Steven R Rosen

Antony & the Johnsons: Antony and the Johnsons: Southern Theatre, Columbus, Ohio

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, February 2009

TRANSCENDENCE IS a goal in so much music - so much art - that it feels too easy, too common. Maybe that's because contemporary "transcendent ...

Hoyt Axton: My Griffin Is Gone

Review by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, October 2008

HOYT AXTON'S 1969 LP My Griffin Is Gone, originally released to little notice on Columbia, belongs to that group of orchestrated baroque pop albums that ...

Chuck Barris: Confessions of a Populist Mind

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, March 2003

Steven Rosen talks to self-confessed CIA assassin Chuck Barris – inspiration to George Clooney – about the pop classic he penned back in 1962. ...

Beastie Boys, The, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen: Utah Saints: Sundance Music Festival

Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, May 2006

...

Belle And Sebastian: Belle and Sebastian with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra: Hollywood Bowl, California

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, July 2006

SOMETIMES, WHAT sounds like a good concert idea on paper turns out even better – historic, even – on stage. ...

Peter Bjorn and John: Bogart's, Cincinnati

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, December 2007

MAYBE IT'S a Bjorn thing, but the audience at Bogarts in Cincinnati had trouble figuring Peter Bjorn And John out. ...

Curt Boettcher, Association, The: Ray of Light: The World of Sunshine Pop

Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, May 2004

ONE DAY RECENTLY, after listening to the latest Dirtbombs CD in my car and then hearing the Music Machine’s 1966 proto-punk hit ‘Talk Talk’ for ...

Simon Bonney Proves He Belongs in Country: Songs Reflective, Stark and Sincere

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, May 1995

COUNTRY-AND-WESTERN music and European art songs aren't as strange a combination as you might think. ...

Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown: Denver Show Starts Celebration of 50th-anniversary Recording

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, January 1997

THIS YEAR is Clarence 'Gatemouth'' Brown's 50th as a recording artist, and virtually everyone is preparing to honor the blues musician. ...

David Byrne

Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, April 2004

David Byrne – whose funk-rock-art band Talking Heads brought New Wave into the mainstream a generation ago, and who has pursued his interests in rhythm-based ...

Freddy Cannon: Chuck Barris: Confessions of a Populist Mind

Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, March 2003

Steven Rosen talks to self-confessed CIA assassin Chuck Barris – inspiration to George Clooney – about the pop classic he penned back in 1962. ...

Freddy Cannon:
Boom Boom Rock 'n' Roll: The Best of Freddy Cannon (Shout Factory)


Review by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, February 2009

HERE'S THE MOST amazing music-trivia factoid in a long time, courtesy of the liner notes to Boom Boom 24-song greatest-hits collection: Mick Jagger acknowledges he ...

Nick Cave: The Proposition, Pop Music and Leonard Cohen

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, June 2006

THE PROPOSITION, director John Hillcoat's solemn and violently unsentimental Australian western, has its fair share of stars in the cast. ...

Leonard Cohen: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, June 2009

IF LEONARD COHEN, now 74, intends to retire from performing after his current tour, he couldn't have picked a better venue for his final North ...

Karen Dalton: From the Golden Age of Colorado to the Golden Age of Reissues

Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, March 2012

DAN HANKIN, now a retired school social worker living in Denver, fondly remembers back to 1966, when he would visit Karen Dalton's Colorado mountain cabin ...

Bob Dylan: Dylan Album Revives Interest in 2 Old Films

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, October 1998

IT'S 1966 ALL over again in the world of pop music - and theDenver International Film Festival, which just concluded, was inthe center of it. ...

Bob Dylan: Looking Back At Don't Look Back: Dylan and D.A. Pennebaker

Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, March 2009

FOR D.A. Pennebaker, the time has come to look back. For the new digitally-remastered "deluxe edition" DVD of his classic documentary Don't Look Back, which ...

Bob Dylan, Shane MacGowan: Music at Sundance: Dylan, Atlantic and Shane MacGowan

Overview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, May 2003

Bob Dylan’s long awaited Masked and Anonymous debuts at Sundance ...

Feelies, The: Rick Moody Interviews the Feelies

Interview by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, December 2009

The celebrated novelist and Wingdale Community Singers rocker interviews his favorite band. Blurt takes notes. ...

John Fred and his Playboy Band: John Fred: The Long Career of a One-Hit Wonder

Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, One Shot, Fall 1987

IT SEEMED A BOW to novelty and nostalgia. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which features roots-music artists of all sorts, was sponsoring a ...

Go-Betweens, The: The Yin and Yang of the Go-Betweens

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, June 2005

LIVE, THE GO-BETWEENS may just be the most perfectly balanced rock band around. And it's nice to have a rare chance to witness it. Last ...

Bill Haley: Jim Dawson: Rock Around the Clock - The Record that Started the Rock Revolution

Book Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, June 2005

DID HOLLYWOOD create rock 'n' roll? That sounds like a strange, ridiculous and even offensive question to anyone who likes rock and all its musical ...

Lothar and the Hand People: Return Of The Weird: Lothar and the Hand People

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, October 1995

"YOU THINK THERE'LL be enough interest in this that I'll be able to make a fortune giving theremin lessons?" ...

Nick Lowe: World Trade Center Plaza, NYC

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, September 2007

IN CONCERT, Nick Lowe sings with such a sweet-tempered, smooth-voiced, country-tinged nonchalance – a modern-day Eddy Arnold – that the clever wordplay of his lyrics ...

Aimee Mann: Avalon Theatre, Los Angeles, CA

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, December 2006

LIKE HER voice itself, Aimee Mann's Christmas concert – her first of what promises to be an annual event – in L.A. was winningly straightforward ...

Curtis Mayfield: No Sad Songs For Curtis Mayfield

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, March 1994

ANYONE CAN HAVE a paralyzing, life-diminishing accident at anytime - bad things happen to good people just as often as good things. You just accept ...

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: The Stubborn McGarrigles' Folk Music Keeps On Shining

Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, February 1997

LIFE IS SHORT with few guarantees. But here's one – Kate and Anna McGarrigle will always make wonderful folk music. If only they weren't so ...

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks – Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Review by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, February 2009

FIRST OF ALL, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is rock's A Love Supreme. There's no way you could ever listen to its title song – a ...

Klaus Nomi Lives Again In The Nomi Song

Report by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, February 2005

THE ARTIST KENNY SCHARF was listening to "Jonesy's Jukebox" on Indie 103.1 FM recently when he was startled to hear a Klaus Nomi song – ...

Dan Penn: Southern Soul Rises Again : Dan Penn's Do Right Man Out on Top Label

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, July 1994

IF THE RACIAL history of the American South was a book, it would be a tragedy - but not without inspirational chapters about black and ...

Gene Pitney Gets His Limelight

Comment by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, April 2002

THE BIG NEWS at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies was that Gene Pitney finally got in. ...

Terry Riley: Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, October 2005

TO CELEBRATE the 70th birthday of California-born minimalist composer Terry Riley, the UCLA Live series put together a program even stranger than Riley's landmark In ...

Rocket from the Tombs: On Rock And Rocket From The Tombs: David Thomas

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, unpublished, Fall 2003

WHEN DAVID THOMAS brought his three-day "Disastodrome" musical carnival to UCLA earlier this year, there was a surprise element. ...

Rolling Stones, The, James Brown, Beach Boys, The, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore: The TAMI Show Remembered

Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, October 2004

THE ROLLING Stones were there, along with James Brown, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and more, filmed live before their screaming ...

Matthew Sweet: Revisiting Rainy Day: Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs get Under the Covers

Interview by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, April 2006

THERE ARE THOSE who say, with good reason, that 1984's Rainy Day is one of the great L.A. pop albums. And while not a sequel, ...

David Thomas: Man in the Mirror

Profile and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, June 2003

Pere Ubu’s David Thomas stages the latest incarnation of his rock opera/performing arts festival 'Disastodrome!' ...

Timi Yuro: That Time Of Yuro: Timi Yuro

Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, April 2012

ANY LIST OF proto-feminist Top 40 hits of the 1960s would have to include Timi Yuro's 1962 'What's A Matter Baby' along with Lesley Gore's ...

Frankie Valli headlines Kool Koncert

Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 1995

THERE IS SUCH a thing in rock music as "the chill factor.'' Itrefers to songs that, because of some unusual element - a cryingguitar, perhaps, ...

White Stripes, The: The White Stripes: Under Blackpool Lights DVD (Third Man/V2)

Film/DVD Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, March 2005

EXCUSE MY misperception. I’d always considered the White Stripes as a modernist garage-rock band-hip to the melody of catchy songs like 'You’re Pretty Good Looking ...

Lucinda Williams: Lucinda & Miller Williams: UCLA Live Performing Arts Series, Royce Hall, Los Angeles, CA

Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, November 2006

LUCINDA WILLIAMS must get her songwriting gift – her fantastic ability to reveal psyche through describing such seemingly peripheral objects as Car Wheels on a ...

Steve Winwood: A Higher Love

Comment by Steven R Rosen, One Shot, Winter 1987

CATCHING PERFORMERS on the oldies circuit can be sad. ...

Neil Young: Brush With Death Leaves Troubadour Grateful: Heart of Gold

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, February 2006

JONATHAN DEMME orders orange juice for himself, Neil Young and a reporter at downtown's Zoom Restaurant in Park City, Utah - a refreshing way to ...

Senior Moments: The Best 30 Albums of 2012 by Artists 50 and Over

Special Feature by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, December 2012

As voted by over 80 of RBP's leading lights, here are the year's 30 best long-players made by artists of a certain vintage – those ...

Chronicle Of A Mythic Concert: The TAMI Show Remembered

Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, October 2004

THE ROLLING STONES were there, along with James Brown, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and more, filmed live before their screaming ...

Fit for a King: Syd Nathan and King Records

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, October 2009

AS JON HARTLEY FOX made his scheduled appearance at a Books by the Banks event at the Duke Energy Center Oct. 17, the many years ...

Old Ideas and Wrecking Balls: Rock's Top Senior Moments of 2012

Essay by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, December 2012

THE 84 ROCK'S BACKPAGES contributors – and other invited music aficionados – who participated in our second Senior Moments poll had a heap of fun ...

Senior Moments: 2011's Best Albums by Artists Over 50

Special Feature by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, December 2011

IN AN EFFORT TO SHOW the world – or at least its readers – that rock music continues, and often even improves, when its practitioners ...