Category Archives: Scribes Sounding Off

What is that you’re drinking? Is there at least some form of alcohol in there among the ice chips and fizzy water? Oh, OK. I get it. You just came back from the bathroom with friends. I guess that explains it. Well, what are you working on? Oh, an article about “open source.” That soundsRead more...

Full disclosure: My own fan-memoir “Phil Ochs Greatest Hits” is in this, the eleventh year and latest installment of Da Capo’s Best Music Writing series. It’s audacious enough I’m putting it on this list, but at the top, too? My excuses are (1.) This is not a descending-in-quality top ten list; (2.) My own pieceRead more...

Rock music, science fiction, and comic books were the cultural aliens and rocket ships of the 1950s -- fantasies created out of paranoia and power, all about the ‘different’ and ‘the future’ -- and all creatively evolved out of pulpy origins into addictions for transcendence by every day people. Not just fans; but soon, fandomRead more...

Everybody I know who loves great music books adored the post-punk Bible Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds when it came out a few years ago. It simply captured a complex era which keeps inspiring bands and writers since the first flames of punk rock were lit beneath the asses of danceRead more...

Veteran music critic (and KEXP DJ) Kurt B. Reighley had a confession to make to Seattle Weekly readers back in 2001. “I love country music,” he wrote. “I wasn’t country when country wasn’t cool” he admitted, “and I’m not truly country now -- but I love the music just the same.” Nearly a decade sinceRead more...

I used to teach a workshop in “street level” (DIY) rock journalism at Seattle’s wonderful literary resource the Richard Hugo House, and like many other self-taught reviewing rabble, I always recommended finding writing you love first and figuring out why you enjoy it so much. Because the works of those writers are actually your bestRead more...

If you’re going to do any reading in this heating-up season, already luciferous with excoriating bi-coastal sunshine, the texts must be on seductive topics and handled with maximum potential for kicks. The three recently published books on music below have kept me bouncing back and forth between their multi-voiced or richly unique narratives. From howRead more...