THE NATURAL CITY Consider the bat. Not the Louisville Slugger or the aluminum, but the winged one. The one that gets tangled in your ‘do, likes an occasional after-dinner drink, […]

THE COLLECTED POEMS OF STERLING A. BROWN. (Harper & Row, $12.95): “Lemme be wid Casey Jones,” Sterling A. Brown wrote in the poem, “Odyssey of Big Boy,” Lemme be wid […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Hail space warriors You have come a long way Our flight for freedom has taken us through many arenas We have weapons and vessels but now I choose the sound […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

“And one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you,” cautioned Nancy Sinatra, smiling and safely sexless, on the tube of my youth. On the radio too. […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Defunkt Hannibal 1301 by Spottswood Erving These days, serious jazz cats who decide to play dance music are—take themselves to be—as rebellious and avant-garde as the ones who decided not […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

As Howard says: “The Most Disappointing Team in the National Football League.” You assholes should be in a high school league, there you may even have a .500 record. You […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Monster Columbia JC 36415 By Spottswood Erving Another gruesome pop disc from Hancock. This one plods on (thump) and on (thump) and on (thwack) with the overproduced gusto of a […]

PERFORMING HOT, HEAVY, and hazardous tasks common to heavy industry (such as spray painting, welding, and machine-tool loading), American robots have slowly grown in number to over six thousand. But […]

Nude Ants ECM- 2-1171 by Spottswood Erving The Place: a pie-shaped slice of basement in the Big Apple, where one can hear the 7th Avenue subway rumble by during breaks. […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►THE INDULGENCE OF BEING EARNEST If you want to watch Sting’s girlfriend Trudie Styler give birth to his fourth child, by all means go see […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►TREADING WATER VS. SWIMMING The songwriting explosion of Stevie Wonder’s late adolescence and early adulthood gave us our finest modern pop standards, and his ability […]

THE NATURAL CITY Valentine Goroshko, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, and Alexandr Kosolapov have offered to turn part of the Museum of Modern Art into a disco. Museum officials are unmoved by the […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►VIDEO BLUES Music video is in a state of crisis according to Kevin Godley, who has directed the Police, Herbie Hancock and Frankie Goes to […]

Too much prettiness gives me the gout. When subjected to large doses of refined lyricism, tonal purity, and postcard melody, my ears swell up. And when they do the pain […]

In Performance Elektra 9E-304 by Spottswood Erving At the start of the second disc of this live double LP, George Shultz, Oregon’s manager, asks the audience, “How do you like […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

The ECM stereotype is firmly in place, and it reads this way: ECM is the home of the New Cool School, where producer Manfred Eicher plays the roles of President […]

The Swing of Delight Columbia C236590 by Spottswood Erving Round, pure, golden, delicious: Santana’s guitar still sounds ripe for the picking, but that’s nothing new. Nor is his affiliation with […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►THE INDULGENCE OF BEING EARNEST If you want to watch Sting’s girlfriend Trudie Styler give birth to his fourth child, by all means go see […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

When the Cosmos have a party, it’s Chinaglia and Beckenbauer and the continentals in one corner, Tueart and the Brits in another, and Alberto and Marinho and the South Americans […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►THE INDULGENCE OF BEING EARNEST If you want to watch Sting’s girlfriend Trudie Styler give birth to his fourth child, by all means go see […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]