Posts From Rob Patterson

‘Big In Japan’ Rocks Like Real Life

This charming indie film about a rock band making its last stab at success in Tokyo uses the real life group Tennis Pro to make a rock flick that feels true. With its very cool songs, superb performances by its all amateur actors and vivid scenes in the land of the rising son, Big in Japan charms and gets life in a band right.

Read More

The Who Hits 50 Right on the Bullseye

They perform in concert like a great band should: Playing their music in a way that’s still alive and musically anew, showing their staying power

Read More

Does Ricki Rock?

Can Meryl Streep rock the silver screen in Ricki and The Flash? Her all-too-rare in the movies real live band certainly does in this pleasant enough flick.

Read More

Listless Andy Summers Doc

Subtitled “Surviving The Police,” one has to wonder just what guitarist Andy Summers had to overcome when superstardom ended – other than just that.

Read More

Love & Mercy: Best Rock Star Biopic Ever?

The seemingly risky move of having two actors play Brian Wilson – Paul Dano as the young Beach Boy and John Cusack as the older Wilson – succeeds admirably in this emotionally compelling film that tells the legendary artist’s story with the ring of truth and uncanny accuracy.

Read More

Wilko Johnson Film Explores Life and Death

He is likely best-known in America not for his music with the band Dr. Feelgood – who achieved even-less-than-cult-status in the US though well known in his native England – but for his role as the mute executioner, in Game of Thrones

Read More

Mick Fleetwood’s ‘Play On’ Book: All About the Love

The Mac leader’s bio a very touching love story about his deep and abiding affection for music, drumming, his band and its current and past players

Read More

Neil Young Rocks The Message

Making music the message and being a bit less polemical on The Monsanto Years might have yielded Neil Young & POTR one of his finest albums in years

Read More

Nellie McKay Revisits 1960s Songs

Do you fondly recall the 1960s? Nellie McKay, who was yet to be born, gleans a variety of gems from that decade and renders them with imagination & panache.

Read More

Pink Floyd’s Final Notes

Pink Floyd goes out “with more a whisper than a bang for a last album” that is “not quite for fans only and not quite an album.”

Read More