra Show -- Welcome Home Elvis [DVD]

Music    Terence Trent D'Arby: Terence Trent D'Arby in Concert

Music    David Bowie: Earthling [remastered]

DVDs    Sinead O'Connor: Live: The Value of Ignorance + The Year of the Horse [DVD]

Music    Inspiral Carpets: Greatest Hits

Music    Simon and Garfunkel: The Essential Simon and Garfunkel

Music    Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man: Out of Season

Music    Dub Pistols: Six Million Ways to Live

PopMatters Pick

Music

Basement Jaxx: Kish Kash

[19.Nov.03] :. Basement Jaxx recordings offer the aural equivalent an over-crowded phone booth in an international train station at rush hour -- no space is too small to fill.

Recent Music reviews

 

Music    Murk: self-titled

Music    Kraftwerk: Tour De France Soundtracks

Music    Andy Smith: The Document II

Music    David Bowie: Aladdin Sane 30th Anniversary 2CD Edition

Music    Various Artists: Lost on Arrival / The United Nations of Future Music Volume 2

Music    Morcheeba: Parts of the Process

Music    Two Gallants: The Throes

Music    Josh Wink: Profound Sounds v2

Music    Death in Vegas: Scorpio Rising

Music    Massive Attack: 100th Window

 
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