Category: Uncategorized

Excerpt from Steve Albini, "The Problem with Music." The Baffler No. 5, December 1993 These figures are representative of amounts that appear in record contracts daily. There’s no need to skew the figures to make the scenario look bad, since real-life examples more than abound. Advance: $250,000 Manager’s cut: $37,500Legal fees: $10,000 Recording Budget: $150,000Producer’s … Continue reading Expenses and Revenues of a Representative Record Contract

To view larger images of these reviews, click on one to open a slide show and to view full size.      

"He ventured new sonic territory with ... the romantic/existential yearning of "Weightless" (Lonelier than God/Fallen from above/ Weightless as a child/Hopeless to your love)." [from the LWA CD liner]   The version on Terra Incognita:    The remix on Long Way Around:   

It seems an odd pairing:  Chris, a self-taught guitarist whose visceral lyrics were influenced by desert landscapes and an appreciation of French surrealist poets; Warren, a piano man (briefly mentored by Igor Stravinsky) whose lyrics often described viscera and whom Rolling Stone labeled "rock's macabre jester."  Chris, the offspring of a Madison Avenue ad executive … Continue reading The Odd Couple: Chris and Warren Zevon

  Yes, it's a long, unwieldy title, but 'tis the season of harvest and Thanksgiving here in the U.S., so ..... A few years ago, I launched an ATCW post to document song inspirations that (primarily) Hiroshi Suda and I had gleaned from reading articles and listening to bootlegs.  Given that Facebook is a black … Continue reading “Bringing in the Sheaves” – Gleaning Song Inspirations from Stage Comments and Interviews

This video of Chris and daughter Trixie singing "Serve You" was originally posted to YouTube by Martin Tupper on the first anniversary of Chris's passing (2006-11-20).  I've tried to contact Martin to ask whether he has more video of this show, but have never received a reply.  To make the video more easily accessible to … Continue reading “Serve You” w Trixie (Knitting Factory, NYC 2004-09-15)

Thanks to Tom Jones and Ken Dudzik for making this bootleg available!      

The thing I hate most about Facebook as a host for our group is that the now thousands of posts are presented linearly - no feature to allow the user to group posts by topic (e.g., as one would in a discussion forum), to create a chain/thread of related posts, or to easily/quickly access posts … Continue reading 2017 ATCW Group Highlights

Many thanks to Andi Lechner for writing this post about one of Chris Whitley's signature pieces of gear.  Andi is a musician (singer-songwriter) based in Austria, where he fronts his band (Ghost and the Machine) playing resonator guitars. ======================== NOTE: This article should just provide information about the pick-ups that Chris used on his Nationals. … Continue reading The Barcus Berry 2522 Hi-Tek: Chris’ Guitar Pick-up of Choice