[Nicole Lipman has been my undergraduate research assistant for three years and has helped me immeasurably by transcribing interviews, scanning and indexing press clippings, and doing other work that my book project needed. Nicole is also a musician and music writer, so before she graduated in May, I asked her to update me on the...
[I’ve wanted Thomas Calkins to write something for this blog since well before I served as external adviser to his University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee sociology dissertation on the life and death of urban record stores. While that project currently evolves into academic journals publications, he found the time to share some thoughts on a quite recent...
[Note: Since the original 2019 post, I’ve updated this page with five additional years (2018-2022) of Times coverage, archived at the bottom of this page. See my preliminary analysis of this extended archive here. -LN] I’ve noticed that folks in the Hudson Valley can’t avoid taking the bait when the New York Times puts out...
Thus Owls – The Mountain That We Live Upon Top billing goes to the stark, incantatory, incandescent fourth album by this Quebec duo. Singer Erika Angell is the most exciting and committed vocalist I heard all year. Jonathan Wilson – Rare Birds Producer to the indie stars and dude who looks like Jesus achieves...
A paper presented at the “Small Cities in the 21st Century” mini-conference, in the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Baltimore, Maryland, February 23, 2018: Urban Lift-off Amid the Rural Amenity Economy: Riverfront Cities and the “Brooklynization” of the Hudson Valley by Leonard Nevarez Vassar College ABSTRACT: What futures and fortunes await...
Protomartyr – Relatives In Descent Unsettling, noisy, bleak, wrathful, feverishly pored over by those who scrutinize the fine print… 2017 was a hell of a year, am I right? Oh, we’re talking about the Protomartyr record. Nadine Shah – Holiday Destination Urgent reportage transmitted via globally sourced sounds and Nadine Shah’s authoritative, ass-kicking rock....
How did a bunch of kids in suburban Thornhill ignite a Toronto music scene and bring new energy to Queen Street West, now a hip urban neighborhood? My last post introduced the key players and forgotten bands in the so-called Thornhill sound, but their network, activities, and energies would need to relocate and expand in...
One of my most exciting and challenging writing assignments is now available. I was asked to write 150-200 words of text to accompany a photo featured in Other People’s Pictures: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift, an exhibit that just opened at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. Here’s the picture...
Last week, a Facebook meme made the rounds asking users to list “10 Concerts I’ve Been To, One is a Lie.” While I’m game for almost any music list meme, I didn’t participate because I got sucked into into a smaller one on Instagram created by an old punk rocker @bookishlife: the #aprilconcertchallenge. I think...
Today I published a review essay of the reissue of Martha and the Muffins’ sixth album, The World Is A Ball, on the music blog Sound It Out. If you landed here from that blog looking for my list of the four superior albums by the band, they are their debut release and the three...
Thought I would share this for teachers and academics: a guest lecture section that I just gave in an undergraduate Introduction to Urban Studies course taught by Lisa Brawley at Vassar College. Readers are welcome to incorporate or adapt this material into their own teachings. Day 1: Theorizing the post-industrial city Readings: Richard Lloyd...
2016: the year everyone died David Bowie released Blackstar on a Friday in January (his birthday), and by Sunday he was gone. Creating his most adventurous music in decades, the starman delivered a eulogy for himself and a lament for the condition of justice in the world. Still, I’d trade in this album of the...
