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(Steven J Wilson)

 I wrote a column called DITB (Down in the Basement) for the Tornado, the greatest community newspaper ever with a four-month lifespan. I didn’t exactly write reviews. I had other people do that; I edited them. Nope, I just kinda went on about whatever was on my mind at the time related to popular music. DITB was probably the first place outside of New York or London where someone raved at length about the Strokes. I went on for a few hundred words about Weezer once. I have no idea what inspired that. 

DITB did follow the rules of journalism. I did my best to research shit. Fact check. Include details. I guess that is where SPEW will divert from DITB. For SPEW I fully intend to forget names, get facts wrong, neglect to give complete titles, and otherwise write irresponsibly. 

Reverberations is the name of my music blahg. Reverberations dates from my days at the KC Free Press, the best online KC news and culture resource ever with a four-month lifespan. See a theme emerging? My late friend Greg Trooper (a wonderful singer-songwriter) used to joke that every label he ever recorded for went out of business. Anyway, I guess I’m the Greg Trooper of rock writing. If I am, being the Greg Trooper of anything is a pretty great thing to be. 

Sometimes I get together with my old pals Nate and Doug. We get addled and play music real loud - introduce selections breathlessly and profanely, prioritize bad humor over analysis, and generally have a gay old time blasting tunes. SPEW is rock writing in that spirit. Call it expressionism. Call it shit. Call it a waste of time. If you get a kick out of it, read it.


SPEW is made possible by Apple Music, which has saved me from the ignobility of illegal downloading. God knows I can’t afford all the goddamn records I intend to write about. 

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The people have spoken.

1. July 30, 2017, Jane Weaver, Justin Bieber, Starcrawler

(Steven J Wilson)
This week I’ve been sampling a lot of music. Sampling in the old school sense, that is.   Jane Weaver is a British artist who’s been around in one group or form or whatever for over twenty years. Her recent solo work has become beloved of the psych-folk crowd, the same people I suspect who get giddy over Joanna Newsom, Meg Baird, and whatever. Her new album is World Kosmology . Whoo, there’s a title that any self-respecting punk in 1997 would have called pretentious twaddle. But these are more generous and inclusive times for fans of outsider music. Boris fans may be Margo Price fans may be Kendrick Lamar fans. Weaver combines trippy analog synths, motorik beats (4/4 time, but rigidly mechanical, favored by Krautrockers), chiming electric and strumming acoustic guitars and her own ethereal vocals. It all works because the songwriting is fetching. Give it a chance and it charms. It probably sounds great fucked up on pot, although I haven’t tried that yet.   I hea...
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Better Ed than Dead

(Steven J Wilson)
Ed Sheeran - He looks like Van Morrison, kinda, huh? Check the tats.   Ed Sheeran is the highest paid entertainer on the planet. I think. I don’t know. They say he’s worth 65 million. Anyway, I read that somewhere. God knows he travels light and doesn’t have to share that dough with an orchestra or anything. I saw Ed once. At least that I’m aware of. He opened for the Rolling Stones in 2015 (or was it 16?) at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Just me and several thousand of my closest friends. He came out with a guitar in front of that throng and mesmerized the crowd. Okay, not really. Some kids seemed to like him. Old people, eighty percent of the attendees, treated him as a curiosity or mild irritant, not uncommon for a warmup act served up before the Stones’ Lions and Christians, bread and circuses exhibition. Later, he sang “Beast of Burden” with Mick. He was better than Dave Matthews. I see his ruddy little mug and tousled ginger top here and there in the ...
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The death and future of punk, pt. 37, THE IDLES

(Steven J Wilson)
The Idles are from Bristol. The one in England, not Connecticut. They’ve been plunkin’ about since 2012, but their first album was released this year. It’s called Brutalism.   The cover features a photo of singer Joe Talbot’s mother, whom Talbot cared for in the last years of a long illness, mounted above a stark shrine constructed by Talbot and his father. These are placed in the corner of a bare room with brick floors and white painted brick and stone walls. It has the barren, but emotionally loaded austerity of Joseph Beuys work. It’s an eerily   perfect image for an album entitled and themed around the notion of brutalism.   Ever seen this movie called My Architect? It’s about the architect Louis Kahn, revealed through the eyes of his sometimes estranged son, Nathaniel Kahn. It’s heartrending, as a dad and lad tale, in its austere, sadly masculine way. The younger Kahn, as a budding filmmaker, with a heavy, still hurting heart find the beauty in his father...
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