Jonny Whiteside

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Nice Jerk if You Can Get It

Jonny Whiteside
The Circle Jerks were always one of the most explosive, engaging and wildly enjoyable forces in punk rock: a militant shock troupe whose mixture of frantic hedonism, naked aggression, withering whimsy and walloping music was never less than flabbergasting. There ain't hyperbole lurid enough to attempt to began to convey......
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Little Known Fact: Woody Guthrie Was a Big Ol' Racist

Jonny Whiteside
See also: *Woody Guthrie in Los Angeles: A more vivid picture of the folk singer emerges via newly released songs from his time here *New Woody Guthrie Songs Speak Poorly of 1930s Los Angeles Woody Guthrie is one of the most universally celebrated musical figures of the 20th century, and......
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The Hookers: Punk, Metal, Southern and Particularly Nasty

Jonny Whiteside
Louisville, Kentucky-based punk-metal act the Hookers are among the hardest-hitting and most under-appreciated forces in contemporary music. Their sound -- screamingly pure, brutally focused, dangerously loud, dreamily vehement -- evokes a particularly nasty Southern subculture (ever heard of the Confederacy of Scum?) that has mostly, and thankfully, festered in the......
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The Satirist

Jonny Whiteside
Few performers have rampaged across American music with such vehement merriment as bandleader-satirist Spike Jones. The master showman and incomparable wit whose gift for witheringly diligent parody and drastic musical shenanigans elevated him to a rare strata of national infamy gets a most welcome 21st-century reintroduction with Thank You Music......
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Texas Will Save Us

Jonny Whiteside
Small wonder this sad, square world is on the brink of apocalyptic revolution. Every stratum of society and culture is soiled by equal measures of decay and exploitation, and that pox's reach into art and music is particularly vexing. While pop's arbiters seem fixated on emphasizing the irrelevant (Yawn: Madonna-Gaga......
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Oh, Randy

Jonny Whiteside
Country singer Randy Travis is one of a dying breed — he actually gives a shit about the music. So when he sits down for this Grammy Museum Evening With Randy Travis, pitch him some toughies during the Q&A — he'll use the words "mediocrity," "greed," "ignorance," "shame." This soul-deep......
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CLEVELAND READS

Jonny Whiteside
Ah, Cleveland. The terminally dreary Midwest metropolis has always played a critical role in American popular music, producing a pantheon of disparate aesthetic...
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DREAM-A PRIMA?

Jonny Whiteside
In the tradition-bearing musical scions department, it's often a case of hit and miss -- just compare Frank Jr. to Hank Jr. and the vast artistic chasm betw...
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A Whole Messa Bessie

Jonny Whiteside
The groundbreaking song stylist Bessie Smith, universally acknowledged Empress of the Blues, has rarely been accorded the veneration and recognition she earned....