Kieran Curran

Recent

Music

The Feelies, Reconsidered

After a short chat with Feelies co-chairman Glenn Mercer, co-leader of The Feelies, writer Kieran Curran started thinking about the seminal rock band's place in our modern times...

Kieran Curran

Music

Daniel Johnston: Is And Always Was

On his first album in 6 years, Daniel Johnston plunders his record collection but doesn't come up with all that much.

Music

Times New Viking: Born Again Revisited

From Columbus, Ohio ("where people drink beer and smoke cigarettes"), Times New Viking continue the war against fidelity on their fourth album.

Books

Soft Subversions by Felix Guattari

An anti-establishment political bent is evident throughout. The eclecticism is never boring, however, and Guattari would certainly have wanted it that way. Recommended.

Books

Pink Flag by Wilson Neate

Neate's book encourages a discourse on LPs which could be lost but which stubbornly survives; the vinyl jostles with mp3s for (real and virtual) space in certain hipsters' record collections.

Books

The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan by Kevin Dettmar (editor)

Aspects of Robert Zimmerman's oeuvre are pieced apart by mainly Englit minded mavens -- Dylan is very well read, it's well known, but what about the music?

Music

The Wave Pictures: If You Leave It Alone

It's a hard balance to strike between words and music, but when music becomes incidental to words that aren't really that striking, it's a little frustrating.

Kieran Curran

Music

Peter Broderick: Music for Falling From Trees

Broderick is part of the field of popular music which embraces elements of modern classical, yet also crosses over with the artier end of rock, folk, and so on.

Kieran Curran

Music

We Were Promised Jetpacks: These Four Walls

There must be something in the water up there, as the debut by Fat Cat's latest signing from Northern Britain attests.

Kieran Curran

Books

British Animation by Clare Kitson

Kitson offers an account of some of the stranger characters behind the scenes at Britain's "alternative" programming station, in all their weird glory.

Kieran Curran

Books

History's Greatest Heist by Sean McMeekin

McMeekin moves away from a more adolescent fascination with the excitement of revolution and points towards a more pragmatic, exploitative side.

Kieran Curran

Books

X Saves the World by Jeff Gordinier

Chock-a-block with references to key Generation X formational moments, Gordinier attempts to define what it means to belong to that group, and where the boundary blurs with Generation Y.

Kieran Curran

Books

Radio Silence by Nathan Nedorostek & Anthony Pappalardo

A communal spirit shines throughout, with snaps of bands looking 'ordinary' for publicity shots and doing gigs directly in front of their audience, not looming down from a stage.

Kieran Curran

Comics

The DC Comics Encyclopedia (Updated and Expanded)

Superhero and supervillains' vital statistics are laid bare in D.C.'s newly updated glossy, hardback encyclopedia of comic book characters.

Kieran Curran

Books

The Guardian Book of Rock & Roll by Michael Hann (ed.)

A little editorial intervention should perhaps have been included to challenge the legitimacy of having a member of the Kooks deride the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.

Kieran Curran

Books

Mixing It Up by Ishamel Reed

Reed's viewpoint is that of the seditionist, but as is the nature of such things, such fixation can narrow one's perspective.

Kieran Curran

Books

Paul Schrader by George Kouvaros

Taxi Driver is pioneering especially in relation to its unflinchingly contradictory anti-hero Travis Bickle, the character Schrader conceived who can perform noble deeds as well as insane violence.

Kieran Curran

Books

The Journey Home

This Ireland is resolutely working class, bland, focused on the traditional pursuits of numbing the senses through alcohol, coping with the drudgery of dead-end jobs with an almost nihilistic escapism.

Kieran Curran

Reviews

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After a short chat with Feelies co-chairman Glenn Mercer, co-leader of The Feelies, writer Kieran Curran started thinking about the seminal rock band's place in our modern times...

Traditional and untraditional folk combine for an intriguing, engaging EP from one of Scotland's most interesting songwriters

On his first album in 6 years, Daniel Johnston plunders his record collection but doesn't come up with all that much.

From Columbus, Ohio ("where people drink beer and smoke cigarettes"), Times New Viking continue the war against fidelity on their fourth album.

An anti-establishment political bent is evident throughout. The eclecticism is never boring, however, and Guattari would certainly have wanted it that way. Recommended.

Neate's book encourages a discourse on LPs which could be lost but which stubbornly survives; the vinyl jostles with mp3s for (real and virtual) space in certain hipsters' record collections.

Aspects of Robert Zimmerman's oeuvre are pieced apart by mainly Englit minded mavens -- Dylan is very well read, it's well known, but what about the music?

It's a hard balance to strike between words and music, but when music becomes incidental to words that aren't really that striking, it's a little frustrating.

Broderick is part of the field of popular music which embraces elements of modern classical, yet also crosses over with the artier end of rock, folk, and so on.

There must be something in the water up there, as the debut by Fat Cat's latest signing from Northern Britain attests.

Kitson offers an account of some of the stranger characters behind the scenes at Britain's "alternative" programming station, in all their weird glory.

McMeekin moves away from a more adolescent fascination with the excitement of revolution and points towards a more pragmatic, exploitative side.

Chock-a-block with references to key Generation X formational moments, Gordinier attempts to define what it means to belong to that group, and where the boundary blurs with Generation Y.

A communal spirit shines throughout, with snaps of bands looking 'ordinary' for publicity shots and doing gigs directly in front of their audience, not looming down from a stage.

Superhero and supervillains' vital statistics are laid bare in D.C.'s newly updated glossy, hardback encyclopedia of comic book characters.

A little editorial intervention should perhaps have been included to challenge the legitimacy of having a member of the Kooks deride the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.

Reed's viewpoint is that of the seditionist, but as is the nature of such things, such fixation can narrow one's perspective.

Taxi Driver is pioneering especially in relation to its unflinchingly contradictory anti-hero Travis Bickle, the character Schrader conceived who can perform noble deeds as well as insane violence.

This Ireland is resolutely working class, bland, focused on the traditional pursuits of numbing the senses through alcohol, coping with the drudgery of dead-end jobs with an almost nihilistic escapism.