Music as an expression of protest against class and racial divisions
“Violence only benefits those who have nothing to lose.” – Jean Paul Sartre The great pianist virtuoso Duke Ellington once said that, “the masters, frightened by the silence…
How Eric Clapton Created the Classic Song “Layla”
The story of Eric Clapton and “Layla” has always bothered me because to understand it is to understand how fallible and crazed any of us can be when…
The Birth of Joy Division
The Joy Division story has been told many times, yet it never stops seeming too bizarre to be true. Jon Savage, best known for his classic punk history, England’s Dreaming, was one of the…
The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album
To mark this month’s fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ ninth album, “The Beatles”—universally known as the White Album—several new expanded and enhanced editions are being released this week. These new…
About Led Zeppelin
What the Beatles were to the ’60s, Led Zeppelin were to the ’70s: a band so successful and innovative they wound up creating the prism through which their…
The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy died a century ago, but his music has not grown old. Bound only lightly to the past, it floats in time. As it coalesces, bar by…
Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Electric Ladyland’
“We’ve been doing new tracks that are really fantastic and we’ve just been getting into them,” Jimi Hendrix told Rolling Stone in February 1968, right after he and the Experience had played…
Beatles’ Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to ‘Revolver’
Psychedelic drug inspired their masterpiece – but also opened wounds that never healed The story of Revolver began in a night of hell and illumination. “We’ve had LSD,” John Lennon told George Harrison. It…
Is Apocalypse Now: Final Cut the best version we’ll ever see?
Everyone in the house at the Beacon Theatre already knew the legend of Apocalypse Now.…
10 Movie Directors Who Made More Than 5 Masterpieces
When the writers (and future film makers) of the influential French film journal Cahiers du…
“North by Northwest” – Hitchcock’s most entertaining film
In my childhood, one of the movies that made me fall in love with movies…
Three Perspectives on Fitzcarraldo
In Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, the jungle, oppressive and thick, provides the perfect backdrop to the…
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