Avenue B , Iggy Pop (Virgin/America).
Hours … , David Bowie (Virgin/America). Vagabond Ways , Marianne Faithfull (It Records/Virgin U.K.). James Jewell Osterberg (Iggy Pop), David Robert Jones (David Bowie) and Marianne Faithfull (Marianne Faithfull) are all 53 years old. Each has just released a record that confronts the state commonly referred to as middle age. Read MorePatti Smith: An Unauthorized Biography , by Victor Bockris and Roberta Bayley. Simon & Schuster, 336 pages, $25.
Patti Smith wallows in language. She chants. Rants. She loops incantations. The act of writing makes her kooky. "When I'm home writing on a typewriter," she said, "I go crazy. I move like a monkey. I've wet myself, Read MoreMock Tudor , Richard Thompson (Capitol).
The time: July 19, 1999 (the middle of the heat wave). The place: Tonic, a Norfolk Street beer joint. There, British guitarist-songwriter Richard Thompson and his small band performed a low-profile 7 P.M. showcase to promote his just-released album, Mock Tudor . Before the show, he chatted with a journalist Read MoreThe Contender: Richard Nixon, The Congress Years, 1946-1952 , by Irwin F. Gellman. The Free Press, 590 pages, $30.
You and I supposedly have a baby squatting in our psyches. An "inner child." Maybe. But I believe most of us do possess an "inner Nixon." For those of us who were teenagers during Watergate and rebelling Read MoreThis Time , Los Lobos (Hollywood Records).
Dose , Latin Playboys (Atlantic). Soul Disguise , Cesar Rosas (Rykodisc). Houndog , Houndog (Columbia Legacy). This last year of the 20th century turns out to be the year of the wolf: Los Lobos. In the spring, that band from East Los Angeles released three offshoot records. This summer Read MoreOar . Skip Spence. Sundazed.
More Oar: A Tribute to the Alexander (Skip) Spence Album . Various artists. Birdman. Jewels for Sophia . Robyn Hitchcock. Warner Brothers. Moby Grape songwriter-guitarist Skip Spence's sole solo album, Oar , was recorded in December 1968 and released the next fall. Spence's next 30 years were spent doing time in Read MoreA Far Cry From Dead. Townes Van Zandt. Arista.
Cold Hard Truth. George Jones. Asylum. Townes Van Zandt cringed when Steve Earle called him the best songwriter in America, adding that he would shout it standing on "Bob Dylan's coffee table." "I don't think Steve could get past Dylan's bodyguards," Van Zandt replied. He knew of Read MoreIn the song "Popstar," 48-year-old Chrissie Hynde is a well-worn pop star addressing the jerky ex who left her for some Kylie Minogue wannabe. Although Ms. Hynde has never marketed herself as pop star, the song makes one contemplate her 20-some-year career-starting in England with her pulling down her jeans and mooning the cameras along Read More
Good pop music is usually gloriously dumb. "I love you, yeah-yeah-yeah" (the Beatles). "Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" (Bob Dylan). But Tom Petty's new single, "Room at the Top," is dumb musically, not lyrically, a rare occurrence. "I have a room at the top of the world tonight," he begins quietly over subdued guitar strumming. He tells Read More
On the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 13th Street, a giant Fiberglas iguana used to peer down from the roof of the Lone Star Cafe. What a joint! The barbecue was lousy and you couldn't see the stage unless you leaned your back against the bar. But then, you'd be standing so close to Read More
After cooling his heels for six years, Tom Waits has returned. If you care about the man's last two decades of music, well, you'll care about this album, too. But know this: Mule Variations (Anti/Epitaph), Mr. Waits' latest meditation on whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin, is no weird masterpiece like his mid-80's Read More
God is watching you. When you walk out of a record store without a Sam Phillips record, God is watching you. When you skip over a review of a new Sam Phillips record, God is watching you. This holy scrutiny is more Ms. Phillips' trip than mine. I'm just paraphrasing the last overtly religious song Read More
It's just a cultural quirk that Lou Reed's "official" photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, is also Monica Lewinsky's authorized shutterbug, a grouping no crazier then Mr. Reed performing at the White House last year when the intern-on-her-knees scandal was in full swing. What song did he play for Bill and Hillary, "Walk on the Wild Side"? How Read More
For a few years now, Steve Earle has threatened to abandon his electric neo-Woody Guthrie musical observations and retreat into the arms of Bill Monroe, bluegrass icon and progenitor of the "high lonesome" singing style. "Bluegrass is probably the only music I'm going to do from now on," he told me in an interview in Read More
Combine Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" with young Tom Cruise playing air guitar in his underpants in Risky Business and you've nutshelled the sublimity of the electric guitar. Hendrix's plugged-in national anthem is a perfect example of the instrument's power to howl, sputter and bend notes while Mr. Cruise's prancing epitomizes Read More
