Book Reviews, CD Reviews, DVD & Video Reviews and Interviews
RHAPSODIES IN BLACK:

RHAPSODIES IN BLACK:

September 5, 2018
CD
Music and Words From The Harlem Renaissance 4 CD Set Rhino www.rhino.com The Harlem Renaissance (roughly1915-1937), like the Armenian holocaust or the bombing of Dresden, is a rarely talked about yet monumental event in history. Unlike the holocaust in Turkey or the immolation of Dresden however, the Harlem Renaissance was cause for celebration. Started around 1915 after the death of Booker T. Washington, the Renaissance was ushered in by black artists, writers and performers who, unlike Washington, had not…
WOMAN ON THE VERGE

WOMAN ON THE VERGE

September 3, 2018
Los Angeles writer Aimee Bender seems poised for the beginning of... something. The question of her direction is less a question of her talent, which is certain, and more an issue of the state of American literature itself. Any one who has read Bender's stories will attest to the fact that they may be the doorway through which a new American style of literature may presently walk through. When reviewing her first collection of short stories, THE GIRL IN…
THE BRONX CASKET COMPANY

THE BRONX CASKET COMPANY

August 28, 2018
CD
The Bronx Casket Company The Music Cartel Finally, you can't have a heavy metal revival without some straightforward death metal. This metal supergroup (containing members of Overkill, the Misfits, and Shotgun Symphony) explore various aspects of death and despair over suitably dark hard rock. And in the end conclude that the death wish is just a disguised desire for immortality. The Music Cartel has certainly given heavy metal another shot at musical immortality. G. Murray Thomas THE DELLS The…
Charles Simic

Charles Simic

August 22, 2018
Charles Simic moved to America at the age of 15. One of his earliest memories is the German bombing of Belgrade, followed by memories of hunger, selling gunpowder to buy toys and displacement as his family left Yugoslavia for a new land. He got his first glimpse of naked flesh in Paris and then moved to New York where he lived the bohemian life until he was drafted into the Army. A born observer, he took note of all…
WALTER EGAN Apocalypso Now Gaff Music

WALTER EGAN Apocalypso Now Gaff Music

August 14, 2018
CD
Walter Egan may very well hold some kind of Guinness Book World Record for the number of bands he has played in over the course of his 40-year career. Read on, then get on the phone and tell Ringo that it's time to add a new all-Starr to his roster. Born in 1948, Walter Egan was raised in the Forest Hills section of Queens, New York, in a household where his mother played Broadway soundtracks on the record player,…