Knock and Knowall

Music Review: Jon Anderson — 1000 Hands  Album review by Eric Sandberg When Founding Yes singer Jon Anderson announced the forthcoming release of of his fourteenth solo album 1000 Hands —Chapter One— I was bemused, at best. Of the dozens of solo albums released by the various members of Yes [hundreds if you include keyboardist Rick Wakeman's catalog] only a couple are worthy of the band's best work. Jon Anderson's first solo album Olias of Sunhillow [1976] was written, composed sung,  played and produced by Anderson by himself. He spent countless hours out in a barn teaching himself to play a myriad of instruments and recording multiple overdubs of his unique high tenor voice. The result was stunning. In and out of Yes, throughout Anderson's spotty solo career, Anderson became increasingly less inspired and, frankly, lazy when it came to making albums, preferring to solicit completed music tracks from other musicians, both known and unknown. He woul...

Anthony Horowitz is a clever Dick...err, Tony. His name made its first attempt at penetrating my hardened transom some years ago as it appeared on my television screen as the writer of various TV episodes of Poirot and Midsomer Murders (this was before opening credits meant one last peek at Facebook before a grisly murder occurs).  It wasn't until Foyle's War, a show I looked forward to as much as a new series of Inspector Lewis, that the name Anthony Horowitz achieved a foothold in my addled pate. Even then I was more in awe of the remarkable performance of Michael Kitchen than I was of the writer putting words in his mouth.  The first book I purchased by Horowitz was not for myself, but for my father, who is a fan of Foyle's War and, as a young man, loved reading Ian Fleming's James Bond. As Trigger Mortis promised to contain original material by Fleming and was written in the style of the original novels (no futuristic gadgets or metal-mouthed giants chomp...

Music Review: Ian Brown — Ripples Album review by Eric Sandberg Ian Brown is possessed of a natural gravitas of the sort Liam Gallagher desperately aspires to. Ian doesn't have Liam's snarl, but his once pot-ravaged voice has settled into a soft, pleasant timbre that carries a big stick. Where Liam writes lyrics that are painfully naive, Ian's word's range from knowingly innocent to jaded omnipotence. Everything the former Stone Roses front man does is brimming with confidence and a quiet swagger. After conquering the world with their 1989 debut album, The Stone Roses fell into the 'we need to get out of this record contract and sign with a major' trap, delaying their Geffen Records follow-up, the appropriately titled Second Coming , until 1994. By then, visionary, atmospheric producer John Leckie had moved on and Ian Brown's voice had been reduced to a rasp from smoking pot. I met three of the four members of Stone Roses [Guitarist John ...

Book Review - Stewart O'Nan Henry, Himself Viking Since 2002 Henry Maxwell has loomed large as a literary character without actually appearing in a book. Henry is first mentioned in the opening pages of O'Nan's novel Wish You Were Here . In this book, which takes place a year after Henry's death, we learn about Henry obliquely, as if the words are separated and arranged to form a white silhouette of him on the page .  The central theme of Wish You Were Here is the impact of Henry's absence on his family: Emily, his wife of fifty years, his older sister Arlene, his grown children Kenny and Margaret and their children. The family is gathering for one last summer at their cabin in Chautauqua, a tradition dating back to Henry and Arlene's childhood.  Wish You Were Here continued a subtle shift in O'Nan's approach to his particular brand of storytelling begun in his previous novel Everyday People . Up to this point O'Nan had garnered a reputa...

I grew up in Pittsburgh in the seventies as an anxiety-ridden white male. My father is a jazz and classical music loving PhD and my mother, a talented artist. I formed a love of music at an early age mostly under the tutelage of 13Q AM and their cool illustrated music charts distributed weekly at the National Record Mart (Boy I wish I still had those). I eventually graduated to WDVE FM and all the Pink Floyd, Yes, Led Zeppelin, etc. that came with it. I explored more 'off the beaten path' music from friends. I still remember standing on Stew O'Nan's porch, ringing the doorbell as a swirling dirge of Klaus Schulze flowed out of his bedroom window. Mark Gaudio told me about a song by Chris Spedding called "Get Outta My Pagoda." I had to hear that. I discovered Gary Numan when a DJ played "Are Friends Electric" at 2:00 AM while I was cleaning the kitchen counters at Beth Shalom Synagogue. That led me to Ultravox, Japan and Da...