REVIEWS:
What’s the read on the latest reissue releases and live performances by classic rock artists? What biopics, movies or documentaries are worth seeing in theaters and at home? What books about rock music and the people who make and work with it are worth reading. Our team also takes a fresh look at notable works in our Album Rewind series
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.
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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.
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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 MoreWilko 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
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Doug Sahm’s Groove Captured in 2015 Documentary
“You have to see him, you have to hear him, you have to bear witness…”
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‘Wrecking Crew’ Doc Honors LA Studio Musicians
The ace musicians performed on literally hundreds of recordings by the Beach Boys, Mamas and the Papas, Sonny & Cher, the Righteous Brothers and more
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So Many Roads Brings The Grateful Dead Into Sharp Focus
In So Many Roads author David Browne delves into the “long strange trip” of the Grateful Dead and makes sense of it all in a “smart & satisfying” band bio
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Viv Albertine’s ‘Fascinating’ Punk Rock Memoir
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press) In A Word: Unsparing If you were a fan of the Slits and their sui generis, serrated, feral music, it should come as
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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
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Wilco Brings Back (Some of) the Fun
Rather than making an album with the implied stature of “masterpiece” etched into its grooves, Wilco keeps it short, snappy and fun on its ninth studio LP, yet without forsaking the experinentalism that has been the band’s hallmark since Yankee Foxtrot Hotel.
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