.
@TheNational
reminds me of being young & hungry in NYC, but I also can’t think of another band that articulates the strange grief of adulthood with such elegance & candor. If you wanna read me going long on sadness & yearning & weird goodbyes, here is my
@NewYorker
profile!
I’ve spent the last five months working on this
@NewYorker
story — about a Czech trumpet player named Eric Vogel, and the jazz band he started in a Nazi concentration camp — and I am humbled and proud to finally see it out in the world:
Wouldn’t have a career without Pitchfork. Probably wouldn’t know much about music, either. Feels like a death knell for the record review as a form. Absolutely gutted for my dear, dear friends & colleagues.
Had a big conversation with
@nickcave
about a whole bunch of terrifying things: love, death, God, writing, art, the shelf life of grief. This is a heavy one, but, I hope, useful to anyone who has ever felt alone in their suffering:
Holy cow! I’ve been nominated for a Grammy (!) for my album notes to “Trouble No More,” lucky volume 13 in Dylan’s Bootleg Series. An honor & a shock to find myself in such fine company.
Spent the last couple weeks e-mailing (!) with Joni Mitchell (!!) about “Morning Glory on the Vine,” her new collection of lyrics & drawings. It’s a gorgeous book: warm, substantive, & tough. Read more in
@NewYorker
:
My
@NewYorker
Postscript for Steve Albini, who made music feel closer, truer, & more raw, & who was unmatched in his crusade against corporate greed & the slow annihilation of the creative spirit. A soldier:
In this week’s issue of
@NewYorker
, I profile
@phoebe_bridgers
, whose gorgeous & complex new record, “Punisher,” is out soon. This might be the magazine’s 1st profile reported mostly from afar; it’s certainly a document of our time, in more ways than one:
In which I bristle against “chill” as a genre (or an aspirational state), and also quiver in fear of a dystopian future in which music merely enables late-capitalist productivity, for
@NewYorker
:
For
@NewYorker
, I spoke to the one and only
@toriamos
about her new memoir, “Resistance,” what it means to make political art, and how and why artists sometimes get lost along the way. She’s a generous and intense conversationalist; I loved talking to her:
Very proud of this
@NewYorker
interview with the poet & novelist Wendell Berry, which began in 2016, & took place in part at his farm in Port Royal, KY, & in part via many postal letters. We talked writing, agrarianism, limits, farming, place, home, love:
In this week’s issue of
@NewYorker
, I profile
@beck
, who is fourteen records into an extraordinary career. Fellini, Warhol, moonlight, Pharrell, steakhouses, Ode to Joy, the nineties, old Los Angeles, new Los Angeles, go get it:
A pleasure to talk to Hayley Williams of
@paramore
for
@NewYorker
about her childhood in Mississippi, pencil sharpeners, signing the first 360 deal in history (at age 14), PTSD, nostalgia, genre, & her ideas of home. Hayley is a real one, smart & generous:
My
@NewYorker
postscript for Justin Townes Earle, whose music was deep & dark, & whose life ended too soon. There’s a link in here to him covering “Graceland,” a performance that fully topples me every time. Love to his family & to those who knew him well:
My
@NewYorker
interview with the one & only
@PhizLair
is up today — grateful for her smart & funny thoughts on love, heartache, transitions, liminality, art, domesticity, sobriety (sorta), men, Lou Reed, Chicago, L.A., the 90s, & her first LP in a decade:
In this week’s
@NewYorker
I revisit The Anthology of American Folk Music, a boxed set from 1952 that changed everything for many people (including me!), via a new
@dusttodigital
release featuring the flip sides. RIYL hollering, mysticism, banjos, America:
For this week’s
@newyorkermag
, I profiled one of my heroes,
@iggypop
, who is awake & killing it in Miami. Thx to Jim Jarmusch, Josh Homme, Kim Gordon, Richard Hell, Lenny Kaye, & Wayne Kramer for their help & to Ryan McGinley for the incredible portrait!
In this week’s issue of
@NewYorker
I’ve got a piece on the 30th anniversary of
@TheLemonheads
“It’s a Shame About Ray,” which just might be a perfect album — a sometimes aching, always tuneful ode to being young & beautiful & lost:
Here’s my
@NewYorker
interview with Bonnie Prince Billy & Bill Callahan, two of my favorite living songwriters — they’ve got a deep & lovely duets/covers LP out now via
@dragcityrecords
. Many thanks to
@signifyingwolf
&
@BillCallaman
for the conversation!
Third
@NewYorker
Postscript in a row from me. March is a cruel month, and crueler still to lose the great and inscrutable Scott Walker, a visionary who made me listen better and harder:
My Postscript for Shane MacGowan of
@poguesofficial
, who was fucked-up in the most beautiful & profound way, a way that felt true to how gruesome & incredible it is to be alive at all. It’s all in the tunes: Joyce, Behan, blood, whiskey, Ireland, his heart
Sharing an essay I wrote for the Criterion reissue of The Last Waltz, forever the greatest concert film ever made, somehow untethered from the space-time continuum, like everything The Band ever did — RIP Robbie, thank you for these tunes
At once euphoric and elegiac, Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary captures the members of the Band on the brink of spiritual and physical collapse as they mount their transcendent final send-off.
Read
@amandapetrusich
on THE LAST WALTZ!
I’ve got a long essay in this week’s
@NewYorker
about the fading & often problematic idea of genre as it relates to popular music — shout-out to my 14-yr old self, who firmly (& wrongly) believed a person could really only like one kind of thing:
“The Art of Dying,” a new essay by the art critic and poet Peter Schjeldahl, is so (predictably, enthrallingly) good, I can’t stop reading it. This bit destroys me:
I wrote this quickly & unhappily this morning — not certain it does justice to his legacy, but what could? Raising an ice cold vodka-ginger ale to one of the greatest. Rest In Peace, John Prine.
I wrote about the great Hal Blaine, easily one of the most crucial figures in the last half-century of American popular music, & a dude who lived well, besides:
Bonus (true) content: When she called to confirm his quotes, Iggy asked our brilliant, tirelesss fact-checker Hélène Warner to please hold for a moment while he removed his shirt:
@KadirNelson
.
@amandapetrusich
profiles Iggy Pop, the Miami-based musician who helped invent and refine punk rock, and who, at the age of 72, remains an enthusiastic and voracious student of music.
Delighted to share my
@NewYorker
interview with the the one and only
@WillieNelson
— a privilege and a hoot to speak with him, and especially to hear his laugh, which can cure any number of ills:
I spent the last year reporting this (sweeping… perhaps even definitive!) profile of
@metallica
, one of the most complex, fascinating, & colossally successful bands of all time. All my sincere thanks to the Metallica family for letting me tell this story:
I don’t know exactly how to describe what I hear in Neil Young’s voice — some high, primordial wanting — or how & why it works on me like it does. It was a true honor to interview him for
@NewYorker
:
Good evening! If you are a musician or record label who is either thinking about or actively trying to manage/reduce the carbon imprint of relentless touring, and might wish to talk to me for a New Yorker dot com story, be in touch? (& please RT for yr road-dog buds.)
Here’s my interview with
@PJHarveyUK
, one of our boldest, deepest, most searching artists. We first met 16 (!) years ago, when I was writing for Pitchfork, so it was extra thrilling to talk to her again about time, change, the release of getting older:
I’ve got a piece in this week’s
@NewYorker
about Dusty Springfield, one of my favorite singers of all time; I find her voice effortless, almost un-self-serious, yet so tender & dynamic & human. Hard to think of cozier snow day jams:
For
@NewYorker
, I wrote about the legacy of John Fahey -- and the introspective, melancholic sound of American Primitive guitar -- in advance of this weekend's excellent The Thousand Incarnations of the Rose festival:
I wrote about the German heavy metal band Rammstein for this week's
@NewYorker
-- they've been around for decades, and still sell-out giant stadiums. I like to think this might be the first time a Cornholio reference has made it into these venerated pages!
I wrote about Billie Eilish & Gen Z lonesomeness & the echo of apocalypse presently undoing us all for
@NewYorker
— featuring some very special texts from my yung friend
@HannahSeidlitz
!
In this week’s issue of
@NewYorker
, I’ve got a column on the extraordinary new record from
@julienrbaker
— such a heavy & beautiful LP, a tender meditation on love, reliance, self-obliteration, & trying to be better:
I had a beautiful talk with Wayne Kramer in 2019, for a profile of Iggy Pop. He was funny, smart, expansive, poetic, wild, kind, true. It was my first profile for
@NewYorker
& I was nervous. I recall hanging up & feeling like I’d been handed a gift. R.I.P. to an icon & visionary.
For this week's issue of
@NewYorker
, I wrote about visiting Paisley Park, Prince's compound in Minnesota. Lotta thoughts about memory/memorials, pilgrimage, mourning, work, celebrity, America:
I wrote about “Homegrown,” the beautiful old-new
@Neilyoung
record, for
@NewYorker
— I think this might be the first thing I’ve ever written or published about Neil Young? Good time to dig into how his voice works on me during long dark nights of the soul.
I’ve got a cure for these dog days, & it’s the transcendent Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence. I wrote about his life & work (on the occasion of the recent
@Folkways
reissue of his 1958 recordings) for
@NewYorker
:
@amandapetrusich
@NewYorker
@toriamos
Is there any thought of having both a male and female popular music critic at the New Yorker? Just so the coverage represents a wider spectrum of popular taste. No offense to Tori Amos but it’s not 1997.
New column on the Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who passed away, at 99, when I was writing this. Her work is elegant, sophisticated, transporting; it’s special music and I’m glad to have spent this time with it. Happy Easter, everyone:
I wrote about Harry Bellafonte for
@NewYorker
on the occasion of his 90th birthday, back in 2017. Hard to overstate what an extraordinary artist & thinker he was — a scholar of folk song, a revolutionary, a poet, a force:
For
@NewYorker
, I sat down with Joan Baez (!) to talk about her new book of upside down drawings, which are weird, funny, poignant, mysterious, beautiful & heartbreaking. Joan is also all of these things! One of my favorite interviews ever; she’s a giant:
A dream to talk with Patti Smith about her relationship to Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, and the stark & beautiful photographs she took of their home, for
@NewYorker
:
Impossible to believe David Berman has been gone a year. Last August, I wrote about how much his work means to me. “Final words are so hard to devise.”
I wrote a slightly cranky essay, but then listed two dozen beautiful and amazing records — my favorites from the year and the decade (!) — for
@NewYorker
:
For this week’s issue of
@NewYorker
, I wrote about the new Bill Callahan album, out this week via
@dragcityrecords
. It’s warm, domestic, funny, & deeply & beautifully curious about the future. I haven’t been able to turn it off:
I would not have a job at The New Yorker without Michael Agger, who has been my editor for the last 8 (!) years — my work & life have benefited immensely from his influence. He is so smart & bold, but also funny, kind, & patient. I was lucky as hell to work with him. We all were!
I wrote about Paul Simon's farewell concert in Queens for
@NewYorker
. "And I don't know a soul who's not been battered, I don't have a friend who feels at ease."
Late last Saturday night, I parked my car outside Jack Kerouac's house in St. Petersburg, FL, rolled all the windows down, & ate a cheeseburger. Here's an essay for
@NewYorker
about his relationship to that town, & my relationship to him:
Anyone who has ever been in love and fucked up, or been in love and got fucked over, will find something gaspingly true in Taylor Swift's lyrics,
@amandapetrusich
writes.
In this week’s
@NewYorker
, I have a profile of
@AngelOlsen
, whose new LP, “Big Time,” is an extraordinary document of grief & hope. We ate tacos & drove around & had cocktails at a grand hotel, but mostly I sat in awe of her resilience, humor, & toughness.
I wrote about the terrific new
@sharonvanetten
record -- which got me thinking about how strangely terrifying it is to find happiness -- for this week's issue of
@NewYorker
:
I wrote about the recent proliferation of oddball artists' residencies -- and how hard it is to sustain a thought in context in 2018, and whether creative work is becoming chiefly the terrain of heirs & heiresses -- for
@NewYorker
:
Fahey heads, my
@NewYorker
story has been updated with some never-before-seen Fahey performance footage shot for MTV (!) in the summer of 1981, by the filmmaker Erik Nelson. It is awesome:
For
@NewYorker
, I wrote about the mind-melting New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair, & "Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together," a documentary, from 1982, that was recently reissued on DVD, & will make whatever kind of day you're having better:
I spent much of 2020 feeling stunned & broken & angry, & I didn’t realize just how badly I needed someone to make sense of it.
@NewYorker
rarely devotes an entire issue to one story.
@lawrence_wright
— elegant, sweeping, & masterful — on our plague year:
I feel ludicrously lucky that I was able to profile three gifted, kind, funny, singular, & generous women (incidentally, all nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Performance!) for
@NewYorker
this year. I learned so much from each of them.
Happiest of hard-earned birthdays to
@IggyPop
— bobbing in Biscayne Bay with the dude for this 2019
@NewYorker
profile was (easily) one of the highlights of my professional career:
Many thanks to
@taylorswift13
,
@edsheeran
,
@phoebe_bridgers
, Sufjan Stevens, & Alejandro González Inneratu, a true murderer’s row of secondary interviews, for talking to me about the band, & to
@TheNational
for their time & candor & care.
This is easily the hardest piece I've ever done. A reported essay on blood feuds (or ancient oaths of vendetta, passed down from one generation to the next) in the Accursed Mountains of northern Albania. It's the cover story for the fall issue of
@vqr
:
Quaking in my boots to have my name & “Criterion Collection” & “Martin Scorsese” & “The Band” all in one place! An extraordinary reissue of an extraordinary film:
One of the best concert films ever made, Scorsese's THE LAST WALTZ ('78) arrives on Blu-ray & 4K UHD this week! On our edition: 2 commentaries; a new interview with Scorsese, conducted by
@davidlfear
; archival pieces; an essay by
@amandapetrusich
; & more!
For this week’s
@NewYorker
, I wrote about a new compilation of recordings by Moondog (a musician & composer who, beginning in the late 40s, stood on Sixth Ave. & 54th St. in a Viking outfit) & also about how much I love this stupid, gross, incredible city:
Happy-ass birthday to Bob Dylan, who takes up more space in my brain than anyone I’m not blood related to. I’ve written about him a lot, but if I may be so brazen, here’s my favorite piece, from
@NewYorker
, on Patti Smith accepting his Nobel: