Tonight! Will Hermes Talks About His New Book With Kool Herc, Laurie Anderson, Bob Christgau, And More

rsz_hermes.jpg
River left empty for obligatory Klosterman blurb.
Yes, tonight at Housing Works longtime Voice pal Will Hermes assembles hip-hop Godfather DJ Kool Herc, Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye, Laurie Anderson, Salsa legend Larry Harlow, and former Voice music editor Robert Christgau to discuss the city's music scene(s), as they unfolded from 1973 through 1977. This period is also the subject of Hermes's recent book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, a remarkable side-by-side examination of downtown rock, loft jazz, salsa, disco, early hip-hop, and whatever else was going on sonically, tracking each genre as it evolved over the period. Hermes has been part of a few excellent panels lately, joining Mark Yarm, Marcus Reeves, and Marisa Meltzer at the Brooklyn Book Festival and Nitsuh Abebe at a recent Love Goes To event, but this looks like the best one yet.

And in slightly nerdier news, on Friday, Steven Shaviro, whose essay on Greil Marcus and the Pointer Sisters was one of the highlights from Zer0 Books's extraordinary The Resistable Demise of Michael Jackson, speaks uptown at Columbia's Center for Ethnomusicology, where he'll deliver a paper entitled, "Splitting the Atom: Post-Cinematic Articulations of Sound and Vision." Apparently, he'll be focusing on the music video for the Massive Attack song of the same name, embedded below.

More »

Remembering John Lennon, 30 Years On: The Voice's 1980 Eulogy

christgau lennon cover.jpg
Today is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death. His senseless murder on December 8th, 1980 was hard to sort out at the time--"the anonymous eating the famous like a cannibal feasting on testicles," as Robert Christgau wrote in these pages--and not much easier to parse now. In memory of the world's most loved Beatle, we're reprinting below the eulogy that ran in the Voice just days after Lennon's death. "I've never been one to hobnob with the stars," Christgau wrote then, "but who could resist John Lennon?" Good question.

More »

Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide Lives

robertchristgaufredmcdarra.jpg
Fred McDarrah
We'd be remiss, after noting with some sadness its momentary demise, in not mentioning the contingent return of Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide to MSN. This time around, it's called Expert Witness--"Forty years ago I dubbed myself the Dean of American Rock Critics," writes the Dean of American Rock Critics, over at his new home. "That was a joke with legs. The blog title Expert Witness is not a joke. It's a boast that in criticism, knowledge counts, and that I have a load and a half." Bob's always admirable lack of false modesty is actually the least of the selling points here.

More »

From the Vault

 

Links

©2013 Village Voice, LLC, All rights reserved.
Browse Voice Nation
  • Voice Places New York

    Voice Places

    Find everything you're looking for in your city

  • Happy Hour App

    Happy Hour App

    Find the best happy hour deals in your city

  • Daily Deals

    Daily Deals

    Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%

  • Best Of

    Best Of...

    Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city