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This Week Sucked

Jonny Whiteside
VARIOUS ARTISTS Live at Raji’s 1987 (TON) Musty, dark, smoky, with an inescapable stench of stale beer, sweat and passion, Hollywood Boulevard rock pit Raji’s was, for mid-’80s postpunk music fans and rock & roll aspirants alike, the ultimate home away from home. Manager-booker Dobbs, doorman Bernie and beertender Autumn......
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English Frank, 1945–1998

Scott Morrow
English Frank was a true friend, and one of the most misunderstood people I’ve ever known. Those close to him, however, knew how thoughtful and considerate he really was. Maybe because he was adopted and an only child, he never took friendship for granted. Born Francis Reginald Kennington in Ealing,......
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Rozz Williams, 1963-1998

Ron Athey
Though it would make it easier for me, I won’t try to glamorize his death into an art statement. Rozz Williams hanged himself in his West Hollywood apartment on April Fools’ Day. Best known as the founder and front man of seminal goth band Christian Death, Williams played and recorded......
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'Da Noise

Howard Blume
Like most in the audience, I rose to my feet to applaud the virtuoso cast of Bring In ’Da Noise, Bring In ’Da Funk. But I also was struck by a question: Just how new was this much-touted reinvention of tap dancing? The answer: not as much as advertised, though......
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'Da Funk

Erin J. Aubrey
Watching Bring In ’Da Noise, Bring In ’Da Funk, I was not so much watching after a while as remembering, in my body, what drew me to tap as a kid. It was less a dance to me than a declaration of spirit (I tap, therefore I am), and so......
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The Titanic Transcripts

Greg Goldin
Buried in this abridged pocket-dictionary-size edition of the official transcripts of the 1912 Senate investigation into the Titanic disaster is as clear-headed an account of history’s greatest catastrophe at sea as there is. Although it is at times repetitive, the firsthand evidence, side by side with contemporaneous expert testimony, provides......
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The Drawing Group at Loyola Marymount

Carmine Iannaccone
THE DRAWING GROUP At the LABAND ART GALLERY Loyola Marymount University 7900 Loyola Blvd., Westchester Through April 18 The 13 artists in "The Drawing Group" put a lot of faith in appearances. Not that they presume a thing can be known by its looks, but they do presume that something......
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Betye Saar at the California African-American Museum

Lisa Anne Auerbach
"Ritual & Remembrance/Personal Icons" provides an introduction to the work of as semblage artist Betye Saar. Saar, who watched Watts Towers being built when she was a child growing up locally, finds most of her materials at flea markets, at antique stores and in the garbage. She combines junk, castoffs......

Last Rights

Sara Catania
On a brilliant spring day in 1996, flanked by American flags on the White House South Lawn, President Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. "From now on," he told the gathered citizenry as a military band stood by, "criminals sentenced to death for their vicious crimes will......
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Home of the Brave

Alan Rich
"Now that's music," whispered the man behind me to his companion, as Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic launched into the merry A-major opening bars of Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony. After a stiff dose of forward-marching works from his own century to start off last week's program, my neighbor had......