A fan laments that legendary radio DJ Art Laboe (pictured) can't be heard in L.A., at least for now; Robert Christgau, the Dean of American Rock Critics, has a memoir covering his 40-plus years on the music beat; Claire Keane is a third-generation artist who left a cushy job to write and illustrate children's books.
'The Dean of Rock Critics,' Robert Christgau, on a lifetime of listening
Robert Christgau is considered the "Dean of American Rock Critics." Since 1969 he has reviewed almost 16,000 albums for many prominent publications — most famously at the Village Voice for more than three decades.
His recently published memoir, “Going Into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man,” explores Christgau's history as a music critic and his love for New York.
Christgau spoke with The Frame's Oscar Garza about the first time he knew he wanted to write about music, why pop music is still important, and why he doesn't like listening to music on vinyl:
Interview Highlights:
Your earliest journalistic writing was not about music. When did you first hear a song and think you had something to say about it?
I wanted to write a piece about Chuck Berry long before the Esquire column opened up, which is where I began in 1967. And, in fact, got the assignment but didn't nail it. It happened to me quite often with celebrity profiles in the '60s. I got the Aretha Franklin assignment and I didn't nail that either. In both cases I happened to have chosen artists who are hard to pin down.
When you say you didn't nail those, is it because...
I never wrote either. I did my preliminary interviewing and was halfway to where I was ready to write and then both artists disappeared on me.
Not the first writer they'd done that to.
Oh no, in neither case is this an unusual instance with these particular artists.
What was the first story that ever got done?
I've never written an artist profile for a major magazine. I did some for the [Village] Voice when I became music editor in '74. Bonnie Raitt and Lynyrd Skynyrd were two people I went on the road with. Going on the road with people has never been something I've been terribly interested in because, as I make clear in a lot of ways in this book, a lot of me is a homebody. I like spending time with my wife and family. If you really want to be a serious reporter, you have to put that on the back burner a little bit.
So when was the first piece of music writing that you did that made you fall in love with the medium?
It was about a whole bunch of things. Twenty-five hundred words, I went back to Chuck Berry, The Coasters and Little Richard. I wrote about Jefferson Airplane. I wrote about Big Maybelle for a sentence or two. I can't remember the other people, but it was about eight or nine of them. I think The Doors were in there and Love. I covered a lot of things quick, which was the way that things were done then.
In the book, you bring up the word "pop" and the theory of pop which you defend...
I don't, actually.
You don't?
I use it as a term, but I do not have ever claimed to have ever formulated it appropriately. Speaking generally, it was a notion that popular culture was equally deserving of serious aesthetic consideration — that it had real political potential because it reached a much larger audience and did so with what are now being called subversive or transgressive undercurrents that we've really loved.
There was some resistance in cultural circles to that notion that pop culture should be considered that way. Why is that still the case?
Because people are snobs? [laughs] Because people really have no empathy for listeners who are unlike them in cultural or intellectual orientation? This battle has not been won, as far as I'm concerned. We've made some progress, for sure, but it hasn't been won. I could go on and on and on about this, but I probably shouldn't.
What's been your most recent pleasant discovery, somebody you didn't know about and played without knowing what you'd hear?
I haven't written about it yet, but this guy named Mark Kozelek — I've always thought he was a sad sack bore, [but] he made a record called "Sun Kill Moon" that's mostly about death. These death songs are really terrific. One of the things that's happened in the music I love over the past five, 10 years is that some people have gotten very old and continued to make music.
Leonard Cohen and Willie Nelson have recently made really great music about the aging process, and they're not the only ones. I find it very interesting because I'm closer to death than birth myself.
We're going through a vinyl renaissance. Do you listen to vinyl?
I never listen to vinyl, because it's so inconvenient. As a power listener who listens to music between 10 and 14 hours a day and who always has his earphones and MP3 player with him, convenience really means a lot to me. CDs are great for reviewers — you can program your changer so you listen to three songs on five consecutive records, and that's the best way to be testing things out. The way I do it is that I don't so much listen to it as play it — I hear it, rather than listen to it. One way I judge music is whether it compels me to listen to it.
Last night I played the forthcoming album by Heems. He was half of a hip-hop duo and he's from Flushing, my hometown. I listened to that album and that made me listen to it on track one. It's a wonderful thing when that happens, but it probably only happens half a dozen times a year.
Illustrator Claire Keane follows her dream with 'Once Upon A Cloud' children's book
Claire Keane comes from a family full of incredibly talented artists. Her grandfather, Bil Keane, created the Family Circus comic, and her father, Glen Keane, was a Disney animator for 38 years, designing iconic characters such as the Beast from "Beauty and the Beast" and Aladdin.
Claire followed in her father’s footsteps, working for Disney on films such as “Tangled” and "Frozen," but she decided not long ago that writing and illustrating children’s books was a passion she had to pursue.
In 2012, Keane left Disney to devote her talents full time to this new endeavor.
This week, her first children’s book, "Once Upon A Cloud," arrived in bookstores. But when Keane spoke with The Frame’s host John Horn earlier this week, we had the unexpected pleasure of providing her with her first look at a final copy.
Interview Highlights:
On the inspiration behind "Once Upon A Cloud":
It came out of nowhere! I was working at Disney as a visual development artist, and I had just had a baby. She didn't want to sleep [laughs]. I started reading about sleep and becoming more and more aware of how important dreams are in our waking life, and this question started gnawing at me: How can I show my daughter all the possibilities that are available to her, if only she were to let go and dream?
At the same time, I was designing Rapunzel's murals on "Tangled," and I had this idea to start painting her dreams. That's when the idea to make this book — about this girl who goes up to the sky and lives in her dream world — came to me.
On growing up in a family of animators/artists:
I've been drawing since forever. The story that my parents always tell is that I didn't start speaking until I was four, because I started drawing at the age that people normally start speaking. I drew a lot growing up, and my dad was always very inspiring and very encouraging.
I would spend all day drawing princesses and I'd wait for [my father] to come home from work so I could show him all the problems I was having with my drawings. I'd be like, "Dad, can you just show me what's wrong with this?" And in two lines he just knew it. He could show me so easily, and he made it look so easy.
On eventually following her father into animation:
It's funny, because I never thought that I wanted to. I wanted to do fashion design, so I went to Parsons [School of Design] for a year. And then as I went down that path, I realized I was more interested in the actual people underneath the clothes, so then I started going to a graphic design school.
This was all happening in Paris, and actually at my thesis project — a big fairy tale book — at the French school, one of the people on the jury came up to me and said, "Ooh, aren't you embarrassed to be doing all these fairy tale drawings?" And I was telling my dad, "I love doing this so much, I just wish there was a job where I could just spend my life developing what a character would look like, and how she would act or talk, and what her environment would look like."
And he looked at me and was like, "Claire, don't you know that Disney has that? It's called a visual development artist." I said, "Oh my gosh, I want to do that and I want to work on a fairy tale." He said, "I'm developing Rapunzel right now." So I got my portfolio together, and a few months later they started looking for visual development artists, and I got my stuff in there.
On the different satisfactions derived from working in children's literature:
There's something so satisfying about having something physical that you can hold. Also, it's mine and it belongs to me, it's my idea. And there's a much bigger range of stories you can tell with books, whereas in animation there's so much money behind the movies that there's very little risk — the possibilities become a lot more limited.
Fan misses Art Laboe’s ‘civic engagement’ on LA radio
Fans of L.A. radio legend Art Laboe have been up in arms since last month when his oldies show was suddenly taken off the air in Los Angeles. The iHeartMedia company changed formats on 92.3 FM and decided Laboe no longer fit in.
Laboe, who is 89 years old, has been on the air in L.A. since 1949. He was an early promoter of R&B music — not only on the air, but also in concerts he promoted. Laboe became famous and beloved for taking dedications from listeners, and it was the veteran disc jockey who shrewdly trademarked the term "Oldies but Goodies."
Twelve radio stations in the Southwest still run Laboe's show, including one in the Inland Empire. But you can't hear him in L.A. proper, which is what motivated fan Adam Vine to write an essay for the Zocalo Public Square website. It's titled: "Without Art Laboe, I'm So Lonely I Could Cry."
Vine spoke with The Frame's Senior Producer, Oscar Garza:
You're involved with two civic engagement non-profit groups. What compelled you to write this story about Art Laboe being taken off the air in Los Angeles?
I'm just a huge fan of his and his show. But, in a way, I feel like he does civic engagement as well, and always has. That's what requests and dedications are all about.
On Laboe's music selections:
This is not a kind of music that's played on the radio anywhere else...
These are deep cuts of R&B and doo-wop and old soul. Things that modern DJs might look for. By that I mean DJs in clubs. Not DJs on the radio.
On Laboe's dedications:
That, to me, is the essence of Art Laboe's show and what makes it so special. It's this intimacy you get from the people who call in to make these requests and dedications. This woman I heard, she called in to reassure her lover, her husband, that he didn't need to worry about her, about her straying. She didn't give any details. You know, he might be locked up, he might be serving in the military abroad. Who knows? But it was this little window into a relationship and the kind of enduring love that goes into it to make it last.
A lot of his listenership are incarcerated or family members of incarcerated people?
If you do any research about it or listen to his show, you'll come to understand that, yes, a large portion of the audience is either incarcerated or is requesting and dedicating something to an incarcerated family member.
What does it mean right now in Los Angeles that you can't hear Art Laboe driving around in your car?
On a practical level, families that were connecting through this show, can't connect that way anymore. People are cut off from their loved ones. And that's a real matter of significance to this city and this state.
There may be some good news on the horizon for Laboe fans: His distributor says there are talks with stations in L.A. to bring his show, “The Art Laboe Connection” back to local airwaves.