Posts by Morgan Enos

[rating=9.00] For a celebrated rock band that’s by now old far enough to order a Miller at the bar, Guided by Voices have always had a weird shyness about releasing a big-time, polished rock record, start to finish, full stop. Space Gun, the group’s most consistent album to date, is that record. It’s not that […]

[rating=7.00] For a revered songwriter boasting a 50-year career and two spots in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, David Crosby hasn’t previously had a lot of songs to crow about — at least ones he’s written. Crosby was initially best known as the rhythm guitar player in the Byrds who wrote the spellbindingly […]

[rating=8.00] What’s your favorite debut album by an artist, ever? How about a sophomore album? Well, Robert Pollard has released one hundred albums, culminating in August by Cake (2017). Yet, he miraculously still has more to say with his one hundred and first. How Do You Spell Heaven is revelatory less for its sound than […]

[rating=8.00 Dark Matter, Randy Newman’s first new album of the 2010s, is his wildest and wooliest yet. That is, if you don’t count his 1979 album Born Again – where Newman threatened public indecency, tormented the Electric Light Orchestra, and sang as a homophobe who suddenly realizes he’s gay as he’s about to commit assault […]

Randy Newman might be the most misunderstood American songwriter of the 20th century. This is no exaggeration. For nearly half a century, Newman has been unfairly pigeonholed as either a novelty singer or a merciless parodist – or just the curly-haired dork who plays the piano. His throwaway takedown of prejudice in 1977, “Short People,” […]

[rating=8.00] The musical subgenre of power pop arguably began with a mighty Fadd9 chord at the top of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” Since that letter was nailed to the church door in 1964, guitar-toting kids sprung into action, from brilliant 1970s groups like XTC and The Raspberries to the ’90s sounds of Teenage […]

Guided by Voices Tackle Their First Double Album With ‘August by Cake’

Here’s how the story goes: a middle-aged elementary school teacher from Dayton, Ohio, named Robert Pollard was just blowing off steam with his drinking buddies in his spare time. Fueled by R.E.M., The Who and many thirty-racks, they recorded a massive catalog of songs, usually on consumer-grade tape recorders. More of a self-described “songwriter’s guild” […]

“‘Nine Bullets’!” yelled a man in a flannel shirt near the end of Drive-By Truckers’ set at The Space at Westbury Theater Friday night. He was referring to the second track on the Truckers’ 1999 album Pizza Deliverance, a yowling, howling fantasy about gunning down your condescending peer group and immediate family. Co-leader Patterson Hood, […]