Jonny Whiteside

article placeholder

Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators

Extraordinarily creative Texas psychedelic-garage rock innovators the 13th Floor Elevators amplified rock & roll’s cultural promise to unprecedented heights, but the reality of the band’s methods and ideology was nothing short of flabbergasting, as revealed in all its mad glory in Paul Drummond’s Eye Mind: the Saga of Roky Erickson......

Put Heading Here

Concerts BLUE OCTOBER with Yellowcard, Shiny Toy Guns, LovedrugGREEK THEATRE, 2700 N. Vermont Ave., L.A.; Fri., Oct. 26, 6:30 p.m. (213) 480-3232. MATCHBOX TWENTY THE WILTERN LG, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.; Fri., Oct. 26, 8 p.m. (213) 380-5005. THE EAGLES, DIXIE CHICKS NOKIA THEATRE, 777 Chick Hearn Court, dwntwn.; Fri.-Sat.,......

Put Heading Here

Concerts BLUE OCTOBER with Yellowcard, Shiny Toy Guns, LovedrugGREEK THEATRE, 2700 N. Vermont Ave., L.A.; Fri., Oct. 26, 6:30 p.m. (213) 480-3232. MATCHBOX TWENTY THE WILTERN LG, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.; Fri., Oct. 26, 8 p.m. (213) 380-5005. THE EAGLES, DIXIE CHICKS NOKIA THEATRE, 777 Chick Hearn Court, dwntwn.; Fri.-Sat.,......
article placeholder

War by any Other Name Sounds Just as Sweet

Hard as hell to imagine that anything good came of Hurricane Katrina, but in one case it did. Los Angeles drummer Harold Brown, who in 1960 assembled the core players that eventually became known as multiplatinum-selling, funk-jam revelators War, had been living in New Orleans for years; suddenly homeless, he......
article placeholder

Porter Wagoner: Back in the Saddle Again

{mosimage}It may seem odd that country singer Porter Wagoner, who has built a career on graphic examinations of matters of temperance, social morality and spiritual rectitude, dispenses his observations while sporting the gaudiest of sequin-and-rhinestone-encrusted Nudie suits. When hosting a segment at the Grand Ole Opry, where he has regularly......
article placeholder

Holy David Axelrod!

{mosimage}David Axelrod suffers a fate shared by many great American creative minds: The Los Angeles producer-arranger-composer, who oversaw a long string of albums by Lou Rawls and Cannonball Adderley for Capitol Records, is celebrated in Europe, but has been all but forgotten here at home. (The U.K. label Mo’Wax coaxed......
article placeholder

The King Is Dead. Long Live the King!

The King is dead. James Brown was pop music’s true ruler, a king who, unlike Elvis Presley, actually reflected American culture’s reality. Brown did it with a painstakingly crafted mix of visceral, horny instinct and militant sociopolitical messages, striking with an impact no one in the history of recorded music......
(Illustration by J.T. Steiny)

The Ultimate Swinger: Anita O'Day, 1919–2006

Anita O’Day, the Chicago-born jazz singer as pioneering, skilled and influential as her most vaunted contemporaries (Ella, Lady Day, Sarah Vaughn), died at age 87 last week following a bout with pneumonia. Tagged “the Jezebel of Jazz” and “the Hip Chick” (she actually trademarked the latter), Anita was a genius,......
article placeholder

Goodnight, Drummer Girl

Sandy West, the formidable drummer whose taut, brawny traps work propelled mid-’70s all-grrl phenom the Runaways to dizzying heights, died on Saturday, October 21, from lung cancer. West was only 47 years old, and it’s a damn shame, in part because West’s work was so grossly underrated by the many......