Recommended Reading Late 2005

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A very simple thread: if you see a piece you think is worth reading - review, article, interview, thinkpiece, whatever - link to it here. If it's not online, recommend it here.

(Your own work as writer or editor too, if you're proud of it.)

Feel free to backdate, too. I'm selfishly starting this thread because I pretty much gave up on reading about music 18 months ago so I've probably missed at least some worthwhile stuff.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

Greg Wilson's interview with Tony Williams of TW Funkmasters... a mysterious track explained. pdf at electrofunkroots

― Confounded (Confounded), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:27 (twenty years ago)

has anyone read that book by laurent garnier?

i wonder if it's worth the trouble of ordering to be sent to msk etc.

thanks

― nique (nique), Monday, 31 October 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

Garnier's autobiography is okay, has a few original anecdotes.
I recommend this inside story of house music by "Apollo" :
http://www.livingart.com/raving/articles/housemusic101.htm

― blunt (blunt), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 00:02 (twenty years ago)

I haven't read it all(it's a massive 650 pager with 60 more pages of footnotes) but Peter Guralnik's new Sam Cooke bio Dream Boogie is worth reading. The writing is typical Guralnick--facts and analysis and never artsy or flashy.

I enjoy DJ Rupture's blog as well as Wayne Marshall's Wayne and Wax.

― Steve K (Steve K), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

that interview with jello biafra when he said he would fight to the death to destroy the zionist conspiracy

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 04:17 (twenty years ago)

you're a hard act to follow, estevie...

Dream Boogie, Peter Guralnick's new biography of Sam Cooke, is a detailed exploration of this soul-pop pioneer short life and career. Step by step, every recording session tour business deal celebrity encounter sexual conquest is exhaustively documented and a complex/compelling portrait emerges much in the same way that Robert Caro portrays LBJ's personal obsessions and long domination of US politics in his presidential bios. So some music-geek fortitude is required but it's amply rewarded. Guralnick has been accused of hagiography but that's unfair, his thorough and non-judgemental approach allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Like any compulsive womanizer, Cooke doesn't exactly come off as a hero.

Notable and unique in its documentation of the civil rights struggle from the perspective of rhythm and blues musicians -- public figures.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:31 (twenty years ago)

http://www.mattgy.net/music/

African music mp3 blog that is also fun to read. Now based in Paris.

I think there's a fairly new book out about New Orleans brass bands. Jordan to thread.

Did anybody read Robert Christgau and Greg Tate in the Voice's 50th anniversary issue talking about music criticism in the Voice over the years--the articles were not long enough, were a touch fawning, but still fascinating in their look back. Blissblog linked to them.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

That whole issue of the Voice is a keeper, though as you say a bit cursory to really qualify as a collectors' item. The reprinted front pages from the 50s onward were esp. fascinating (though a lot less interesting to me after the late 80s or so).

How about a(nother) Best of the Village Voice anthology, and/or a Voice music wrting collection?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

I am now reading the released earlier this year Oxford American magazine's music issue. Some nice writing in it by folks who do not regularly write about music, but I am bothered by their 'the only good Southern American music is old soul or 80s to present indie-rock'. I want to see some literary hotshot wax gloriously about crunk!

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

http://wayneandwax.blogspot.com/

http://www.negrophonic.com/words/

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

I was proud of my things on isolée & the fall...

― c7n (Cozen), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 22:38 (twenty years ago)

So the New Orleans book I am curious about is "Keeping the Beat on the Street--The New Orleans Brass Band Renaissance" by Mick Burns.

― Steve K (Steve K), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

revive

― curmudgeon, Friday, 16 December 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

Jody Rosen's got a great history of whistling songs in his latest post...He goes from Juelz Santana's current rap hit back through Whistler's Delight and all the way back to Al Jolson...

http://theanachronist.blogspot.com/

― curmudgeon (Steve K), Saturday, 17 December 2005 03:13 (twenty years ago)

awesome N'awlins roots r'n'b 'n' funk mp3 and info blog
http://homeofthegroove.blogspot.com/

― curmudgeon (Steve K), Saturday, 17 December 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

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