Sean Lennon

interviewed by Matt Nye

Originally published on January 1, 1999

Sean Lennon’s debut album Into the Sun was released in the spring of 1998 on Grand Royal. Lennon, who turned 23 October 9th, can be seen in concert as a supporting act for Lenny Kravitz. Matt Nye talked with Lennon following a recent performance in Nashville. The briefly sighted Yuka Honda is part of the [...]

Rocktropolis

reviewed by Kimberly Villalba Wright

Originally published on January 1, 1999

Rocktropolis is a large popular music advertisement trying desperately to pose as a honest celebration of music. Even though it makes an effort at music journalism, at heart it’s a glossy, seductive vehicle pushing the wares being sold by Music Boulevard. It’s teasing and clever, offering the prospective music consumer samples of music and the [...]

The Mudcat Café

reviewed by Kimberly Villalba Wright

Originally published on January 1, 1999

In this case, I don’t mean bad as in awful; I mean bad as in fantastic-bookmark it-ASAP! The Mudcat Café is home of a great web-based lyric resource – The Digital Tradition – and the site is continually expanding and developing its already vast resources. One can spend the entire weekend merrily searching the Digitrad [...]

Exclaim!

reviewed by Kimberly Villalba Wright

Originally published on January 1, 1999

Exclaim! is more than a Toronto-based alternative music zine. This zine is a more extensive companion to the print magazine Exclaim! (over 100,000 copies of which are given out free throughout Canada). The zine includes columns on popular culture, art, a rather amusing message board, and a new radio show each week. By alternative music, [...]

My Generation

reviewed by Nick Burton

Originally published on January 1, 1999

By now, I have the horrible feeling that, at 42, I am the oldest Pif staffer. While that usually wouldn’t make a whit of difference in terms of being a columnist, one’s age does call into scrutiny one’s cultural upbringing. Aesthetically, you are what you grok, and nothing speaks so loudly about one’s cultural palette [...]

Head (1969)

reviewed by Nick Burton

Originally published on January 1, 1999

By the time Head was released in 1968, Monkees mania had all but died out. Their television show, a good-natured and often surreal mix of irreverent humor such as the Beatles had mastered in the films A Hard Days’ Night and Help!, had just been cancelled. In an age where the boundaries of pop music [...]

The Kids Are Alright (1979)

reviewed by Nick Burton

Originally published on January 1, 1999

In a remarkable clip in Jeff Stein’s 1978 documentary on The Who, we see the band in their early-1970s incarnation, Pete Townshend in his white utility suit and Doc Martens (two decades before it was hip). They deliver a roaring version of jazz singer Mose Allison’s “Young Man Blues” that is as good a piece [...]

Monterey Pop: The Film (1967)

reviewed by Nick Burton

Originally published on January 1, 1999

The 1969 Woodstock festival may be viewed as an ephemeral triumph of hippie idealism, but, as this wonderful documentary by D.A. Pennebaker shows, the Monterey International Pop Festival of 1967 was a far more significant musical event than Woodstock. Organized by the Mammas and the Papa’s John Phillips, Lou Adler, and Beatles publicist Derek Taylor, [...]

Don’t Look Back (1967)

reviewed by Nick Burton

Originally published on January 1, 1999

Bob Dylan has been enjoying a resurgence of popularity in the last two years with the release of his album Time Out Of Mind (an album absurdly over-praised by aging rock critics) and the release of his infamous 1966 concert in England, where he split his audience in half by going electric. In light of [...]

Holiday Songs And Lullabies

reviewed by Carey Dean Potash

Originally published on January 1, 1999

“With all due respect Ms. Colvin, it’s time to put the guitar down. The baby’s head is beginning to crown.” “Shut up you jackass! I’m one track away from completing the recording of my Giving Birth album.” What’s it going to take to get this folk iron woman to take it easy? She was plump [...]