Kill Yr Idols
Newsletter (Digital)
Kill Yr Idols is an irreverent, iconoclastic, and even insolent look at American culture. Everything we hear, see, and read is inside the world of fucked up bullshit—and that was even before the pandemic meant we can’t hear and see things together anymore. How we got here has a lot to do with the institutions—political, or course, but also artistic and supposedly public-serving—and even the people we’re supposed to admire.
Music, art, books, movies, all the rest, matter to us, all of us—they matter even to those who don’t pay attention to each one. Why are you supposed to pay attention to this, and not that? Institutions, people, and their editorial supporters are like your parents making decisions for you, and like the poet said, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.”
We should all be angry. We should all Kill Yr Idols Source
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| Scope | National |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Country | United States of America |
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesTaking it to the Streets
We all have a giant dichotomies, our either-this-or-that, about things we care about. I mean, there is so much stuff out there, just to preserve our sanity and make satisfying use of our time1 we have to make decisions.
Talk, Talk, Talk, it's Only Talk
You are invited to the above glorious event On May 27th, I appeared on the Brooklyn Rail’s New Social Environment discussion series, talking about minimalist music and my Minimalist Music book with Adam Shatz, the US editor of the London Review of Books, an author who’s working on a book about creative Black music (which I’m exceedingly interested in), and an excellent critic.
Miles Davis at 100
At the vanguard of the century When I was in college, I took two history courses with a professor who was easily the most politically conservative (in the mid-20th century American establishment manner) person on the entire campus: Modern European History and the History of Espionage and Diplomacy.
Jazz: The Mid-Year Report
So much good music in so little time I gotchoo We’re on the cusp of Memorial Day weekend, and I’ll be sending out another newsletter just after that celebrating the birthday of one of the titans of the recorded music era, so a shorter one today.
Bands of Our Lives: The Philip Glass Ensemble
There are words that on their face are different combinations of letters and seem to mean totally different things. Meanings, though, can not only overlap but express the exact same thing, the only difference is between who is thinking and saying them. What are, really, the differences between a “band” and an “ensemble,” and a “cover” and “interpretation?” The Philip Glass Ensemble sits in the nexus of these questions.
The Great Illuminator
While I can’t remember the very first time I heard Keith Jarrett’s playing, it was probably on the Miles Davis at Fillmore LP. The first time I remember listening to his playing was one summer when I was in high school and attending an Eastman School of Music jazz camp. In a break between some lesson and another class, I went to the music library and pulled out Belonging and sat down with it on the turntable.
"It's Here, Lads"
First, a word from my manager, Ian Faith: Today is the day that Minimalist Music is out for anyone to buy or borrow and read, and I encourage you all to do so! It’s a concise and original look at one of the most important changes in Western music, one that is sill alive and developing around us. Distilled from the back cover copy: Minimalism is not what you think. As a genre, it’s not harmonies, kinds of rhythms, styles and flavors. It’s not about less, about minimal materials.
What MTT Taught Me
Michael Tilson Thomas passed away April 22, not a surprise in that everyone in classical music knew that he had been suffering from a brain tumor, but still a jolt. This is not an obituary—there’s a good one from Tony Tommasini—or any kind of review of his history or even an analysis of what he did and why he was notable. Anyone who had the chance to hear him talk about and demonstrate how music works has had that experience, from a TED Talk to his superb Keeping Score video series.
Building the Stairways to Paradise
Abiodun Oyewole said that to the crowd before his set with Ava Mendoza at the 2021 Vision Festival. His attitude was both thoughtful and angry, and it drove home the feeling that he was right. And he was, and is. America is a country organized around a set of values that, if the government actually followed and fulfilled them, might indeed make this place a paradise. Those words have been burned into my brain since I saw this performance, and they light up with every thought about American culture.
Why I Like Sun Ra
First of all, no disrespect to Phil Freeman, who’s recent “Why I Don’t Like Sun Ra” is the immediate motivation for this. Freeman is, first of all, clear and honest about his thinking: I love Sun Ra. Well, I love the idea of Sun Ra. I love what Sun Ra represented. I love the impact Sun Ra had on jazz. I think the ideas Sun Ra put across in his music and his writings have extraordinary value, and merit deep study.