PODCAST

the riley rock report

Tim Riley

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music music history

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3:55

Ending in the Middle

the riley rock report ·

2023/06/30

One of the few drawbacks of attending Oberlin College between 1979-1983 had to do with that small Ohio town’s lack of a record store. The bi-annual student vinyl swaps were both heavily attended and fiendishly idiosyncratic.B ut it’s still embarrassing to think that this 1988 Phoenix review was my first exposure to Joy Division, and how catching up made me sound daft. So this marks my first stab at the topic, and seeks points for historical transparency. July marks the 35th anniversary of this CD

27:32

Reason to Believe

the riley rock report ·

2023/06/16

This week’s newsletter features an excerpt from my book review of Deliver Me from Nowhere for the Los Angeles Review of Books, plus an interview with author Warren Zanes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

58:18

Leon Russell Learns How to Boogie: An Interview With...

the riley rock report ·

2023/06/12

Buffalo Tom guitarist Bill Janovitz has written a couple books on the Rolling Stones, and his new book talks to over a hundred sources to tell the Leon Russell story, which overlaps with the Stones in some telling ways. Here’s our interview. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

52:49

Elizabeth Samet on American Amnesia

the riley rock report ·

2023/06/02

Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness(Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021)80 years ago on June 10th, 1943, the Allied forces invaded Sicily in Operation Husky, a battle that lasted six weeks and drove the Axis forces off the island to open up the Mediterranean sea lanes. Elizabeth D. Samet’s sage book, Looking for the Good War, writes about WWII as our dominant war mythology, and how nobody ever fights one war at a time. I talked with her about how war stories

53:58

God's Comic

the riley rock report ·

2023/05/19

Happy to report that the West Coast progressive sheet truthdig has returned, and ran this book review recently… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

16:25

Style Into Sarcasm

the riley rock report ·

2023/05/05

Why Steely Dan Doesn’t Suck, Radio Silence, April 2014The Countdown to Ecstacy vinyl reissue, remastered by Donald Fagen for Geffen/UMe for release on May 26th, makes a good peg for this Steely Dan overview. Dan Stone had me write it up for Radio Silence, that handsome Bay area journal. (In the first paragraph, I dig myself out of that defensive headline.) Plus, Quantum Criminals by Alex Pappademas and illustrator Joan LeMay just arrived from the University of Texas Press. More on that in a future

29:49

Jena Friedman Punches Up

the riley rock report ·

2023/04/27

I first caught Friedman on Stephen Colbert talking about her deathless live 2016 Election Night barb (“I just wish I could be funny… Better get your abortions while you can…” she says). She seemed tentative with Colbert, but grateful. No surprise, he’s a gentleman. Somebody urged her to pitch a book and now nobody’s safe… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

17:31

All-Consuming Yet Inscrutable

the riley rock report ·

2023/04/11

EXPANSIVE YET FORBIDDING, imperious yet embracing, pianist Rudolf Serkin mixed gravity with guilt to build a towering legacy. His recordings confirm him as a titan of the old school, a European who branded piano’s core repertoire with an air of authenticity. His philosophy of interpretive submission spurred rebelliousness in the next generation, and he hovers over classical piano’s firmament with peers like Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, and Mieczysław Horszowski. This is a public episode. If

40:22

"C'est La Vie" Say the Old Folks

the riley rock report ·

2023/04/11

FEW ROCK BIOGRAPHIES rise to the level of their subject. But this past year has already seen extraordinary titles like Lightning Strikes, by Lenny Kaye, a musical memoir lived out in a beguiling new history, and Dilla Time, Dan Charnas’s life of rap producer and beat-meister J Dilla, (which has prompted a new documentary from Summer of Soul’s Questlove). RJ Smith has already etched a sturdy treatment of James Brown (The One, 2012), a figure who long deserved higher ground. Now, with Chuck Berry,

20:03

Please Change Your Mind

the riley rock report ·

2023/04/11

I got friendly with Bob Moses (RIP), a guitarist for Busted Statues, when I profiled the band for the Phoenix, and we stayed in touch. He asked me to write up a mid-decade navel-gazer for InfoPlease Entertainment Almanac, where he edited, and we worked hard to cover a lot of ground. Nobody saw it, of course, and it languished for years in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall’s front porch. But the web divulges as it destroys, and it reads curiously like history even thought I wrote as a contemporary

7:08

Rick James Parties All the Time

the riley rock report ·

2023/04/11

This Boston Phoenix piece ran in the fall of 1988 as James toured behind his Wonderful Comeback. It was a barometer of how much had changed since his earlier days, with both Prince’s stardom and Terence Trent D’Arby’s upstart energy. James would have turned 75 on February 1st; he died in 2004. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

45:28

There's no place like post punk... the Embarrassment...

the riley rock report ·

2023/04/11

IF WE LIVE IN A GOLDEN AGE of documentaries, too many of them go on for too long without revealing much. In “We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember,” directors Daniel Fetherston and Danny Szlauderbach approach the Embarrassment, punk's great left-of-center act, with earnestness and care, detailing the many sideshows (“Ron Klaus Wrecked His House”) and drive-bys (”Wellsville”). Some of this goes against the music's caterwauling grain, and only accents the band's freefall strangeness; on the other hand,

11:29

Hero Blues: Bob Dylan's Twisted Philosophy of Song

the riley rock report ·

2023/01/13

Throughout his sixty-year-plus career, Bob Dylan has combined an “incredible skill with a wildness of spirit,” as magician Penn Jillette recently put it. He towers above others—Bruce Springsteen, John Prine, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell—through volume, range, and brash unpredictability. In the past decade he has retooled Frank Sinatra crooning (Triplicate) and wrung suspicious reverie from Covid crazy (Rough and Rowdy Ways). In this latest book, he submits essays on sixty-six recordings, having

67:53

rerun: rockcritics.com talks with Tim Riley about the...

the riley rock report ·

2022/12/30

The latest rockcritics podcast features Tim Riley, author of one of my favourite Beatle books, Tell Me Why: The Beatles: Album by Album, Song by Song, the Sixties and After. A couple weeks prior to our chatting, I asked Tim — currently completing a large-scale John Lennon biography — to submit a list of some of his favourite Beatle books, and it’s that list which forms the basis of our conversation. We delve into more than a dozen titles here, including a few obscurities, a few ancillary titles

53:29

Pagan Holidays, Rock'n'roll, and Our Long Tunnel

the riley rock report ·

2022/12/09

Ten years ago NPR had me on to rant about pagan rituals, from the vault. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

53:30

Jason Gross and Perfect Sound Forever

the riley rock report ·

2022/11/29

Jason Gross has edited PSF since 1993, overseeing an important venue for critics and passionate listeners. Like all the good editorial conversations, one topic begat another, so the links can help you figure out some of the sounds we reference. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

12:04

Pianists and Vampires: Igor Levit's Transcriptions,...

the riley rock report ·

2022/11/11

Igor Levit – Tristan (Sony, 2022)Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, Yo-Yo Ma – Beethoven for Three, Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 (Sony, 2022) Why listen to symphonic music stripped of strings, winds, brass, and percussion...? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

60:42

Devin McKinney, Get Back, and the Beatles in Context

the riley rock report ·

2022/10/28

A few weeks after Get Back aired last year, I spoke with Magic Circles author Devin McKinney about the film and its many quirks. As we take stock of the Revolver box set, the timeline sharpens: January of 1969 happens only three years after they record that 1966 breakthrough. Visit https://timrileyauthor.com for more Beatles. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rileyrockreport.substack.com

17:39

Pick a Career: John Lennon Grieves the Beatles

the riley rock report ·

2022/10/14

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon. Apple, 1970.THE 1970s DAWNED with a blistering hangover. On September 13, 1969, just before Abbey Road began dominating end-of-’60s radio, John Lennon sang at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, an early 1950s festival. He called his pickup group the Plastic Ono Band: Eric Clapton (lead guitar), Klaus Voorman (bass) and Alan White (drums). They launched with standards, “Blue Suede Shoes, “Money,” and then “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” before turning to Lennon’s “Yer

3:31

Too Much to Dream: Bowie's No-Context Daydream

the riley rock report ·

2022/09/30

Brett Morgen extends Bowie's dislocation byspinning out his lack of contextMoonage Daydream, Brett Morgan, director (Universal)IN A GLUT of music documentaries where overlong counts as serious and talking heads sling clichés, we should be glad about Brett Morgen’s Moonage Daydream. It lets David Bowie do all the narrating, delivers riveting concert footage, and boasts a detailed audio design by Bowie’s longtime collaborator Tony Visconti... This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss

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