In my last entry here, in a call-and-response with Carl Wilson at Zoilus, I conjectured a bit about the evolution of, or more accurately the dissapearance of, old-school signifcance in rock-n-pop music. Following Carl’s lead, I was using Elvis Costello as my example, and in the end, I concluded that, per Carl, it was unfair [...]

In one of those sweeping-yet-concise graphs that are becoming one of his specialties, friend Carl Wilson recently got my attention with a post at his blog Zoilus. Carl wrote:
“Momofuku finds Costello…in his most incisive mood in a long while, much more of a return to form to my ears than When I Was Cruel or [...]

The International Country Music Conference convened in Nashville last month, its 25th annual meeting. I didn’t attend, but I wish I had — most of all because I would love to have attended the panel titled “Country Music, U.S.A.: A Fortieth Anniversary Retrospective And Prospective.” It was a celebration of the book that, four decades [...]