the riley rock report

Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021) 80 years ago on June 10th, 1943, the Allied forces invaded Sicily in Operation Husky, a battle that lasted six weeks and drove the Axis forces off the island to open up the Mediterranean sea lanes. Elizabeth D. Samet’s sage book, Looking for the Good War , writes about WWII as our dom...

Happy to report that the West Coast progressive sheet truthdig has returned, and ran this book review recently… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

Why Steely Dan Doesn’t Suck, Radio Silence , April 2014 The Countdown to Ecstacy vinyl reissue, remastered by Donald Fagen for Geffen/UMe for release on May 26th, makes a good peg for this Steely Dan overview. Dan Stone had me write it up for Radio Silence , that handsome Bay area journal . ( In the first paragraph, I dig myself out of that defensive headline.) Plus, Quantum Criminals by Alex Papp...

I first caught Friedman on Stephen Colbert talking about her deathless live 2016 Election Night barb (“I just wish I could be funny… Better get your abortions while you can…” she says). She seemed tentative with Colbert, but grateful. No surprise, he’s a gentleman. Somebody urged her to pitch a book and now nobody’s safe… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subsc...

EXPANSIVE YET FORBIDDING, imperious yet embracing, pianist Rudolf Serkin mixed gravity with guilt to build a towering legacy. His recordings confirm him as a titan of the old school, a European who branded piano’s core repertoire with an air of authenticity. His philosophy of interpretive submission spurred rebelliousness in the next generation, and he hovers over classical piano’s firmament with...

FEW ROCK BIOGRAPHIES rise to the level of their subject. But this past year has already seen extraordinary titles like Lightning Strikes , by Lenny Kaye, a musical memoir lived out in a beguiling new history, and Dilla Time , Dan Charnas’s life of rap producer and beat-meister J Dilla, (which has prompted a new documentary from Summer of Soul ’s Questlove). RJ Smith has already etched a sturdy tre...

I got friendly with Bob Moses (RIP), a guitarist for Busted Statues, when I profiled the band for the Phoenix, and we stayed in touch. He asked me to write up a mid-decade navel-gazer for InfoPlease Entertainment Almanac , where he edited, and we worked hard to cover a lot of ground. Nobody saw it, of course, and it languished for years in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall’s front porch. But the...

This Boston Phoenix piece ran in the fall of 1988 as James toured behind his Wonderful Comeback. It was a barometer of how much had changed since his earlier days, with both Prince’s stardom and Terence Trent D’Arby’s upstart energy. James would have turned 75 on February 1st; he died in 2004. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...

IF WE LIVE IN A GOLDEN AGE of documentaries, too many of them go on for too long without revealing much. In “We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember,” directors Daniel Fetherston and Danny Szlauderbach approach the Embarrassment, punk's great left-of-center act, with earnestness and care, detailing the many sideshows (“Ron Klaus Wrecked His House”) and drive-bys (”Wellsville”). Some of this goes agains...

Throughout his sixty-year-plus career, Bob Dylan has combined an “incredible skill with a wildness of spirit,” as magician Penn Jillette recently put it. He towers above others—Bruce Springsteen, John Prine, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell—through volume, range, and brash unpredictability. In the past decade he has retooled Frank Sinatra crooning ( Triplicate ) and wrung suspicious reverie from C...

The latest rockcritics podcast features Tim Riley , author of one of my favourite Beatle books, Tell Me Why: The Beatles: Album by Album, Song by Song, the Sixties and After . A couple weeks prior to our chatting, I asked Tim — currently completing a large-scale John Lennon biography — to submit a list of some of his favourite Beatle books, and it’s that list which forms the basis of our conversat...

Ten years ago NPR had me on to rant about pagan rituals, from the vault.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

Jason Gross has edited PSF since 1993, overseeing an important venue for critics and passionate listeners. Like all the good editorial conversations, one topic begat another, so the links can help you figure out some of the sounds we reference.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

Igor Levit – Tristan (Sony, 2022) Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, Yo-Yo Ma – Beethoven for Three, Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 (Sony, 2022)  Why listen to symphonic music stripped of strings, winds, brass, and percussion...?  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

A few weeks after Get Back aired last year, I spoke with Magic Circles author Devin McKinney about the film and its many quirks. As we take stock of the Revolver box set, the timeline sharpens: January of 1969 happens only three years after they record that 1966 breakthrough.  Visit https://timrileyauthor.com for more Beatles.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other...

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon. Apple, 1970. THE 1970s DAWNED with a blistering hangover. On September 13, 1969, just before Abbey Road began dominating end-of-’60s radio, John Lennon sang at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, an early 1950s festival. He called his pickup group the Plastic Ono Band: Eric Clapton (lead guitar), Klaus Voorman (bass) and Alan White (drums). They launched w...

Brett Morgen extends Bowie's dislocation by spinning out his lack of context Moonage Daydream, Brett Morgan, director (Universal) IN A GLUT of music documentaries where overlong counts as serious and talking heads sling clichés, we should be glad about Brett Morgen’s Moonage Daydream . It lets David Bowie do all the narrating, delivers riveting concert footage, and boasts a detailed audio des...

To die in the midst of a thriving career at 51 exacerbates the loss of this quietly gripping pianist. This piece ran last fall when I fell in love with his Janacek recording, music I hadn't known before; Vogt drew me in and made me listen closely. I'll also miss his chamber music collaborations with violinist Christian Tetzlaff.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss thi...

Buddy Holly looms over the Beatles catalog, and his influence gets harder to overstate the more history recedes. A celebration of the songwriter and record-writer pegged to his birthday... This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

Unlike a Tramp Intro to Madonna: Illustrated by Tim Riley. Hyperion, 1992.  When I wrote this book, Madonna's command of pop's cosmos felt unprecedented. Now in her fifth decade, triumphs like "Papa Don't Preach" and "Justify My Love" have lost their bang sooner than expected, and her Dick Tracy Oscar nomination now looks misplaced...  This is a public episode. I...

Soviet Pianist Maria Yudina Converses With Greatness “Cats Are Indescribably Wonderful, Shostakovich’s Fugues Less So” Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin’s Russia, by Elizabeth Wilson, Yale University Press, 352pp Los Angeles Review of Books , August 4, 2022 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episod...

Among other things, Elvis Presley invented the rock ’n’ roll comeback. Up until 1968, ”coming back” from a career break barely existed in the new style since most fell short, or failed... This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

To mark Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday, this issue reprints a Radio Silence (RIP) essay pegged to the second volume of Mermaid Avenue and several other releases. Guthrie's words keep on inspiring, and as his shadow lengthens, most of Wilco's and Bragg's catalog now takes place inside this new context.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subs...

During another summer of congressional hearings, fights over national memory and history itself, Watergate can feel further than five decades in the past. In retrospect, Richard Nixon’s story feels both sealed off from our modern squabbles and a little pathetic; the petty cover-up President may actually gain stature next to the riverboat gambler insurrectionist cult tyrant. The Republican congress...

Prince' Graffiti Bridge, a double album originally billed as a film soundtrack, ran on some very fine fumes (Sign O The Times, Batman). And the guest-stars made the party hop.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com