iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 1h

Is this a movie for children, or for 50-year-olds? On the one hand, the protagonists are children: *BIG HINT: THIS MAY BE A KID'S MOVIE* On the other, the trailer prominently features a 55-year-old Led Zeppelin song: *DON'T WORRY, OLDSTERS: YOU'RE STILL THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE*

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 6h

The 100th anniversary of Chuck Berry's birth is on Sunday. I wrote about him and his legacy in today's newsletter. burningambulance.substack.com/p/chuck-berr...

burningambulance.substack.com

Chuck Berry @ 100

The very bad man who invented rock ’n’ roll

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 7h

Been typing Pharoah Sanders' name for so many years that I need to double check myself when writing about the band Pharaoh Overlord.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 17h

Growing up, I was not allowed to play AC/DC in the house because my mom hated the sound of Brian Johnson's voice. But she really liked Iggy Pop's voice ("he has a nice baritone"), so the Stooges were OK.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 20h

Awhile ago I bought about two dozen paperback Westerns for a dollar each and was working on a project that involved pulling random sentences out of them for use in a sort of Burroughsian cut-up, but I got distracted.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 22h

Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing the game wrong, if there's some way I could parlay my writing career, now in its 30th year, into a professorship somewhere or something like that. But I'm not sure I'd say yes to certain opportunities if they were even presented. And maybe "they" already know that.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 22h

But in other ways, I am very much on the outside. I never get invited to participate in panel discussions, judge competitions, or interview artists (onstage or off) at big festivals. (I don't get invited to big festivals, period.) I am rarely asked to write liner notes.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 22h

As jazz critics go, I'm medium-high profile. I write regularly for the last US jazz magazine still putting out a print edition (DownBeat), have a monthly column on a high-traffic generalist music website (Stereogum), have written four books, and the BA newsletter has thousands of subscribers.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

No, you're absolutely right - I refer to those years as the era when you could predict every major publication's year-end list with 95% accuracy by following the right two dozen people on Twitter.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

For certain values of “we” and “everyone”…

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

They should reboot THE BIGGEST LOSER except instead of a reality competition about weight loss, it should be a documentary series about writers for The Atlantic.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Starting to feel like Valentina Magaletti might be my favorite living drummer. holytongue.bandcamp.com/album/basili...

holytongue.bandcamp.com

Basilikum, by Holy Tongue

8 track album

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

That's exactly the "all my friends are talking about this, therefore it's Important" mindset I'm criticizing. *Within the narrow, self-selecting, self-described "elite" cultural clubhouse*, John Updike and Philip Roth and Norman Mailer were very important. Outside in the world? McMurtry all day.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Some of the best American literature right now is arriving in the form of crime novels — by men. You want to understand America? Read S.A. Cosby. Read Jordan Harper. You want to understand what it's like to be a bitter loser? Read literary fiction by the Brooklyn bro of your choice.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

But the "literary fiction" "community" is so committed to its sense of its own *importance*, and so hostile to books that millions of people choose to read *instead of the work they and their friends are doing*, that they are straight-up denying reality in favor of self-pity.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

"— but was overshadowed by many of his more prominent literary peers, including Philip Roth, John Updike, and Norman Mailer, even if he was commercially far more successful." Publishing is a *business*. If McMurtry outsold those authors, *he* overshadowed *them*. Period.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Look at this sentence: "McMurtry, in his lifetime, enjoyed enviable success — Lonesome Dove sold millions of copies and won a Pulitzer Prize, his novels were adapted into popular films and television shows (including the 1989 hit Lonesome Dove miniseries)...

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I'm gonna complain about a *different* aspect of that Jacobin essay. Never mind the "boys won't read books by icky girls" part. Dumb, but to be expected. No, I want to talk about the idea that "literary fiction" somehow *matters more* than any other type of fiction.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

An amazing Matthew Shipp quote from a 2024 interview that strongly influences how I write about jazz: "I am trying to get the trio to the point where a profound cosmic concept comes across but where the audience does not come away saying, 'Wow, those guys can really play their instruments.'"

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Just wanna issue all my fellow freelancers and independent operators a happy "Fuck you mean the post office is closed?" day in advance.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Thanks for the tip! I liked his last album a lot and had no idea this one was even on the horizon. as-shams.bandcamp.com/album/ugaba-...

as-shams.bandcamp.com

uGaba the Migration, by Sisonke Xonti

9 track album

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It's not sticking, but it's visible: The first snow of the year where I live has arrived on October 11.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

That's exactly the point, seems to me. It's a deliberately alienating movie aimed at middlebrow masochists. My impression is that that's Iñárritu's whole deal - making his movies as unpleasant as possible, and implying that enduring them is a way of demonstrating one's elevation and good taste.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I would have bet you a thousand dollars this band was from Australia. (They were not.)

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Just packed up close to 80 orders of our newest CDs (and a few old ones). Tomorrow: boxing up CDs for distributors and a couple of selected wholesale accounts. Remember - we only make 500 copies of each title, so if you want one, now's the time to buy it. The Wadada Leo Smith album is going FAST.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

If all you've got are jokes, and all your jokes are dependent on a hyphenated string of references to shit no normal person remembers (or should even want to)... you need to get a different job. The function of pop criticism is to make a normal person say, "I think I'd like to hear that song."

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I'll tell you who the audience is: Middle-aged shut-ins who remember decades-old pop music trivia. And I'll tell you who the audience *isn't*: People under 40 who might actually want to know whether a new record is the kind of thing they'd want to listen to for pleasure.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Who is the readership for a record review that shoehorns a mention of a one-hit wonder from the early '90s with a slightly memorable name into a writeup of a brand new album, *not* by making a musical comparison ("This song sounds like this other song") but just riffing on the name?

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

And one of the worst ways this manifests is in references that will only make sense to someone who's spent the last 40 years reading nothing but pop music journalism. Bands and movies and albums that were unsuccessful (and therefore forgotten) in their time are used as shorthand for... what?

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I often think, when reading record reviews, about their audience. I feel like a lot of writers accede to the myth that "there's no need for reviews when anyone who wants to hear an album can stream it instantly," and abdicate any responsibility to *educate a potential listener about the music*.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Got my ballot in today's mail. Genuinely not sure whether to vote for Alani Bankhead (who absolutely will not win, and may be insane) just to keep the D flag aloft, or Seth Bodnar (whose independent run annoys me by its very existence, but who mmmmmight win in a strong enough D year) for Senate.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Glad I saw this before wasting even a moment of my time. I have liked other Flanagan shows in the past but holy fuck, what a complete misreading of the story.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

In today's newsletter: CDs have arrived! Also, reviews of a Polish action movie I liked quite a bit, and (behind the paywall) a new anthology from legendary music (and more) journalist Nik Cohn: burningambulance.substack.com/p/nik-cohn-c...

burningambulance.substack.com

CDs Have Arrived!

Also, thoughts on Nik Cohn’s new book: part anthology, part memoir

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think I'm going to have to unsubscribe from the newsletter that pissed this into my eyes this morning.

An AI-generated illustration of yassified and sometimes racially mis-assigned versions of various musicians, with incorrect information about which bands they're in

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There was a time when, if a band became popular, some critics would feel compelled to dig up a superficially similar but less popular band to champion instead. This practice seems to have fallen out of favor, though, and I'm wondering why.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Just got an advance of this book in the mail - Patricia Nilsson's Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification Of The Internet, The Economy, And Everything Else. Out next month.

Patricia Nilsson's Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification Of The Internet, The Economy, And Everything Else

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Look, all I'm saying is if we're setting a precedent for politically motivated public executions, people are gonna start making wish lists.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

CDs ARE HERE! Jackets and inner sleeves for Wadada Leo Smith’s CONSTELLATIONS AND HEMISPHERES and Michael Sarian’s IN THIS DESERT (a 2CD set!) have arrived from the printer and look AMAZING! Order your copies now, ‘cause we only made 500 of each!

Wadada Leo Smith - Constellations And Hemispheres CD jacket

Wadada Leo Smith - Constellations And Hemispheres CD jacket with inner sleeve exposed

Michael Sarian - In This Desert CD jacket

Michael Sarian - In This Desert CD jacket with one inner sleeve exposed

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Celestial Sanctuary are my favorite UK-based death metal band at the moment. They've got a new album coming in January, and the first song is pretty good: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmTT...

youtube.com

Celestial Sanctuary - Lashed by Chain (Official Video)

YouTube video by Metal Blade Records

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is interesting: @thewiremagazine.bsky.social is running a contest for new writers. The winner gets published in the March 2027 issue, AND there's a cash prize! www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/e...

thewire.co.uk

Introducing The Wire New Voices - The Wire

New Voices is a new competition for aspiring music critics being launched by The Wire

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The album is available for purchase now, and physical CDs will be shipping beginning next week. wadadaleosmith-bam.bandcamp.com/album/conste...

wadadaleosmith-bam.bandcamp.com

Constellations And Hemispheres, by Wadada Leo Smith

5 track album

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Wadada Leo Smith's CONSTELLATIONS AND HEMISPHERES is the *lead review* in the new issue of DownBeat!

A very favorable review of Wadada Leo Smith in DownBeat

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I spent two weeks living with an eco-militant hippie cult in the California desert.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I liked it better than her jazz records. She can play, but the amount of critical goodwill being a young white woman bought her surprised even me. I mean, a New York Times profile? Really?

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Reposted by (Screams From The) Burning Ambulance

I.A. Freeman @iza3800.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Artistic material. Not only found and archived, but also manipulated information.

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(Screams From The) Burning Ambulance @burningambulance.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This Amazon "About You" page is hilarious. Yeah, "I" read diverse literature regularly: because one of us reads ultraviolent crime novels, and the other reads literature in translation and books on art and philosophy. And specialty coffee and professional-grade art supplies? One of us, sure.

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