Greg Burk

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The Color of Music

Greg Burk
Race is a bitch — about the baddest bitch in the American doghouse — and UC Riverside prof (and Weekly contributor) Josh Kun had the balls to attack the touchy beast via its influence on music. Looking to explode the fake notion of a monochromatic “America” and replace it with......
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Half Moon

Greg Burk
I like rock that makes me want to drink — yeah, pal, there are brief moments when I don’t wanna. But after congress with the Darkness’ second album, so moistly anticipated by fans and financiers, I whelped a dry streak. So no toasts. I’ll dance a little, though, if you......
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Micro-Ritmia

Greg Burk
MICRO-RITMIA At Café Metropol, November 3Two dudes from Mexico. One skull-shaved, one shaggy. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder behind electric keyboards. They start playing slow arpeggios together, then they go faster and faster, the counterpoints bouncing, the harmonies overlapping as they improvise within the structures mapped out on their sheet music. Soon they’re......

Virgin / Whore

Greg Burk
Illustrations by Patrick MartinezHeard the one about the liberated Catholic girl? Still pregnant, still barefoot, but she gets to wear snowshoes on Sunday. In the USA, where many consider Hillary Clinton and Condi Rice credible presidential candidates, it may look like the battle for women’s rights has been won. Well,......

Immigrant Women Speak About Leaving the Church

Greg Burk
Illustration by Patrick MartinezWhere feminism has cut the biggest swath — North America and Europe — Catholicism has lost the most turf. There’s also a gusher of leakage, though, in regions where the patriarchy remains nearly unchinked. In Asia and Central America, for instance, women are leaving the church for......
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The Darts

Greg Burk
WHO: Jazzy improviteers Harris Eisenstadt and Noah Phillips. HOLD THE DRUMMER JOKES: Toronto-born percussionist Eisenstadt is a divinely chosen receptacle for mystical rhythms; Phillips is a Valley-raised guitarist bent on making guitars do things they normally don’t.THE NAME, EH?: Canadians play lots of darts, and “I love everyone from Canada,”......
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Music Books We’ve Been Reading . . .

Greg Burk
Into the Void With Ace Frehley by Wendy Moore (Pitbull Publishing). This trashy Kiss-and-tell-all has been out for a year, but it just showed up in my mailbox last week, and was devoured within two hours. Packed with incredibly embarrassing gossip about Kiss’ spaceman axman and his unique sexual and......
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Live in LA

Greg Burk
ORKESTROVA L.A. at REDCAT, September 30. What, in the 21st century, is John Coltrane’s 1965 freeform “composition” Ascension? Touchstone? Rustbucket? Re-sacramentalized and electronicized by vet Bay Area avanteers the Rova Saxophone Quartet and seven mostly local allies, it was a lesson: The Spirit never shrivels; you can tap it anytime.Nobody......
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Songs of My Father

Greg Burk
Photo by Jimmy KatzIn a time when jazz has been marginalized to the edge of extinction, Dave Douglas has managed to build a castle overlooking the abyss. At 42, this New Yorker is the guy critics look to when they’re hungry for hope, and he gives them plenty of reasons......

Dear Colleen

Greg Burk
I didn’t leave Hollywood, it left me. It cleaned up. I cleaned up too, just not as much. I had almost forgotten what it was like, then my old friend Colleen turned 50 and sent everyone she knew all the letters she’d received long ago. Thank you, Colleen. Here are......