What is kill Yr Idols?

Kill Yr Idols is an irreverent, iconoclastic, and even insolent look at American culture from a long-time and truly independent critic and journalist—imagine ‘zine culture at the Metropolitan Opera or IRCAM, and you’re partway there. Everything we hear, see, and read is inside the world of fucked up bullshit, and we got here has a lot to do with the institutions—political, or course, but also artistic and supposedly public-serving—and even the people we’re supposed to admire.

Music, art, books, movies, all the rest, matter to us, all of us—they matter even to those who don’t pay attention to each one. Why are you supposed to pay attention to this, and not that? Institutions, people, and their editorial supporters are like your parents making decisions for you, and like the poet said, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” 

We should all be angry. We should all Kill Yr Idols.

Why subscribe?

So you won’t miss a thing. Every new weekly (with time off once in a very great while for good behavior) edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox, and you’ll have full access to the website. No hot takes, no no reverence for status, money, or privilege, just the real deal.

Who Am I?

I’m a musician who started writing about music, and more, in the late ‘80s. I’ve played jazz, classical, theater music, rock, hard core, funk, free improvisation from CBGB to Weill Recital Hall; I’ve composed sonatas and songs, electronic music and pieces for modern dance, and more. I launched the Big City blog in the winter of 2008, fueled by passion, anger, and a little insanity. Since then I've contributed to The Wire, the Financial Times, the New York Classical Review, Signal to Noise, The Grove Dictionary of American Music, the Library of Congress, VAN, Music & Literature, New Music Box, Bandcamp, WQXR, Time Out New York, and wrote Miles Davis' Bitches Brew for the 33-1/3 series. Since 2013, I've been the music editor for The Brooklyn Rail.

But that’s just credentialism. In the words of Jack Spicer, I’m a “free fucking agent.”

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Superfantastic / Iconoclastic, known for my honesty and great ears. Taking the "cult" out of culture, putting the "errr..." into irreverence, one word at a time. Music-based, reaching into all of society.

People

Musician and writer, music editor for The Brooklyn Rail, wrote "Miles Davis' Bitches Brew" for 333Books, bylines at Financial Times, Bandcamp, VAN, New York City Jazz Record, New York Classical Review, Red Hook Star-Revue, etc.