The Wit in the Dungeon is a biography which explores the life of literary figure Leigh Hunt: a contemporary of several acclaimed authors and poets (such as Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Elizabeth and Robert Browning, Keats, and Wordsworth), whose own fame has only continued to shine among literary academics. This is not to say that Hunt is not a fascinating figure of potential mass appeal; on the contrary, biographer Anthony Holden deftly sprinkles the text with Hunt’s life, ranging from discussions of his curious collections (he …

With his Live from… EP, Howie Day has just shot himself in the foot. Day’s music is the kind you turn on when you’re doing yoga in the dark, or writing something that needs melodic background music, or trying to get close to a special person on a summer night without trying to get a little freaky, or even just itching to listen to a good Neil Finn cover. And while I’m more of a lady in the streets and a freak in the bed myself, that doesn’t mean that …

There’s a tendency in many of us – and I say “us” because I’m just as guilty as any Yankee – to romanticize, even exoticize the American South. We like to think that below the Mason-Dixon line there lies an untouched gothic Shangri-La, all dusty highways and dilapidated roadside juke joints, where the radio plays nothing but Hank Williams, Skip James and Charlie Feathers. Deep down, of course, we know that what’s actually lurking in them thar hills are the Mall of America, the Bush family and Faith Hill…but it’s …

Dinosaur Jr.
Live at the Blind Pig, Ann Arbor, MI
It was only fifteen years ago when a “special intimate show” by J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph – the original and greatest line-up of Dinosaur Jr. – could very well have culminated in onstage fisticuffs. But times have changed, and as demonstrated by J’s fellow U-Mass alumnus Frank Black and the Pixies, the last few years have been kind to the alt-rock reunion set. A cynic might say the price was finally right for Mascis and Barlow to bury their hatchet…but …

If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed Young God put this split together by no more conscious a process than going down their roster alphabetically. How else to explain casting freaky folkies Akron/Family and straight laced Angels of Light as record mates? The combination sounds incongruous, both in concept and on my stereo.
I do know better, though: it’s Gira’s doing. This record really is the Michael Gira show, to the extent that you could legitimately replace every proper noun in the preceding paragraph with “Michael Gira” and come …

Mike Ladd is unique. Not because he’s crossed over from the slam to the world of hip-hop – plenty of poets are making the transition to MC. It’s because he’s also a good producer. In fact, he’s better than good. His production prowess easily outshines his skills on the mic, and while it’s not like that’s never happened before (I’m pointing at Dr. Dre, Diddy and Kanye West), it’s not something that goes on in the underground. You usually have producers and MCs, and they usually collaborate without dipping a …

Everyone’s got one. I received mine the first time I saw Shonen Knife; you might have been issued yours on your seventeenth birthday when Guided By Voices came through town. Why not take it out now, and feel its comforting heft? Read the reassuring motto embossed on its moleskin cover: “Don’t have a listen, have an opinion!” Doesn’t it make life easy?
Okay, now thumb through your copy of the Hipster’s Encyclopedia of Common Knowledge to the entry for Merzbow:
MERZBOW. B. Akita Masami, 1956. Japanese experimental musician. …

Walk the Line
Director: James Mangold
(20th Century Fox)
To me, Johnny Cash never really seemed cut out for the biopic treatment. Sure, he had all the prerequisites – humble roots in the Deep South, a revolutionary effect on American roots music, a successful struggle with drug addiction; all of which, applied to a different recently-deceased icon, helped make last year’s Ray such a resounding success. But Cash was never Ray Charles. With a black shadow longer than the man himself, and a voice which sounded more like a mystical, imaginary father figure …

Bomp! Records is the granddaddy of American indie. From 1974 until his death last year, founder Greg Shaw kept it real with a steady stream of punk, garage, power pop, and plain ol’ rock’n’roll. This album, then, is of special importance: the Invisible Eyes were the last band to be signed to Bomp! by Greg Shaw himself. And oh man, you can hear why: pounding drums, tempo-pushing tambourine, muddy vocals that wrap themselves around that great Farfisa sound…and did I mention the distortion?
With no less than 16 songs, I should …

I’m going to admit it right now: I get easily annoyed by female singers. Most modern female vocalists tend to go for over-the-top theatrics, where each song begins mournfully and then rises into gutwrenching, glass-shattering histrionics. And the songs that aren’t emotional theatrics are usually – and even more embarassingly – sexual theatricality (see Pussycat Dolls). So, imagine my relief when I began my first listen of Sex, Fashion, and Money to hear the disarming voice of Eleni Mandell. Mandell doesn’t sound like a stereotype; her voice is imperfectly sweet …