[A] I review more jazz than most rock critics, but these days that's mostly to come to closer terms with my own musical history--looking back, my collegiate jazz fandom in an era when Dartmouth's WDCR played pop only on Saturday nights, many of which I spent road-tripping to NYC, distinguish me mightily from the slightly younger cadre of folk-soaked rockcrits who graduated college circa 1966 rather than 1962 like me. So I feel no obligation to play much less review the contemporary jazz albums that randomly come my way, which is not to say I never do. I'm inclined to respect rather than love Lacy and presumably have caught him gigging once or twice, but can report no relevant musical details on his albums except that I at least A-shelved Lacy and Mal Waldron's 1991 Hot House--that is, thought enough of it to keep to keep it in reach among my thousands of CDs. I'll try to play it at dinner tonight and will let you know how that turns out. (Report: I wasn't much impressed. Carola enjoyed it without much telltale kvelling.)

[A] There was a late-'70s, pre-Nina moment when--sparked by Harvey Pekar, who we knew about via our Cleveland pal Ray Dobbins and Carola was one of the first to give national coverage--when both of us got interested in comics with the Hernandezes high on our list. I withdrew, I think, mostly because the oeuvre was so vast it was hard to get your mind around. But for sure I'd rate them artists at least as major as some contemporary novelists I'll decline to name.

[A] Having awarded Reed, Velvets included, with 17 A albums, "disdain" seems like quite a stretch to me. What's up with me as regards the "decadent" '70s Reed that Berlin and Transformer epitomized is that I think most rock "decadence" is asshole BS aesthetically--a cheap pass at a putatively arty "seriousness" that as a wholesome ex-Christian boy I believe romanticizes not to mention valorizes dysfunction. See the notorious Lester Bangs convos of that period, which bear out these prejudices--Reed was quite the jerk in those days. Although I liked some of his slighter '70s albums, and admired Metal Machine Music's chutzpah without pretending I was itching for a replay, I didn't warm to him again until his domestic Blue Mask/Legendary Hearts/New Sensations trilogy of the early '80s, although I caught a live performance of Berlin circa 2007 that I thought was OK. See "Lou Reed, Average Guy" in my Grown Up All Wrong collection for more, of which there's plenty. And I'm sorry I didn't squeeze the obit I wrote the day he died in front of the Bowie obit in Is It Still Good to Ya?

[A] Werner my old colleague, acquaintance, and Pazz & Jop voter, bless you. I'm proud indeed that you feel so strongly about these matters, and proud as well to have decided long ago that journalism was as likely a venue as fiction in which I might write entertaining, distinguished, mayhap even literary prose, especially since I was so bad at making shit up. I'm also proud to have transferred such values to the supposedly crude musical genre I made my journalistic lifework. But underlying both these points of pride is my belief in something deeper: democracy. And has become all too clear in the Trump years, democracy is gravely endangered. Can it be saved by journalism of the Carl Bernstein ilk alone? Of course not. But is Bernstein's kind of fact-finding risk, luck, and labor essential to its salvation? You know it. All I can do over in my neck of the woods is bang that gong a little.

[A] Amen to that. You always forget people when you assemble life lists off the top of your head--like for instance Taj Mahal, prominently featured in the June CG--and while I wouldn't say Lynn's voice shows no signs of wear in the two fine albums she made in her eighties it comes close enough. Anyway, the illusion of youth isn't the point. Artistic vitality is the ticket, and she was a wonder.

[A] Aware that I'd let her passing pass, I've wondered about this myself. But without question Franklin-Prince-Bowie were all deeper and more aesthetically momentous. Were/are you a big Tina fan? Of what, exactly? First successful Black female rock artist, check. As such, however, very showbiz. Also as such, better than the Foo Fighters but not Nirvana or arguably Meshell Ndegeocello either. Absolutely I'm glad she escaped Ike, and glad too that she got richer without him. He was a beast. But he was also a genius going back to Jackie Brenston's 1951 rock and roll precursor "Rocket 88," and I'm not convinced she remained as complex and singular an artist without him. When Etta James died, my longtime admiration flowered into something richer and more complex. So far that's not happening with Tina.

[A] There are fine albums I'll never hear again if I live to 100. If you've admired and enjoyed (and own) as many albums as me, that's just the way listening is. Of your two examples, DiFranco is much the less consistent--you could look it up. But she's also the one I'd be more likely to pull out, because her evolving feminism remains complex and provocative (or so I believe without doublechecking). This is why I often resort to what I call the blind pull from my shelves. Most recent winner: Sarge. Sounded good-not-great.

[A] As someone who dislikes the inflated grandiosity and pseudoclassical pretensions of metal, I agree that all these albums generate the kind of emotional power metal aspires to without, Steve Albini's Big Black excepted, giving off a telltale whiff of arrogance. As a grouping it makes sense, and it's gratifying to infer that it helps get you through your endangered days. Thanks for writing.

[A] First of all, this is an apples-and-oranges comparison. Carl Bernstein saved the republic. All I did was save Tin Pan Alley for the Ramones and James Brown, which was far more "inevitable" in any case than I was. But if I had an angel it was editor-turned-publisher Clay Felker, who when I was already 23 gave me a spec assignment that turned into "Beth Ann and Macrbioticism," the best piece of narrative journalism I'd ever write and my ticket to a living that flowered into a short-lived "Secular Music" column at Esquire and took decisive shape when Felker bought The Village Voice in 1974 and made me the kind of music editor he had no idea was coming. For more, check out the obit I wrote for the National Arts Journalism program's ARTicles in 2008.

[A] Let me straighten out a few of numerous misconceptions. As I've said many times, I don't have time for podcasts because I use my ears for music, pretty much nonstop unless I'm watching TV with my wife. Who, how about that, was the person who uttered the supposedly Paul-targeting question I included in the Lennon obit I crushed out on a tight deadline in the seven-eight hours after he was murdered. To quote: "Why is it always Bobby Kennedy or John Lennon? Why isn't it Richard Nixon or Paul McCartney?" Which after all these years I'm still apparently obliged to point out was not to equate McCartney with Nixon much less wish McCartney dead but to throw up her hands at the dire psychology of assassination, which I then attempted to explicate. As for women leading some U.K.-based, academia-mottled, feminist revision of Beatles history, maybe I'll pay attention when it comes from someone smarter than those quoted in the ramshackle piece of arts-page filler you linked to. More Beatles scholarship is always welcome--for sure they weren't perfect human beings. But it's highly unlikely any of it will be as rich as Rob Sheffield's superb 2017 Dreaming the Beatles, which explicates in fond, awestruck detail how crucial and perceptive the teenaged girls who made the Beatles famous were. In this connection I also recommend Robert Zemeckis's 1978 flick I Wanna Hold Your Hand, a Beatlesless Beatles movie that focuses on their female fans. And I'll note that one of the women the Guardian piece features grew up in Cleveland, where early on the Plain-Dealer hired a female rock critic who preceded Paul Williams, Richard Goldstein, Jann Wenner, me, and everybody else. Her name was Jane Scott, she hung in there till 2002 when she turned 83, and what really hooked her was the first time she covered the Beatles. A long time ago she wrote about them a lot.

[A] The one name you left out of your reasonable query and the bluesman I play most often is the gentle Mississippi John Hurt, who has four reviews on my site including an A plus that hasn't proven the one I grab, though now maybe I will (sounded good, natch). The ones I've liked best are the early Avalon Blues and the very late Last Sessions, now part of a Vanguard threefer. Checked out Blind Willie McTell some after Dylan wrote his song of that title and found him less than compelling. I like Gary Davis but have never felt the need to parse his catalogue, which is rather large in part because he settled in Queens and was an NYC folkie favorite. I've never written about Robert Johnson because he's a titan with such a complex story that doing it right would require weeks of listening and comparing as well as reading and rereading. But I play him fairly often--let the record show that my housemate never says no to a blues record. In this connection I recommend Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta, which makes a point of Johnson's debts to the pop blues of the mid '30s. Also recommend Brother Robert by Annye C. Anderson, a retired schoolteacher who was 92 when the book came out in 2020. She was really a stepsister, but she did spend serious time with him as a girl in Memphis.

[A] I've obviously written about many variants of "world" music over the years, but just as obviously African musics have long predominated, and why that should be is obvious too--as an American music fan who grew up on rock and roll with a minor in jazz, I have a special feeling for music mostly developed by the African-Americans who far more than any other ethnic group have turned American pop into an international music. And then I can go further--the defining secret of African-American music although hardly its only strength or attractive usage is rhythmic, and even though there's enormous variety among the countless pure and also hybrid Afropop substyles, almost all ride their own uncountable grooves and subgrooves. Why it is I can feel and respond to so many of these grooves I don't know; as I've said many times, I'm not much of a dancer. But apparently I do. And be it Brazil or China or the Balkans or, well, the Pacific, no other culture is likely to provide that kind of aesthetic payback even though I often enjoy those musics too. So if I find an easy way to to hear Eddie Lund I'll give him a shot. But it seems doubtful he'll change my musical life in any material way.

[A] I expect there are a lot of omnivorous readers who are nothing special as editors, but let me see what I can patch together. To start I'd say that you have to respect and if possible empathize with the writer's intentions except when they're patently wrong-headed or ethically objectionable--I once assigned a Yellow Magic Orchestra review to a writer who thought it would be funny to transpose all the L's and R's and stormed off for good when I told him rather sharply that it wasn't, but subtler and often unintentional racial, gender, and other stereotyping is a commoner problem. You should reread as carefully with the writer once you've marked up a piece as you did the first time alone--which means, that's right, that if you can't be in the same room as the writer you can at least edit on the phone rather than by email. Be on the lookout not just for clichés but for stronger or more interesting language, and if you see a joke by all means suggest it. If an idea cries out for development talk that possibility through. Double-check any fact that you're not sure is accurate. Brevity is always a virtue, and when you need to cut for space take a careful look at the lead, which will often include some throat-clearing. On the other hand, if you need to cut for space don't be afraid to cut a word here and shorten a clause there--that stuff adds up. When you need an ending reread and try to find a phrase or thought that could stand some reiteration--that echo effect can do wonders. And oh yeah, reread Strunk & White. It's not scripture. It's not even always right. But it will always sharpen your thinking a little.

[A] You romanticize what my reviewing work is like. Painful life crises or competing entertainments aside, I play music every minute I'm home or out alone with my headphones. But note that playing it means I'm hearing it not that I'm listening to it. In fact, for music I'm hearing to catch my ear so that I concentrate on it and listen carefully is fundamental to how I make judgments. That music inspires attention is my first clue that it may be worth writing about, because usually that means I'm enjoying it. Then I try to concentrate and find out how that grabs me. Then I find out how it holds up to repetition. And somewhere in there I start to concentrate on and isolate and maybe analyze my degree of interest or pleasure, gradually getting a grip on its skill or substance or beauty or energy or lyrical acuity or any combination of the above. And sometime in that phase comes the work phase you imagine where I say to myself you're the dean now nail this one. Except that whether or not I'm the dean is usually irrelevant. I'm just a critic, doing what critics do. Which is a fun job as jobs go.

[A] I can think of a few. My 84-year-old friend Peter Stampfel contracted a vocal disorder called dysphonia in 2017 at 78, 17 or so years after he'd conceived and begun his oft-delayed 100-song Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs and maybe three-four years after he'd started work on it again. Basically, he couldn't really sing anymore. Yet he could whisper and whistle and sometimes simulate singing and he somehow finished the thing. Chuck Berry's excellent farewell Chuck, released shortly after he died at 90 in 2017, was recorded well after he turned 80. The New Orleans trumpeter Doc Cheatham recorded 1992's The Eighty-Seven Years of Doc Cheatham, when he was pushing that age. He also backed classic blueswoman Alberta Hunter, who enjoyed a circa-1980 three-album revival when she was around 85. Barbara Dane, who in 1973 put out an album called I Hate the Capitalist System, released the much sexier Throw It Away in 2016, when she was 88. Tony Bennett is not only in his nineties but has Alzheimer's yet has his timing and knows the words on his two Lady Gaga collabs. And of course there's the miraculous Willie Nelson, now 90, who by my count has released some dozen-plus albums in the past decade, some of them--December Day and A Beautiful Time are my picks--among his best ever. Paul McCartney will be 81 in June and I doubt he's stopped. Ditto I hope for Randy Newman, who'll be 80 in November. And Paul Simon, now 81, just released an ambitious album I've yet to get my teeth into that certainly has something to say. I probably could come up with more possibilities, but that should do for now.

[A] As Carola put it when I passed the question along: "I'm not exactly a hardcore science fiction reader--put any mystery in my hands and I will probably finish it but in science fiction I may get so confused I stop. I checked out then-recent SF when I was writing The Only Ones but no one novel stands out except maybe Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. My favorite two all time would be Samuel Delany's Dhalgren and Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. Frank Herbert's Dune was probably the first SF I got into, and back in the '70s I was quite interested in Kate Wilhelm. Then, no special order--many Ursula LeGuins but let's say Left Hand of Darkness, many Kim Stanley Robinsons but let's say Shaman. Bruce Sterling influenced me and rings my chimes in general, but I'll just mention Zeitgeist (which I reviewed), and the cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades. I like William Gibson but no one novel in particular. Hard to pick any single Philip K. Dick so I'll just note one I rarely if ever hear discussed: We Can Build You, where these guys who are making human beings get in legal trouble so they make Abraham Lincoln so he can be their lawyer. More currently, I really like Kelly Link, who may technically be slipstream or fairytale. And I once did a reading alongside Sandra Newman, whose The Country of Ice Cream Star I loved so much I didn't even have time be be jealous."

[A] One of the rare grade-niggling questions worth answering. I've been grading albums since 1969, 54 years ago, which is way over 40. There've been three periods in this endeavor. The first was 1969-1989, when in theory the grades ran A plus down to E minus, although grades below C minus and especially D were always very rare. In 1990 I decided I was sick of writing pans and ran only reviews that ran from B plus to A plus, though within a few years Eric Weisbard convinced me to include one "Dud of the Month" in each CG, which could be as high as B minus (was there a B or two in there? don't recall). Then sometime during my Microsoft run I decided to add condensed "Honorable Mentions" marked ***, **, or *, all of which count as B plusses lower than the B plusses I write full graded reviews of, though a few *'s might end up B's were I doing that mental labor. So how many B plusses do we figure that makes now that I've graded somewhere over 15,000 albums and EPs? More than I have any inclination to count even with my webmaster Tom Hull helping--assuming those numbers aren't already hiding in some cranny of the wonderful site that transformed my career. [TH: here] MOREOVER, EVEN IF I COULD COUNT THEM ALL I COULDN'T REMEMBER THEM ALL. And moreover moveover, B plus doesn't mean for fans only. It means not an A but pretty damn good. So how many B plus records do I hear? Not many except when I'm doing retrospective comparisons for an essay or new album review. True, since all B plusses and Honorable Mentions are in what I call my A shelves, which among other things means full jewelbox or original packaging for visibility's sake, picking one out half-blind by feel is always a possibility--happened recently with Timbila's 2010 ** Remembering the Future, which sounded good, like at least a *** and maybe more. But basically, I listen to few B plus albums and very few HMs except when I'm backgrounding for a longer essay. True, I bet I played Garcia when he passed. And I suspect it sounded pretty good. But that was, oof, 28 years ago. So the details are lost forever.

[A] How can I say no? C: Yogi Berra; 1B: Don Mattingly; 2B: Bobby Richardson; 3B: Graig Nettles; SS: Derek Jeter (sorry Phil, I'll never forget you); LF: Dave Winfield; CF: Mickey Mantle (though DiMaggio did hang in there till 1951, I never saw him at his best); RF: Aaron Judge; DH: Reggie Jackson (yah yah A-Rod); RHP: David Cone (fuck Roger Clemens); LHP: Ron Guidry (sorry, Whitey); Relief (duh): Mariano Rivera.

[A] I worry about this stuff, in part because the technological details are so far beyond my ken. But as someone who never got all that upset about Auto-Tune, I find some of the more dire predictions unlikely. Will there be catchy or physically compelling new AI-generated subgenres? Probably, and they could be fun, though I bet some programmers' AIs will generate better results than others. What I'm much more skeptical about is emotionally resonant songwriting. A computer being able to replicate a voice is one thing. Being able to transmute an emotional experience into art is another, because though the appropriate language may be at the AI's disposal, the experience is another story. My favorite AI in art is Kim Stanley Robinson's Pauline in Aurora, who does in the long course of the book experience something like love and something like grief. But those capacities are many years in the making--more years than most human beings can live. And her/its aesthetic response, while real and quite touching, is relatively primitive. I recommend anyone who's interested in these questions to tackle Aurora and maybe 2312 too.

[A] Oddly enough, within the current year, when a conversation revealed that Carola didn't remember them, though she'd heard their records in their moment. I thought the replays sounded good but not as remarkable or compelling as I'd hoped. Carola more or less concurred.