Category Archives: Scribes Sounding Off

The EMP Pop Conference is back in Seattle! On Saturday, April 20th, from 9AM to 5PM, at the Experience Music Project, a whole bunch of voices will be heard in debates, five minute talks, and excited dialogues about music, music culture, art, politics, and all the other fascinating subjects that get thoughtfully and passionately chattedRead more...

The best collection of rock and roll comics of late recently premiered at the Emerald City Comic Convention in Seattle this past weekend, but won’t be available en masse from publisher Fantagraphics Books Inc. till May 17. Be sure to pre-order Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff soon though, because it is an electric, howlingly funny, bona-fideRead more...

Interview by Mairead Case with Christopher Estey: The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song (Abrams ComicsArts) is a hardcover, beautifully-colored, long-form comic art biography about the first superstar family of country music (and inspiration on popular music in general), with an accompanying CD of rare radio sessions. David Lasky is the co-creator and illustrator of Don’tRead more...

This is the age of the musician’s biography, even if publishing has been taking the same hard blows as the music business. People certainly aren’t reading any less (even if it’s on a screen in their lap), and due to the unholy depths of music fandom, recent tomes by the leader of The Who, NeilRead more...

1982 had given punks a couple of years to realize that things were going to be rough for awhile. Jocks were starting to collect en masse in the slam pits of the cities, the prevailing trend was for once protest leaders to become prominent businessmen, and the major labels were no longer signing bands likeRead more...

As Octavia Butler, Seattle-based author and national treasure (and heroine to Ishmael Butler) once said in response to a question about terrorism in the future, she was more afraid of our negligence. Outlandishly benefiting the rich (such as tax cuts before and after 9/11), a lack of innovation in the sciences (giving up on thingsRead more...

As I write this review of an anthology made up of papers given at a previous Pop Conference, the 2012 assembly of the EMP-sponsored legion of academics, working class scholars, performance artists and poets, dancers, and street-level scribes are meeting in New York for Sounds Of The City (the topical theme this year). There isRead more...