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1 week ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
Hi Bob, I wonder what some of your essential pre-internet reference works were. Back before Google, what books or resources did you keep around and refer to regularly as you wrote the Consumer Guide or long-form pieces—whether for genre history, artist catalog, music theory/terminology, chart information, or anything else? — Jay Thompson, SeattleJoel Whitburn’s guides to the Billboard charts have always been valuable.
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1 week ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
MC Paul Barman: Tectonic Texts (Househusband Records) How about that—the wise-ass Brown undergrad who took up hip-hop a quarter century ago just so he could rhyme “hunter-gatherer” with “cunter-latherer” and “Super Bowl” with “pooper hole” has just turned 50.
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3 weeks ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
I’ll begin contextualizing this Big Lookback by explaining a headline that few humans under age 50 are likely to understand.
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4 weeks ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
For starters, let’s hear it for Ahmir Thompson, the drummer, bandleader, filmmaker, music historian, memoirist, Jimmy Fallon major domo, did I mention filmmaker, and blurber of Is It Still Good to Ya? better known as Questlove. Without Questlove, I would not be sitting here at midnight reflecting on the great lost genius and early Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Sly Stone, government name Sylvester Stewart.
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1 month ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
Now that we are on the brink of war with Canada, I share with you my Canad8:Kate & Anna McGarrigleRushNeil YoungJoni MitchellLeonard CohenSarah SleanLoreena McKennittArcade FireSafe assumption that you never warmed up to Rush—even after Geddy’s register dropped an octave or two—but I argue that they had a great run from Hemispheres to Signals, with some listenable albums here-and-there otherwise.
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1 month ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
Marshall Allen: New Dawn (Mexican Summer) Kentucky-born World War II Buffalo Soldier, 17th Division Special Service Band member, and postwar Paris Conservatory student Allen joined Sun Ra’s band and collective on saxophone in 1958 while also occasionally backing pioneer Afropopularizer Babatunde Olatunje on a kora he built himself. A few years after Sun Ra died at 79 in 1993, Allen took over the band while residing in the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia.
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1 month ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
In 2006, when David Johansen led the New York Dolls to their first album in 31 years and inspired me to write my first Johansen piece in decades, there was good reason to be skeptical.
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1 month ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
As I expect many do as they hit their eighties, I occasionally Google people from my past: lapsed rock critics, old pals gone thataway, sexual partners from half a century ago, fellow grade skippers at Junior High School 16, and so forth. So it came to pass that one day this fall I was musing about Flushing High School, where I edited the literary magazine and was the youngest graduate in the class of ‘58 at barely 16.
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2 months ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
My wife Rachel is loving the Ricky Riccardi interview with Terry Gross and what she’s learning about Louis Armstrong. I liked your thoughtful summary of the biographies. In your opinion has there been anything better than Teachout in the years since you wrote that? And thank you for everything you do. — Aldan G. Wylde, OaklandArmstrong being Armstrong, there probably has been, but that’s not the kind of thing I keep track of.
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2 months ago | 
robertchristgau.substack.com | Robert Christgau
Amadou & Mariam: La Vie Est Belle (Because) Not counting none other than Youssou N’Dour, the now 70- and 65-year old “blind couple of Mali” gathered more international plaudits than any Afropop act of their generation. Their most prestigious honor was nabbing Welcome to Mali’s 2010 Contemporary World Music Grammy nomination, when they were somehow outpaced by, oy, Bela Fleck.