HeyJaredCritical Conditions by Wayne Robins
Storytelling about rock pop music and culture through decades of interviews, reviews, and feature stories, shaken in a blender. Might be Steely Dan, Dylan, Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, boygenius. Might be Laura Nyro, Suzanne Vega, the Ramones.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 13
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- Sep 29, 2026
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- Jul 18, 2026
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Tribulations of Billy Preston and The Rose (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowThe weather was almost as bad as expected at the second annual documentary film festival at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame in Stony Brook, this weekend. (You can read about the films for which I interviewed the directors onstage in my previous post.) I stayed at a hotel across the street, but at times it rained hard enough I had to drive across the road, to get to the other side. I guess I was chicken.I caught a few films I enjoyed, including “The Rose: Come Ba
Music Documentaries on LI This Weekend (opens the original)
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I know this is more local than my usual posts, but if you’re one of the many readers in the New York tristate area, I wanted to let people know about it. And these movies deserve more exposure and may be coming to you wherever you are.From September 25-27, Friday through Sunday, the second annual Music Documentary Film festival (click on red for information) will take place at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) Museum at 97 Main Street, Stony Brook, L.I., 117
Young Rascals: From Bar Band to Stardom (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowI’ve been writing about the Rascals, and/or Young Rascals, more than I expected. As a teenager growing up in the New York suburbs, we felt a kind of ownership of the Rascals, as they had grown up in nearby New Jersey and New York’s Westchester County, and signed a record contract after drawing big crowds and music industry insiders to their 1965 summer residency at The Barge. Long Island can claim them because of their gigs at The Barge, a semi-floating nightclub in Westhampton Beac
THE DAY ROBIN MORGAN CAME TO FAYETTEVILLE (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowIn the last 10 days, three leading feminist torch-bearers left the planet: Dolly Parton, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan, who died Saturday, age 85. I’ve beheld the cultural power Parton and Steinem wielded for more than half a century. Morgan was lesser known to the general public, but I got to witness the ferocity of her impact during the strangest road trip I’ve ever taken. The New York Times obit called her a “radical feminist” and poet who coined the term “hersto
Elton's Wordsmith, Bernie Taupin (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowEveryone gets hooked on music in their own way. Some are grabbed by an artist's musicianship. For others, it's the beat that moves them. For others, it's the singer's charisma, or the group harmony vocals, or guitar solos. A small minority just wait for the drummer to self-immolate, which occurs more often in This is Spinal Tap than in real life, but I suppose it has happened. Hasn't it?For me, the songs matter more than all of the rest. And words have always been primary. A teacher
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