Through the Past Darkly
The bangSheet Archives

Articles, Essays, and Commentary

Articles/Commentary/Interviews

Real Life Top Ten for 2008 - the best of the year that was - Kurt Hernon (01/09)

Real Life Top Ten for 2007 - the best of the year that was - Kurt Hernon (01/08)

Guided By Voices - Guided by blind and unabashed adoration:a book review - Kurt Hernon (11/05)

Big Star - A book, a record, and misery - Kurt Hernon (09/05)

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Jacksonville City Nights - Kurt HHernon (09/05)

Rolling Stones - A Bigger Bang - Kurt Hernon (09/05)

Vince Welnik - Shootin' the shit with a keyboardist - Kurt Hernon (07/05)

The Posies - Every Kind of Light - Kurt Hernon (06/05)

Cobre Verde - What do you think of Ron Artest, Mr. Petkovic? - Kurt Hernon (05/05)

The New Velvets - Velvet Revolver is out to make you forget that other Velvet band - Kurt Hernon (05/05)

Elvis Costello - Live at the House of Blues - Kurt Hernon (04/05)

Danko Jones - We Sweat Blood - Kurt Hernon (04/05)

Herman Brood - The Monkey and Me - Kurt Hernon (07/04)

Beck - Thoughts on a pop pixie gone morose (or: I should have been paid for this sort of shit...but the show got cancelled) - Kurt Hernon (06/03)

I repeat: Vue is not the Rolling Stones - Your brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones...well you've got your own Vue now! - Kurt Hernon (04/03)

Krzysztof Komeda's Jazz Materpiece Astigmatic - Someone saved my life today; or, Oh momma, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside a mobile with the Krzysztof Komeda blues again? - Kurt Hernon (04/03)

Longwave plays The Strangest Things - Protestus Interruptus: Stop the war! Stop the bombing! Stop the...whoa, hold on, what's this? - Kurt Hernon (04/03)

The White Stripes new pet Elephant  - Stimulate my venom, 2003: a new classic ruumbles through rockroll's bored boardrooms - Kurt Hernon (04/03)

(here comes) The Sun (still shines)(will come out tomorrow)- Baggin in sick from work, boozin' my life away - Kurt Hernon (02/03)

The Capitol Years - Weirdness abounds: The distance between drunken  cops, terrible sots, and the astonishing effervescence of the Capitol Years (I never heard a Beatles fetish that didn't make me puke...at least not before today...)  - Kurt Hernon (01/03)

Mary, sweet Mary - Mary Prankster wanted my to tell you...my friends...so I will - Kurt Hernon (12/02)

The Violents - Messing up the bed sheets with The Violents - Lust returns! - Kurt Hernon (12/02)

Moanin' with Mr. Airplane Man - I coulda been somebody...I coulda been a de-virginized pre-pubescent stud...now all I have is these Moanin' blues - Kurt Hernon (10/02)

Nick Toches' In the Hand of Dante - A poem disguised as a novel feels like a lie, but it's oh soo good  - Kurt Hernon (09/02)

Steve Earle's Jerusalem - Of human hearts and hatred; Steve Earle addresses a nation - Kurt Hernon (09/02)

Clyde Wrenn escapes his California Dream - Lies, cons, and broken promises - life and rockroll dish out their bullshit  - Kurt Hernon (09/02)

Reigning Sound's Time Bomb High School - Once known as Greg Oblivian, Greg Cartwright bought a record store in Memphis, found some new bandmates, and set out to show the world what not only garage rock, but rockroll itself, is all about - Kurt Hernon (09/02)

Johnny Paycheck - A life lived on the brink - Kurt Hernon (09/02)

The Bigger Lovers and the sophomore jinx? HA!- The Elitist Rock Snob Problem Part IV: the Bigger Lovers new record a genuine rockroll gem, and all I get is grief  - Kurt Hernon (08/02)

Lucid Nation indeed - Take that flag off of your ass, you can't hide behind it forever - Kurt Hernon (08/02)

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's The Rising - Fate's ugly face and the Unkind Clock: Springsteen grapples with mortality on a E Street Band reunion record  - Kurt Hernon (08/02)

The Bella Fayes - Rock and roll, pure and simple, this is music your high school janitor would have loved...if yours was anything like mine - Kurt Hernon (08/02)

Whatever Happened to the Bambi Slam? And Other Assorted Mixed-Up Thoughts - Kurt Hernon (07/02)

The Bedroom Legends are born  - Bedrooms and Broomsticks: The Bedroom Legends and the Man with a Hard Heart  - Kurt Hernon (07/02)

Why haven't you heard (of) David Baerwald yet? - David Baerwald's Here Comes the New Folk Underground come above ground with some of the best new music this year - Kurt Hernon (06/02)

The White Stripes Gone Big Time - Givin' the people what they want: a true-to-life expression on the Stripes White Blood Cells and other meanderings - Kurt Hernon (06/02)

The Black Keys The Big Come Up - Darkness ain't no friend of mine: the Black Keys rework the modern blues and challange for the rock/blues crown  - Kurt Hernon (06/02)

A Great Show, An Inferiority Complex, An Incompetent Nutsack Editor, Pain as Art, Why I Will Continue to Write About Rock 'N Roll and Elizabeth Elmore - Kurt Hernon (06/02)

The Reputation - Of girls, guitars, and promises broken: Elizabeth Elmore returns in The Reputation - Kurt Hernon (05/02)

Modulate, Bob Mould - A consumer warning about Bob Mould's shit-heap ripoff of a new record  - Kurt Hernon (05/02)

From Wire Reports: - Kurt Hernon (04/02)

Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Of Big Stars and perconceived notions - this is the last temptation of Jeff Tweedy - Kurt Hernon (04/02)

The Super Furry Animals Save My Life - The glorious results of a misspent evening; or, the dangerous aftermath of a you-can-only-call-it-disappointing Guided By Voices show on a night when a band called Phantom Planet outshined indie-rock’s Abraham - Kurt Hernon (04/02)

Mary Prankster, Mary Prankster - Burnin' down the entire goddamn house; Mary Prankster lays her hands on the rockroll lepers - Kurt Hernon (04/02)

The PillCrushers Warm things up - Unreasonable reliance on music part XII: Salt trucks and Snowplows; the PillCrushers melt a winters funk - Kurt Hernon (03/02)

Longwave Makes its Move - After its stunning 2000 debut, Endsongs, Longwave return with an EP that ups the ante - Kurt Hernon (03/02)

Charles Mingus: When it all feels like lies…- Kurt Hernon (03/02)

Death of an American Dreamer: Waylon Jennings moves on - Kurt Hernon(02/02)

Reflections on Mortality: Fear and Loathing in Cleveland, Ohio - Kurt Hernon (02/02)

Just Lust - or is it? - A little compilation record called Happy Meals Volume 3 has a grown man so hot and bothered that...well, we'd better not say right here - Kurt Hernon (02/02)

The Axl Rose Problem: Chapter III - Regrets and Chaos: friends helping friends understand the rockroll promise unfulfilled - Kurt Hernon (02/02)

A band called SparkleJet returns - but is it really them? - What comes around goes around: Can SparkleJet reinvent themselves as something better than before? And who do they sound like now? You'd probably better find out - Kurt Hernon (02/02)

The Guns'n'Roses New Year's Vegas Revival Show - Fear and donuts in Las Vegas: One man's journey into the heart of glazed and chocolate frosted darkness - Kurt Hernon (01/02)

Best of 2001: How to Cop Out and Buy In: A Lemming's Guide - Kurt Hernon (01/02)

Hernon on Harrison - Memories of the late Beatle - Kurt Hernon (12/01)

George Harrison - The death of "the quiet Beatle" made a lot of noise for our old friend Che' Albert - Che' Albert (12/01)

The mighty Reverend Vince Anderson - Faith ain't phony - the rather curious communion of creeps and crowds; The Rev. Vince Anderson plys his trade - Kurt Hernon (12/01)

Kevin Salem's Ecstatic - An indie rocker find comfort sans so much guitar. Kevin Salem dishes up a five year's in the making masterstroke - Kurt Hernon (12/01)

It's a Wonderful Life: Sinatra, Jack Daniels, Shane MacGowan's Ghost and the Gift that is the Sharing of Rock 'n Roll - Kurt Hernon (12/01)

Rock and Roll and the Apolitical '80s: A Response to Michael Azerrad’s Book, Our Band Could Be Your Life - Kurt Hernon (11/01)

The Indomitable Pop Pastries of the Posies; or, can two really make better than one? Ken Stringfellow gets Touched - Kurt Hernon (11/01)

Mick Jagger's Thanksgiving Feast - Mick Jagger is still around and in a Thanksgiving mood as he serves up Goddess in the Doorway turkey - Kurt Hernon (11/01)

Uptown Sinclair - Pimpin' the homies once more: Uptown Sinclair gets a stranglehold on the "Best New Artist" category and I get my ass-kicked...again - Kurt Hernon (11/01)

Detroit Cobras - Kurt Hernon (11/01)

Bob Dylan and Clyde Wrenn - On Bob Dylan's Love and Theft andd Clyde Wrenn's greatest song and how they pertain to each other, if they do - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

Lucid Nation and the Chargers Street Gang - Rock is Real; the indomitable solutions of daydream improvisation and hulking pure energy, or, How I learned to quit being a pussy and dig the sounds of the Chargers Street Gang and Lucid Nation - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

The Chargers Street Gang - Holy the Bop Apocolypse - Kurt Hernon (10//01)

The Beers: Beers Hotel - Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing the fabulous, amazing, thrill-a-minute, rock and roll Buddha’s, and the hardest charging band in the land - The Beers! - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

Preacher and Poet: It's seems, my brothers and sisters, that we have lost our way - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

Leonard Cohen - Ten New Songs - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

Momus - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

The damned Damned - Kurt Hernon (10/01)

An Open Letter to President George W. Bush - Kurt Hernon (09/01)

What's In a Name? Would an Ass Pony by any other name smell anywhere near as sweet? Chuck Cleaver talks - Kurt Hernon (09/01)

Sandra Black -The incredible aging experiment: How Sandra Black got me through thirtysomething crisis and back to acting my age - Kurt Hernon (09/01)

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991: Michael Azzerad shines as he chronicles an essential period in modern rock and roll...but then there's that Reagan thing - Kurt Hernon (09/01)

Ten Days After - Many people have asked for my thoughts on the shit-rain that fell September 11...the only problem is, I didn't have any, none - Kurt Hernon (09/01)

Joan Jett and the word "rock" - On how to market the utterly marketable: an easy lesson in essay form - Kurt Hernon (09/01)

The Ass Ponys: Chuck Cleaver explains how the Ass Ponys finally got things right - Kurt Hernon (08/01)

Herman Brood: A Rock and Roll Junkies obituary - Kurt Hernon (08/01)

Uptown with Uptown Sinclair - Kurt Hernon (08/01)

Gram Parsons - My brother's keeper - Kurt Hernon (07/01)

The Steaming Heap O' Turd that is Radiohead's Amnesiac, and, uh, Steve Wynn - Kurt Hernon (07/01)

Radio, Radio - Obituary: Sound salvation aside, the death of another piece of the American Dream - Kurt Hernon (07/01)

M. Ward -  End of Amnesia: Of Sweat and Sweet, Sweet Music - Kurt Hernon (07/01)

The Rachel Nevadas - Viva Problems - How is it that a band can get away with a sax and trombone these days? Because it has been too long, and who cares anyways...as long as it sounds freakin' great! - Kurt Hernon (06/01)