If any critic has permission to enter the linear progression of Bob Dylan's presence in American popular music through a quirky but at once astute perspective, it is Greil Marcus. Often mixing in his own personal experience of Dylan's music, he gives an...

In How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks (Stop Smiling Books), Dave Tompkins traces the fascinating history of this device from its use in guarding a secure phone line for Roosevelt and Churchill through...

If Gary Calamar and Phil Gallo’s book were written more carefully and with more extensive and better research, it would be an...

Fresh Cut Collective, comprised of seven artists with extensive histories with other Milwaukee bands, play music live that otherwise would be presented using either pre-recorded sounds or a combination of that and, say, a couple of live players. This album is live music restoration, taking music back from...

Bruce Springsteen recently played the Super Bowl; Patti Smith did a fashion show; The Rolling Stones re-released Exile On Main St. at prices ranging from fairly reasonable to slightly fair to awfully expensive. All of this comes from artists who were once edgy, countercultural performers. Tony Fletcher’s All Hopped Up...

Patti Smith is known for making mediocre poetry and music that exposes the sound of poetry in a furious rock ’n’ roll setting. It’s a pleasing shock to find that her prose is evocative, finely structured and elegantly delicate. In Just Kids (Ecco/HarperCollins), she is more than a mere...

There are more than 200 essays in A New Literary History of America (Belknap Harvard), this part-madcap, part-inventive anthology that tries to redefine American literature. Roaming from the 16th century to the present...

Veteran Wisconsin songwriter and singer Pat MacDonald recorded his latest album under the name Purgatory Hill. The CD is nothing less than a shocking reinvention of blues and rock music. Aside from numbers by PJ Harvey and Iggy Pop, a traditional entry and one co-written by others with MacDonald...